Scam's and fraud on Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms

[aivijay]

I had tried to support some few projects on Kickstarter in the last couple of years. It seems the success rate is extremely low on these crowd funding platforms. I supported around 5 projects on Kickstarter and in that one was successful for what I supported though even that scammed a bunch of other supporters on some accessory enhancement. Another project I supported, somehow finally got delivered after more than a year and a half though quite substandard in all respects. Another project I supported initially, and on the last day I revoked my support and boy was I right, that project never delivered anything and never even bothered to properly communicate to those supporters when they went down. Another project was cancelled by the project creator but at-least they refunded the money paid for the campaign. Later I found out, they had raised venture capital funds in millions of dollars and that lead to at-least these people refunding my and other supporters money back and cancelling the project. Then comes the project named Cmoar. It was a VR headset which was campaigned couple of years back and they raised around $120K. They were aggressive initially about the delivery dates and things started to push back and back and after almost a year and a half they told, that they were trying to get some more funds through venture capital to complete the project and after 6 odd months, claimed that they did not have any money left to continue the project and cancelled the project. Multiple supporters contacted Kickstarter, and Kickstarter's response was, once the money is handed over to a project creator, they don't have any control or responsibility and its the sole responsibility and integrity of the project creator to pursue and complete the project. Yes, we know that some projects do get to a point where you cannot deliver. But, with my experience on Kickstarter, you can see, that out of 5 projects, only one got to a point reasonable to deliver something to the backers. With Cmoar, they basically used the crowd funded money, around 100K which they finally received after kickstarter and other fees and they don't have any liability to deliver anything for that 100K which is unacceptable in any case. For a common person to get a 100K loan from a bank or something, its extraordinarily complex and tough to get one, let alone without any collateral for sure. Kickstarter like platforms don't have any control or responsibility of huge funds which gets handed over, through them and Kickstarter like platforms walk happily away with their share of a campaign and leave the backers at the mercy of the project creators integrity. Just based on integrity alone, how many banks will loan you $1 let alone $100K. This is a riduculous way of investing money and I would like to know, if there is someone who knows how we can make Kickstarter like platforms liable to handling huge chunks of money and not take any responsibility of that money handled properly?

[Powerofmene]

Look to the platforms terms of service. It is likely explained in their TOS that you are utilizing their platform only and that they have zero responsibility for your support of a project. In short, buyer beware. It is a risk when you prepay for a product that has not yet been manufactured from any platform.

There have been a number of failed/undelivered products on sites such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo but there have also been a number of successful projects. These sites leave due diligence to the customers. Unfortunately you are not alone in pointing out the number of projects that are not completed or completed with subpar materials.

[aivijay]

I know that there is a terms of service and I also know there are some projects that succeed, but the failure rate is extremely high. Yes, there being zero responsibility for the project which got funded through the Kickstarter like platform where hundreds of thousands of dollars is being handled and having zero responsibility is absurd and should never be allowed, that's what my argument is. As a customer you can only do so much about due diligence about a project and its creators. When Kickstarter like platform is the one which is handing the money over to the project creator, naturally it is their responsibility to do a due diligence about the campaign as they are the ones who are handling a large sum of money on behalf of the backers. When Kickstarter like platforms put that responsibility on the customer to due diligence, it leaves the customer to the mercy of the project creator which is what I have saw in most of the projects which I funded or backed out. Because Kickstarter like platforms suck 7-8% of the campaign as their commission, it seems its easy to have a TOS where you claim zero responsibility and just walk away with the money safely and also just blame or not have any control on the project creator with the money they raise from these sites and the project creator can also walk away free and clear without any repercussions but taking hundreds of thousands of dollars for free.

[Powerofmene]

I agree the failure rate is high that is why I have only backed a couple of projects and one failed.

What do you recommend the platforms do to help in situations where a project fails? I agree a zero responsibility TOS is an easy out but I am not sure there is a solution other than buyer beware. Almost all projects would fail if the platform would hold the money until fulfillment as they would have to borrow money to complete the orders. This would also add to the final cost as the business would have to factor in the interest, etc. One good thing that could come of that is that banks would see if the project had adequate funding to complete what was promised.

I am not trying to be difficult I truly just don't see a solution that works in these situations.