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Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

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Re: Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

#51

Post by Semaphor »

gervase wrote: post #27
throwaway2016a wrote: post #18

To provide a counter anecdote: I have never been burnt by a KickStarter yet and I've backed about 7 of them. I have had to wait a very long time though. Once almost 2 years. But I am prepared knowing that one day I might back a losing horse. With that said, I'm surprised there is no recourse for the people who bought from the website.

I really can't imagine that these types of scams are the norm, and not the exception. I've backed 33 campaigns, and I've never been burned (yet). Two turned out to be pretty shitty executions, though - not sure if I should count that, since I did still receive my rewards. The key is to ask yourself some common sense questions like: * Is this product possible in our current reality? * Does the business exist only for…

32 backed projects. 2 Products turned out pretty crappy but that's the risk. No scams though.

Re: Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

#53

Post by on_and_off »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #18

To provide a counter anecdote: I have never been burnt by a KickStarter yet and I've backed about 7 of them. I have had to wait a very long time though. Once almost 2 years. But I am prepared knowing that one day I might back a losing horse. With that said, I'm surprised there is no recourse for the people who bought from the website.

I have been burned by one ..

I am now very distrustful of kickstarter for physical products. With inexperienced creators, there are too many things that can go wrong.

I backed a PID-Controlled Espresso machine. It seemed like a very good idea but the project creators were clearly out of their depth.

They finally sold their company to decent espresso and the backers saw nothing of the finished product (or any real counterpart). If I remember correctly they offered a small discount on decent espresso machines but I don't think many backers falled for that.

Other than that, I backed many projects, mostly software.

Some were among the best games (or even media experience) I have ever seen, so I am happy to have been able to help make them a reality. Some were just ok or even failed but that was always a risk and never scummy.

Re: Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

#54

Post by on_and_off »

The video mentions how the headphone can't transmit through the body.

The Kanao does seem to have a very weak connection, but isn't transmitting through the body an issue with most headphones ? With my metallic case phone and jaybird plugs, I often have a better sound if I switch front pockets in order to have the phone on the same side as the plug's bluetooth receiver.

Transmitting electromagnetic waves through a body is just hard and to be honest makes me a bit uneasy.

I have never tried with the back pocket though

Re: Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

#55

Post by [deleted] »

Viper007Bond wrote: post #33
Geekette wrote: post #25

With more cases like this popping up, it seems the safer route is: Back product on Kickstarter and set reminders for 2 weeks before chargeback deadline for credit card used. If product is undelivered by that date, then cancel order with maker AND initiate chargeback too, to be on safe side.

Won't Kickstarter be not happy about the chargeback? I know many sites will kill your account if you do it.

[deleted]

Re: Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

#56

Post by gregmac »

bbarn wrote: post #12
dingo_bat wrote: post #5

The troubling thing is people ordered the headphones on the website too, not just on kickstarter. I'm sure taking an order on your website and not sending anything is some kind of fraud. It's not like kickstarter where you are funding the company and the company promises to make it up to you.

That's really the thing to read into here. Too many people will blow this off and say "yep dumb kickstarters" but bottom line, they took people's money for purchases and didn't deliver on them. These purchasers should all be covered via chargebacks on their credit cards though.

A merchant only allowed to settle transactions within I believe 24 hours of fulfillment (for physical products this means shipment) - prior to that it's an authorization only, which basically reserves the money on the card ("pending transaction") but doesn't show up on the customer's statement. Unless they violated this rule, no one direct ordering from their website should have actually been charged.

Kickstarter is entirely different, because you are purchasing a "promise" and not a shipping product, so technically the order is fulfilled once the campaign closes successfully.

Re: Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

#58

Post by dguaraglia »

khazhou wrote: post #39
dguaraglia wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, here we are, talking about a service that has become known around the world... maybe it does work outside of San Francisco, it's just some people it doesn't agree with?

I doubt their downtime communications were a factor in their huge success.

It clearly wasn't their demise either. My point being that people - including myself - form very strong opinions about what "works" and "doesn't work", while failing to acknowledge the bigger picture.

Companies with this kind of global presence have a better way to measure marketing impact than reading through random Hacker News comments. For what's worth, I think the concept for Snapchat is stupid and I can't see a single use for it, and yet... they managed to get to an IPO.

Re: Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

#59

Post by khazhou »

dguaraglia wrote: post #58
khazhou wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt their downtime communications were a factor in their huge success.

It clearly wasn't their demise either. My point being that people - including myself - form very strong opinions about what "works" and "doesn't work", while failing to acknowledge the bigger picture. Companies with this kind of global presence have a better way to measure marketing impact than reading through random Hacker News comments. For what's worth, I think the concept for Snapchat is stupid and I can't see a…

You're right. I'll refrain from commenting on how large tech companies conduct their business from now on.

Re: Kanoa won’t ship its $300 earphones to customers who pre-ordered them

#60

Post by dguaraglia »

khazhou wrote: post #59
dguaraglia wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It clearly wasn't their demise either. My point being that people - including myself - form very strong opinions about what "works" and "doesn't work", while failing to acknowledge the bigger picture. Companies with this kind of global presence have a better way to measure marketing impact than reading through random Hacker News comments. For what's worth, I think the concept for Snapchat is stupid and I can't see a…

You're right. I'll refrain from commenting on how large tech companies conduct their business from now on.

Please don't. Just be aware that making comments such as "that doesn't work outside of the Bay Area" like the original poster did are kind of silly.
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