Wired, CNET, and all these prominent outlets, when was the last time they issued a follow up when something turned out to be a scam? when did they ever put a disclaimer about the risk of crowdfunding in their article? and let's not even talk about the fact that they don't even state clearly that the product doesn't exist and they never even tried it. Without shills, scams can't be successful, they are the shills, literally by the definition of that word.
A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
51–60 of 83 posts
Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
#52Indiegogo in particular is super sketchy, I did a campaign with them and they had an employee there contacting me and telling me all the shady stuff they can do to help me be successful and if that I can guarantee I'll raise x amount they'll do all these extra things like put it on the front page and in the newsletter and whatnot. They let you extend campaigns forever if you arne't about to hit your goal so you can k…
https://petapixel.com/2018/10/17/if-you-backed-a-meyer-optik...
They allowed the same business to run multiple campaigns concurrently, opening new ones when the old ones were not even fulfilled. Turns out these scammers were using new funds to fulfill old campaigns and since a ponzi scheme always collapses...
I could go on and on like this with Kickstarter.
I studied their business model a bit, and came to the conclusion that these businesses are actually B2B with the appearance of B2C. These are marketing platforms,selling marketing services to you, paid by fees and the client is you, the project creator, not the backer since they successfully claimed they have zero contractual obligations toward backers. But backers are still billed by Kickstarter, at no point the project creator issues a bill or is forced to issue one. This is extremely clever from a legal perspective and it is what sets them apart from ebay and likes. But what are backers billed for then? that's the most interesting question, they they are not billed for the good they "backed"...
Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
#53Never pledge on indiegogo, it's for scammers only. Kickstarter (for all it's warts) requires a working prototype to post on their site. IGG requires no such proof that you aren't selling vaporware. Also IGG shows total pledge numbers from IGG PLUS Kickstarter (and potentially other crowdfunding sites you might post to) so that their numbers look bigger. Stop, Drop, & Retro has some really good YouTube videos calling…
Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
#54IndieGoGo is a haven for scammers. They have absolutely no interest in protecting you. Even if you point out that the scammer is actively scamming currently, they won't do anything.
They actually do protect their backers better than Kickstarter sometimes:
this ongoing scam on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stillalive/polygons-the...
the same project was actually closed by Indiegogo as the creator is a notorious scammer:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/polygons-the-flat-4-in-1-...
Kickstater doesn't protect anybody at all. Kickstarter doesn't get involved in anyway after funds change hands and they take their cut.
Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
#55Never pledge on indiegogo, it's for scammers only. Kickstarter (for all it's warts) requires a working prototype to post on their site. IGG requires no such proof that you aren't selling vaporware. Also IGG shows total pledge numbers from IGG PLUS Kickstarter (and potentially other crowdfunding sites you might post to) so that their numbers look bigger. Stop, Drop, & Retro has some really good YouTube videos calling…
What do you mean by "working prototype"? I ran a successful software Kickstarter last year and all we had going in was a mockup (created in Keynote) of what the app would look like.
I expected that it would take hours/days after I "submitted for review" for the campaign to be approved, but it was instantaneously approved and went live.
Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
#56Waiting to pay for a product until it actually exists won't kill you.
Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
#57Aren't these platforms meant to protect against this kind of scam?
Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
#58IndieGoGo is a haven for scammers. They have absolutely no interest in protecting you. Even if you point out that the scammer is actively scamming currently, they won't do anything.
Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's pretty damn stupid, know it or not.
There is often very little risk... a small amount of disposable income to potentially get an interesting niche product. It is not meant to be a "smart" money decision. Not sure where you are getting that idea from...