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A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam

breakit.se

51–60 of 83 posts

Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam

#51
These campaign would never be successful without the copywriters on popular digital media promoting them because they are content farms looking for cheap "news".

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.

Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam

#52

Indiegogo 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…

Well, what do you expect? the more money you raise, the more money they earn. Kickstarter isn't better, they allow campaigns to put a staffpick logo in their description even though there was no staffer picking that campaign. They are both as scummy IMHO.

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

#53

Never 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…

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Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam

#54

IndieGoGo 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.

> IndieGoGo 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

#55

Never 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…

> Kickstarter (for all it's warts) requires a working prototype to post on their site

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

#57
post #18

Aren't these platforms meant to protect against this kind of scam?

I wondered why the platforms can't help track down the creator, based on login information. Sure, you can cover your tracks, but I'd think they'd have the incentive to make it look like they're doing all they can to root out fraud/fraudsters.

Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam

#58

IndieGoGo 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.

Crowd-funding is a scammers dream come true in general. Never "donate" money unless you are ok with the possibility of never getting anything in return.

Re: A Swede who created a $400K Indiegogo-scam

#59
post #29

Earlier 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...

Right, but if I just wait a year (or however long) I can usually go buy that niche product without the risk. It's a pre-order.
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