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Comment by stinos | Hacker News Reader

Well at least if you get ripped it's only for 100-200$ or so. Which is better than http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wjsteele/ultra-bot-3d-pr... where people lose >1000$, and kickstarter does not do anything at all about it.

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Remember that kickstarter is not a store. When you give somebody money on kickstarter you're not buying a product, you're supporting the producer. Businesses can fail, even when funded.

That's begging the question.

Why shouldn't Kickstarter be considered to be a store and be bound by store-like rules?

Alternately, what if Walmart decided they weren't a store either?

Because that would be a store. We already have stores, they're something different. Walmart on the other hand is a store.

Because kickstarter is not a store. Stores have products on shelves. Kickstarter introduces you to people who want to create a product.

In Seven things to know about kickstarter it is stated pretty clearly that A. you fund creative projects, B. you are supporting someones dream and C. a project might take longer than expected. That all signals 'risk!' to me. The guidelines for projects are pretty slim. Again a hint that 'anything' goes on a site like this.

All very different from your regular store where the basis of your contract is, usually via terms of service, "pay X to receive good Y within period Z".

Because Kickstarter fulfills a different function. In a store, I can buy things that exist, are produced currently and that I can take home more or less immediately. Kickstarter allows me to pledge money towards products that I would like to see produced. I'm supporting something that has not been produced before, that may actually not be viable. That's the risk I'm taking and I take it voluntarily, but that's not the risk I want to take when buying toilet paper.

I imagine that people would do a lot less shopping at Walmart. Hopefully for Walmart that would fit with their new model.

kickstarter does not do anything at all about it.

I don't know anything about that particular case, but in general, what do you think Kickstarter can/should do about it?

That's a good question, i.e. hard to answer :] I know KS is merely hosting things, but for the amounts they receive I feel they should at least offer some legal advice or so about what you can do in a case like this. And maybe keep a better eye on what can be fake and what not or what could cause problems, and interrupt the process if they see somthing fishy goes on.

The creator has been extremely silent the last few months except for claiming bankruptcy - yet that claim hasn't even been verified and the backers basically have no clue about what to do know. It would be nice if KS could jump in and help them investigating this or tell them how/where they should go to court?

Events like this will just gradually erode Kickstarter's reputation until its business dwindles as more and more people start to regard the whole idea as too risky.

Kickstarter doesn't need to act to protect backers, it needs to act to protect its own position. Hopefully, though, the same solutions will serve both ends.

Or, even worse, kickstarter could actually become more risky if more people use it to scam people out of money.

It's really sad. I'm sure there are also people on Kickstarter who aren't scammers, just ordinary folks who don't appreciate the full extent of their commitment. You run into a few obstacles, or your mom gets sick, and suddenly you're on the hook for $50,000 and can't deliver what you promised.

On the other hand, you hear stories about projects who offer too much ("I'll paint a portrait of anyone who donates $7!"), and all their money goes to servicing those rewards.

I don't mean to excuse anyone. Obviously, not everyone is capable of running a business, and Kickstarter makes it really easy for those people to get themselves into hot water.

What happened with ultra bot?

The project creator is claiming that he is filing for bankruptcy: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wjsteele/ultra-bot-3d-pr...

Which is precisely the right thing when this happens.

So what?

Well the problem seems to be it's just a claim

  This morning I received a return phone call from the Indiana Southern Bankruptcy Court regarding my inquiry about Mr. Steele's bankruptcy claim. They have searched all the courts in the US and could not find any bankruptcy filings

moreover if you read the comments it's obvious the creator hasn't been honest, and possibly took his IP to some other company. Possibly, cause it's again hard to verify.

Which all previous posters expected me to extract from a wall of text that runs from here to Dubai :).

Thanks for clarifying!

Credit card charge-back? It used to work.

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