All Kickstarter scandals fascinate and compel me, and I will never tire of reading about them, which is not to say I’m reading this in the sense of “haha, look at the suffering and mismanagement of others,” so much as, OH LIFE IS LONG AND EVERYTHING HAPPENS AND ALSO HOW DID THIS DUDE MANAGE TO BUILD A SECRET HOUSE FOR SO LONG?? Anyhow, never go into business with a man.
“The short answer is that I expected, and still do expect David to pay us back. This was a reasonable expectation, and he has actually repaid $111,000 to date. You can see why I thought that this was a viable solution, he got over a 3rd of the way there. To this day I still think it’s a little crazy that he hasn’t paid us back in full…”
“What Can I do about This?
The Police would like to hear from you.”
MOST importantly, was that house 3D printed?
Holy shit that story is certainly A Thing. It is A Thing all right.
Dan F. 1 day ago
this is not very canadian!
Actually, Canada leads the world in per-capita stock fraud.
Sting will surely make this right
Sting should have been involved from the beginning. He’s pretty good at watching every move people make. That house wouldn’t have stayed secret for long.
“Anyhow, never go into business with a man.”
This right here.
Hometown represent?!? Saskatchewan is a huge place, with not very many people. I know _excatly_ how his partner is building a house that no one noticed.
Well, how??
Enormous prairie + sparse population + housing boom; entire subdivisions are built over the summer in this town, one more house is not going to be noticeable. And, I imagine, about 10% cahones – just look like what you’re doing is unquestionable, most ppl won’t question it.
As a side note, this is the same place that some music students stole the grand piano from the performance hall in the music building by literally just wearing coveralls and taking it. They did it as a “you need better security” demonstration, and now not just anyone can wander into the hall and bang on the grand piano whenever.
This is a huge problem on construction sites. I live in one of those Ryan Homes communities and people will show up with white trailers, grab stuff off the sites, load it up, and leave. Nobody thinks twice because who knows what happens with construction, and the next thing you know they’re massively delayed because they’ve had to order lumber 4 times.
Heeey fellow Sask toastie! And yeahhh people are building houses all the time,just usually not with stolen cash (probably)!
Ex-pat SKer, but they will always be bunnyhugs in my heart!
considering the level of organized crime we have here and how many legitimate front businesses they own, it’s more likely than we’d think, I’m willing to say.
also hi Sask toasties! why are we not doing a meetup?
Include us Albertans!
Anyone have any other articles on Kickstarter scandals to recommend? I’ve thoroughly explored the Coolest Cooler debacle and am hungry for more.
There’s this one I was a part of: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/747049968/th…
Basically, one of the two people involved stole all the money and most of the dice they’d made so far, changed the Kickstarter login so the other person couldn’t post any updates, or get at the list of backers. Thanks to the diligent work of a couple of contributors in the comments section, a line of communication was opened up, and he managed to ship out some of them. It looks like that’s stopped now, though.
There’s a sad scandal surrounding a lockpicking kit made by Schuyler Towne, who writes really interesting articles about the history of locks.
Sad and fascinating. Thanks!
OMG. I went to college with Schuyler, and I didn’t know about ANY of this!
not all scandals, per se, but here are some links:
http://gizmodo.com/the-9-most-disgraceful-crowdfu…
http://gizmodo.com/7-crowdfunding-fails-that-will…
http://mashable.com/2013/06/21/kickstarter-scam/#…
http://observer.com/2012/04/this-is-what-a-kickst…
https://www.thrillist.com/gear/kickstarter-frauds…
That’s a not-bad collection of the better-known disasters, but I wanted to expand on the story behind The Doom That Came To Atlantic City, as I was interested in the game (but not a KS investor), and read up a bit on its history, and Thrillist got it wrong: the case was not that “the would-be creators behind The Doom That Came To Atlantic City decided [they] couldn’t produce the product, walking away with a fat stack.” Here’s the real story: the creators, Lee Moyer, Keith Baker, and Paul Komoda, entrusted the management of the campaign to a guy named Erik Chevalier, who spent all the money on himself without producing a single copy of the game, and blamed simple inexperience for being unable to make a board game, even though another company eventually stepped in and fulfilled the pledges. It’s not even the first time he’s pulled a stunt like this. Chevalier was eventually hit with an FTC judgment, but the money had already been spent.
There was Pictures for Sad Children, which my heart is still shattered over, and I didn’t even back. I don’t have a link but it is pretty well documented all over the web.
The wikipedia article covers a lot. Wow.
Loving all the links this comment got. Internet drama I love: kickstarter drama and comic book convention drama.
There was the rumored drama that The Odd Gentleman stole a large chunk of the Homestuck game kickstarter’s money to make the new King’s Quest game. The rumor was squashed pretty fast but it was from someone who knows Hussie privately, though a different reason was given for knowing. Speculation is that it was posted in an ill-informed attempt to dodge an NDA.
Did someone mention the Homestuck Adventure Game? They paid millions to a developer who promptly ran off and made the new King’s Quest games. Seems the legal wrangling means that no one involved can officially comment anymore. (If you started reading Homestuck, you may be interested to know that it finally wrapped up recently; if you haven’t started reading Homestuck, well, you probably shouldn’t head down that rabbit hole.) https://www.reddit.com/r/gamegrumps/comments/3ca8…
Yogventures is the other biggie that comes to mind. http://www.polygon.com/2014/7/20/5920079/yogscast…
Most of the ones I know are videogame ones:
http://kotaku.com/12-successful-kickstarters-that… http://kotaku.com/why-peter-molyneuxs-godus-is-su…
(Oh, Peter Molyneux)
Just so it’s not alll tech nightmares, there’s the time that one of Animal Collective tried to kickstart his holiday, then gave the money away to a charity, then took 7 years to get any of the rewards to his backers.
http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1091-why-animal-col…
And the worst thing is, when they got the reward, it was a solo album by a member of Animal Collective (b’dum-tisch!)
