Im a backer and they offered refunds twice to anyone that wanted it so I don't know why anyone is complaining.<p>This project was before Kickstarter disallowed renderings (for good reason) and they would probably never have gotten to this shitty position if they had to actually prototype it and find out how insanely expensive it would be to manufacture.
The expectations some people have about crowdfunding are unrealistic. It has to be clear from the start that when you donate money to those projects the money will be spent and the project might fail anyway. People have been using Kickstarter as a pre-order site which I think is not ideal in many cases. The option to preorder should be different from supporting a project in general, but Kickstarter sadly doesn't offer that kind of separation.
The project has reached a $196K funding while the initial goal was "only" $12K. Maybe Kickstarter should limit the amount of money to this initial goal, or at least to twice the amount of this goal.<p>If a project looks promising, more people are likely to pledge for it. But if Cryptrade thought $12K was enough to develop their project, that's probably all they actually needed. And $12K is both less tempting for Cryptrade to just disappear and less penalizing to everyone who pledged for the project.
There is a simple solution to this problem. Don't allow project creators to offer the project as a reward! It should be ok for people to try and fail with projects on Kickstarter. By preventing creators from offering the product as a reward backers will understand better that it isn't a pre-order system. It's an "I need money for this idea. It might work or it might fail but if you want to help me try, give me money" system.
<i>Part of their description was the following...<p>Is the Crypteks USB™ Patented?
Definitely! Patents covering the unique locking mechanisms as well as iterations for future implementations of varying possible internal electronics have been filed with the USPTO with international coverage. Crypteks Inc. reserves all rights with respect to the use of Logos & Slogans as well as the design concepts and iterations covered under our patents</i><p>Do these patents actually exist?
Notwithstanding all the hype and legitimate positives of crowd sourcing, this is the very real negative side. Kickstarter gives unfettered access to funds, which more often than not is required by a given project, and they indemnify themselves and further remove themselves from the funding transactions (a legal requisite for anyone not wanting to be tied up in litigation for the rest of their known life). Perhaps there is some room to hold funds in escrow and release them after projects hit certain mile stones, but I think that would stifle projects more than ensure successful use of funds. This is a real problem facing an emerging industry that if someone figures out they could propel themselves to the forefront of this space.
It's unfortunate that all the updates are Backer-Only, including a recent one titled "Refund Reminder".<p>Could someone on HN who backed this project summarize what the company has said in its Backer-Only communication?
Hmm, once having worked on a USB device that had encryption on it, it required an ARM chip and a circuit board running a custom software stack. Even if the creator thought they were going to create one of these, for their original target of 12k I don't think they had a clue about what they were doing.
This project has been funded for a year and half with no progress to show for it, only thousands of comments from backers wondering when they will receive a refund or at least an update on whats going on.<p>Unfortunately the project founder has flown the coop and kickstarter doesn't claim a lick of responsibility. Want to get away with stealing 200k? Just make a kickstarter project and never deliver, it's working for these guys.
The video features F. Komaya, Product Development Director at Bitwize SARL and Lead Designer for Crypteks Inc.<p>Bitwize is a web design company in Lebanon.[1] Sorry, but I'm not going to be sending money to someone in Lebanon no matter how good the CAD renders look.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bitwize-sarl/62/b19/256" rel="nofollow">http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bitwize-sarl/62/b19/256</a>
A former acquaintance of mine (and noted scumbag) recently pulled this scam for a movie he made about (and with the backing of) a bunch of chiropractors. Raised over a quarter of a million dollars. He's since absconded with the funds to pay for his mansion/porsche, sent no dvds, and is now funding the sequel via Indiegogo.<p>I have always admired the man's ability to sniff out a good con, although the second film is having quite a bit of trouble getting a similar level of traction. I'm sure he'll be fine-- it's hard enough to get the government involved in regular fraud, let alone... whatever dubious legal standing funding a Kickstarter has.
All the projects resources went into the pitch video...not a cent went to R&D. Even though crowd sourcing is awesome in my opinion, just like any investment, it comes with a risk.<p>Every purchase we make in life is an investment of some degree, in regards to kickstarter or indiegogo, a backer/customer/investor (whatever you'd like to call them), needs to weigh out risk/reward ratio, but also factor in the site's history of people delivering on their product.
Kickstarter is a in a tough position. I think it offers a valuable service (though it's certainly not unique). I'm sure that most people looking to get funded won't simply take the money & run as was done in this instance. Unfortunately, Kickstarter is the only one still hanging around, so they're left holding the bag, so to speak.
In the beginning, I thought these kind of incidents would be the end of the service.<p>A lot of the people using Kickstarter to raise capital for their projects appear out of their depth, if not in the first instance, certainly when their project takes off and they end up raising many times what they anticipated.
I'm actually surprised it took this long for someone to "take the money and run".<p>It seemed like one of the major issues with kickstarter, and I'm surprised they don't seem to have given it much thought.
Kickstarter users should demand that Kickstarter realign their incentives for project success.<p>As it stands now, Kickstarter has zero incentive to ensure a project succeeds; they make money on funding transactions and that's it. "Who cares if the project is vapor? We got our money."<p>They could easily make an additional revenue stream out of it. Instead of just taking X% of each transaction, they can add an additional "delivered project" fee in exchange for more exposure on the homepage, social media channels, etc.
I think the tricky situation here is one of positioning. Of course Kickstarter wants something as close to what a payments platform might get in terms of accountability for the transaction, but they're providing a curated marketplace for these projects. Closer to eBay or AirBnB... both of which have ended up with really similar challenges to tackle.<p>At the very least it seems like it shouldn't be that challenging for them to at least be prepared to aggressively deal with flat-out fraud.
Same thing happened to me with Window Farms, backed for $1k and they "cant afford shipping to canada" ... At this point I dont care though, at least they made the product and got it into the hands of the US backers.