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Comment by stef25 | Hacker News Reader

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stef25·

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

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According to the FAQ question "Can Kickstarter refund the money if a project is unable to fulfill?" the answer is no.

[1] https://help.kickstarter.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005048173-...

How can you protect against such kind of scam on such kind of platform?

An airplane can reduce the risk of falling down, but if you want to be protected(!) against falling down from the sky you shouldn't enter a big piece of metal that lifts off from the ground.

Entering a piece of metal that can uplift you is a calculated and well-known statistical risk you can evaluate if it worth being taken for the service it provide.

Indiegogo seems to not have such statistical intelligence.

sending cash, to someone who can't at this time provide you the product you want to buy, and who makes no bones about not providing you with any assurances that they ever will is a calculated (and easily avoided) risk. You can evaluate if it is worth being taken for the product you may or may-not ever receive.

The fact that a house-fly already has the statistical intelligence for funding Indiegogo projects doesn't mean that there isn't any

Almost everything on indiegogo is a scam. Kickstarter is slightly better.

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.

The problem is where do you draw the line between "scam" and "wildly incompetent team fails to produce anything of value"

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