[kordless]

There's nothing on the Kickstarter page that appears to imply a return policy. I'd say if someone sends you some hardware in this early stage of a company, then it's a reasonable assumption you would get to keep it. Whether keeping it is the right thing to do or not is another matter entirely. Startups.

Ideally, you shouldn't change the rules after engaging with someone who pays you money. If the company is making a bunch of rationalizations about it with you, you may want to point out to them how frustrated you are with the process and hope they hear you. I really can't tell if that is the case here or not as you haven't posted the correspondence!

[emil10001]

I didn't post the correspondence because it's extremely long. I've been back and forth with them over 13 very long emails. My prodding them for some evidence that what they're saying lines up with reality, and them rationalizing it without providing any evidence. I really wanted to work this out with their customer service, but instead, they dug in their heels and made the situation worse.

I waited a while after my last round of questions before writing this up. It was pretty clear that they had no intention of responding, or at least not within their own deadline.

[alenlpeacock]

Evidence we've already provided you in our numerous correspondences:

- Kickstarter project called itself "Complete Cloud storage subscription service"

- Kickstarter project added a $349 level after a few days that included "device ownership". Update #1 on KS highlighted this new reward level. Discussion in forums about ownership option and how it differed from the pure subscription model where you don't own the device.

- Kickstarter FAQ for our project says, in response to "what if I cancel my subscription?", "We'll give you a pro-rated refund on your subscription once the device is sent back."

- Numerous posts in the comment areas about device ownership vs. pure subscription.

- While there are a small handful of others who, like you, didn't understand the subscription model, these are in a tiny minority of all backers. All of them either upgraded after talking with us about it, stuck with their current plan, or were offered a complete refund. None launched public attacks calling us scammers.

Lastly John, our last response to you via our customer support system was yesterday at 12:59, but you just said, "I waited a while after my last round of questions before writing this up. It was pretty clear that they had no intention of responding, or at least not within their own deadline."

Does it seem fair to you to keep asking the same questions over and over again of our support staff, and then launching a public attack like this on a holiday because we didn't get back to you for the 14th time within 24 hours?

[emil10001]

Right, none of those things are explicitly stating that the hardware was a lease in the flow of someone backing the Kickstarter.

As far as my questions to your staff, there was a consistent back and forth until that point. I'm completely sick of dealing with this issue, and it was pretty clear that I was not getting anywhere. I also didn't want to be dealing with this over the holiday, but I didn't set the upgraded deadline as the end of December! It is pretty frustrating and stressful going back and forth and getting absolutely nowhere. I was hoping to get some perspective by posting it. I think that I've gained that perspective, and have decided to ask for a refund. I didn't want it to come to this, as I had previously been very excited about your company and product.

I feel that the "public attack" is more pointing out to people the sleazy thing that you did in inserting a new claim of ownership into an upgrade offer. I felt like this was something that your company was completely unwilling to acknowledge and that it needed to be pointed out.

[alenlpeacock]

So it sounds like you are mostly upset with our support staff? Could you help me understand what you believe would have helped to resolve this for you? What we did wrong?

Going back through the exchange, it looks like our staff offered you a complete refund very early on.

Maybe send me an email outlining an example of how you think the exchange should have gone? alen@ I'm sincere -- I'd like to improve the experience if you have insights to share.

[emil10001]

You're correct I was very disappointed about this experience, and it was mainly with the support. I will send you an email.

I'd also like to stop real quick and let you know that I do think that you have a great service with tons of potential. The technology is really cool, and I don't even know of anyone at this point who would come in as a close second. I've also been following your company since you won some startup competition a couple years ago, and was anxiously awaiting the service. I backed the project very quickly after getting the email from you guys that it was available.

[ljf]

Then return get device for a refund, they are offering you that, which in my opinion is pretty awesome. You thought you were getting one service, you were wrong (as it wasn't made clear to you), and now they are saying you can have a full refund. Life's to short to stress out over things like this, especially when there is a simple solution being offered.

[_mikz]

I backed the project and thought I own the device because of: "device included" in the reward levels on KS. Also why the hell I should check forums, comments & discussions when I knew that the device is mine?

[wahnfrieden]

This sounds a little like those services that say you're signing up for something free, but on another page outside of the signup flow that users easily miss, it says they'll be charged $X immediately. Those services are deemed a scam, so I would recommend against claiming any points about the necessary information that's outside of the backing UI flow.

[alenlpeacock]

The Kickstarter FAQ mentioned the return policy, and explicitly said that pro-rated refunds would occur once the device was returned.

[kordless]

I went back and looked, and the FAQ mentions that if you cancel your account, and return the device, you'll give a pro-rated amount. You have to click the link about canceling your account to see it:

> We'll give you a pro-rated refund on your subscription once the device is sent back.

That statement could be taken to imply a prepaid amount for a service could be refunded if the customer was willing to part with something of value - the drive. What it doesn't imply is that the device is leased. If anything, it seems like a simple incentive to get a canceling customer to return the drive - if they don't, you don't give them their money back.

I think you are continuing to make rationalizations about this whole thing. The indication is the slew of blaming statements in your response above to emil. See "launching a public attack like this on a holiday" for reference of said blaming statement. I think emil deserves to be heard here.

Simply acknowledging that the device was intended to be leased and clarifying that on the KickStarter page should do the trick.