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How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

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Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#71

Post by zdragnar »

valuearb wrote: post #58
zdragnar wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's pending legal action, it would be foolish to respond publicly. That in and of itself tells us nothing of right and wrong.

That’s not true. There are plenty of ways to respond without increasing your liability. “We can’t comment until pending legal is resolved due to advice of council” is one. Far better is, “It’s not true, facts are X, Y, and Z.” Telling the truth in public isn’t going to increase your liability, if you aren’t guilty of anything.

> “We can’t comment until pending legal is resolved due to advice of council”

is a non-response of the best sort. It does absolutely nothing to dispel the presumption of guilt, though, and if anything, merely adds weight to the "you aren't responding because you're guilty" mindset.

As for “It’s not true, facts are X, Y, and Z.”, well, I'm Not A Lawyer. I presume that's a bit like a coach for a sports team giving a news conference to tell everyone which strategies and plays they're going to be making in the upcoming game. Facts can be disputed, procedural rules can get facts excluded, and so forth. Whether or not it is a "far better" strategy (weighing PR versus court battle) is too fuzzy for a lay person to judge accurately, I think.

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#72

Post by steve_adams_86 »

the-dude wrote: post #35
learc83 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a stupid risk, they said as much. Why are you insisting on self-flagellation? They are the victims here (assuming they are telling the truth). I don't blame people for being taken advantage of by a conman. I might advise them not to be so trusting, but I don't go around demanding they publicly take full responsibility for being the victim of a scam.

> Why are you insisting on self-flagellation? Because people who externalize tend to learn poorly.

A signifiant point of the post is to say that they learned something, and they hope others can learn from it too. Maybe the issue is you didn't read the full article?

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#73

Post by ceejayoz »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #12
late2part wrote: post #2

There are a few things about this I don’t understand. How much money was it? Were they supposed to get a percentage of money raised, or did they get paid a fee and then get a percentage on top? Do I understand correctly that they’re having money problems so they kept your money to solve their money problems? The simple way to solve this is to take them to court. Is there anything more to the story than you trusted th…

How much money was it? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rdacalos/upstart-the-bo... Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. I wonder what the other side of the story is? Abuse is pretty common in gamedev, but this would be flagrant.

> Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum.

People risk a lifetime in jail over $35k, on a regular basis.

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#74

Post by jxramos »

cypherpunks01 wrote: post #70

Nobody has mentioned the irony of the actual game: "Upstart is a board game that simulates the ups and down [sic] of starting and sustaining a business." A 3rd party contractor/service provider stealing your money is certainly one of the "downs" of running a business.

"Every town, has its ups and downs. Sometimes ups, outnumber the downs, but not in Nottingham..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2dImprgiB8

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#75

Post by Jotra7 »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #12
late2part wrote: post #2

There are a few things about this I don’t understand. How much money was it? Were they supposed to get a percentage of money raised, or did they get paid a fee and then get a percentage on top? Do I understand correctly that they’re having money problems so they kept your money to solve their money problems? The simple way to solve this is to take them to court. Is there anything more to the story than you trusted th…

How much money was it? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rdacalos/upstart-the-bo... Looks like $35k. No one would risk destroying their reputation over that small sum. I wonder what the other side of the story is? Abuse is pretty common in gamedev, but this would be flagrant.

Must be nice to be so privileged as to think 35K is a "small sum."

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#76

Post by kjrose »

VectorLock wrote: post #54
stablemap wrote: post #8

https://twitter.com/Woodshedagency/status/943508162002513923

For a PR agency I'd consider this as officially "going to ground."

Yeah. They’ve gone completely to ground. I am guessing in the hopes it will blow over before it becomes bigger.

They claimed in a tweet earlier today that they were preparing a response however the fact they locked off their channel seems to imply their response is duck and cover.

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#77

Post by CPLX »

gfisher wrote: post #65
busterarm wrote: post #55

This is well into "criminal complaint" territory.

Having been taken for a lot of money by contractors in the past, getting the local DA to issue criminal complaints are near impossible. Recently had a GC on a job fake receipts, fake bank statements, everything you could think of to steal money from us. In the end, the DA wouldn't make it a criminal case, said it was just a civil matter.

In fairness, those things do, in fact, sound like the kinds of things that civil matters are intended to address.

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#78

Post by earlyriser »

joshuaheard wrote: post #44

You violated my number one rule of business: never, ever, give a contractor your money unless and until they have earned it. I learned this the hard way as well. I own several rental properties, and I don't let the property managers collect the rent; I collect it myself (using ViewPost email invoicing). You don't explain, but I don't understand why you couldn't open a bank account. Citizenship is not required. There…

I have some experience on this: If you want your KS campaign to be in USD, you need to have a US bank account and, if I remember, a member of the team living in USA. Paypal is not a solution on their system. There's a deal between KS & Stripe's Atlas to let you create a US company and bank account to solve this issue, but for a gameboard that's going to maybe collect 10K is a lot of complexity for not enough gains.

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#79

Post by slantyyz »

ineedasername wrote: post #45
tjpaudio wrote: post #40

I find it absolutely amazing that they would let someone else handle the money that represents the life of their business. Hard to feel sorry for them. No doubt the correct thing to do would have been to delay the campaign until the banking issues were resolved. This was an amateur mistake. Yea it would be nice if we lived in a world where we could be naive and let strangers handle our money without fear but we all k…

I don't think blaming the victim is a useful criticism. Trusting a vendor to perform the tasks for which they've been hired is hardly a fault. Woodshed represented this as a service they had offered clients in the past, and the client had a contractual addendum. In the world or raising money, it is extremely common, even required at times, for a fundraising partner to control some or all aspects of the financial arra…

>> You protect yourself by having the appropriate contractual agreements in place, which the client did here.

I disagree. You protect yourself by doing your necessary homework before you even sign the contracts.

Contracts are helpful, but in the real world, getting a resolution can be very messy. Lawsuits are stressful, expensive and time consuming. If you've been through a lawsuit, you'll know that being right is often very small consolation, especially if your adversary happens to have better legal representation than you.

Re: How a PR Agency Stole Our Kickstarter Money

#80

Post by panglott »

late2part wrote: post #2

There are a few things about this I don’t understand. How much money was it? Were they supposed to get a percentage of money raised, or did they get paid a fee and then get a percentage on top? Do I understand correctly that they’re having money problems so they kept your money to solve their money problems? The simple way to solve this is to take them to court. Is there anything more to the story than you trusted th…

They linked to the Kickstarter, which says the campaign raised about $35k.
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