“Look, I knew I should’ve had some questions when he asked for the money in non-sequential Swiss francs — but I still believe that David took that money for the project and not to fund his blackout drunk trip to the Alps.”
I like that he included the perfect log line for a future made-for-TV movie in the open letter to the police: “Crowdfunding empowered me, and now crime has brought me to a halt.”
I’ve been waiting for YEARS for somebody to start a podcast dissecting Kickstarter debacles.
*gasp* Should we Kickstart this?!
TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN
I know Reddit is horrifying, but I do take great joy in the subreddit /r/shittykickstarters.
Ouch, and in Fort McMurray too.
??? This is in Saskatoon?
Can they divide the house into a portion for each kickstarterer? Like a timeshare for 3-d printing enthusiasts.
From the Opening Statement on the website:
“Due to the fact that the Kickstarter campaign was over before Peachy Printer existed as a corporation, we did not have a corporate bank account set up to receive the funds. As a result, David’s personal account was set up to receive the funds.”
Seriously, guys: how fucking hard is it to go down and open a joint bank account? Or something?
The only thing dumber would be to take the crowdfunding money, cash it out as pennies, and store them in those giant Coke-bottle banks.
I don’t know, if they cashed it out in pennies it would have been more obvious when David started siphoning the funds off…
“Dude, why’s there a U-Haul in front of the office?”
“Oh, that’s…uh, strange.”
But seriously, shouldn’t opening a business account be the first step in doing business?
This idea is extra amusing to me because we don’t have pennies in Canada anymore.
If I could get rid of every penny in this house I would be 30 pounds lighter without gym time.
CANADA STOPPED MAKING PENNIES LIKE TWO YEARS AGO.
And this is exactly what happens when you can’t store hundreds of thousands of dollars in pennies. I’m sure you were warned.
I don’t know how hard it is to set up a corporation/llc/SOME KIND OF BUSINESS ENTITY FOR GODDESS’S SAKE in Canada, but its really not that complicated here. Granted I do mostly Delaware entities, and they are like actually the easiest (which on a side note has more to do with why people form entities there than nefarious tax evasion reasons) but I have to imagine they aren’t that hard in elsewhere.
Opening a biz bank account was relatively easy In California, and a giant pain in DC so ymmv.
I would love to see a parody of the Executive Summary the CEO created, but written “by” Napoleon Bonaparte about his Russian invasion campaign.
This is AMAZING. Just the entire thing is amazing. I think my favorite was that like 75% of their ACTUAL spending was on wages and contractors.
#Efficiency
Yeah I’m going back through the updates (because this is JUICY) and all the way back in 2014…
“Steve Bian on December 16, 2014
Shipping all the printers is a fixed cost. How much development you can guys afford to do before you hit that mark where you have to ship the printers that people have ordered?”
COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF, STEVE.
I mean, that seems fairly par for the course, engineering-wise.
I’m so happy this post exists. It reminds me of otf_wank, but with fewer and better memes.
This makes me feel better about the What We Do in the Shadows t-shirt Kickstarter reward I’m still waiting for a year later. Kickstarter is a fascinating disaster so often, I love it.
Jemaine’s updates! “We apologize on behalf of the postal service.”
His updates have made it totally worth it, even if I don’t ever get my Werewolves, Not Swearwolves shirt (although they said they’ve finally shipped maybe?). He’s the best!
CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE MUSIC IN THE VIDEO AND THE EDITING WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE F
i am HERE for you.
it is so _serious_.
it is so “i survived [being eaten by wolves, mauled by cheetahs, and stonewashed with denim in the factory machine]”, or whatever your favorite episode is.
Who were the three mystery backers invited to the filming? What motel was used? Why is the chain on the door? Who are they expecting to bust in? Why are they drinking out of different glasses? What are they drinking out of those different glasses? Why is it so staged? How is this both the worst and best thing ever? What is going on with the timeline and graphics?
Why would a family member give them ANOTHER 50K just to film this apologia?
What are the account numbers and PINs.
Daaamn, I recently received a Kickstarter backer update that was like, “Uh so I almost died at sea today” and thought THAT was dramatic, but no.
Although I am not surprised this stuff happens all the time. Sometimes I am a bit wary of Kickstarters becoming a viable business option because unlike with regular investors, people who back a Kickstarter have none of the protections or accountability that say, a VC company does.
So I am 100% sympathetic to the backers, this is way beyond Kickstarter risks, they straight up got embezzled and that is Bad.
But Engineer Sausagedog is going over the project and thinking there was no way this was going to be successful even sans embezzlement, so maybe it’s… better that the backers have a criminal case to pursue, vs. a run-of-the-mill failed Kickstarter issue? I mean, among other red flags, check out their discussion of obtaining Class 1 laser cert. They were going to build the enclosure out of paper and aluminum foil.
It was good enough for my girl scout diorama projects!
This Kickstarter ass sounds like a regular Lloyd Braun. “He never sold a single computer, he just loved ringing that bell!”
This is a huge problem on construction sites. I live in one of those Ryan Homes communities and people will show up with white trailers, grab stuff off the sites, load it up, and leave. Nobody thinks twice because who knows what happens with construction, and the next thing you know they're massively delayed because they've had to order lumber 4 times.
thanks for that, really interesting!
That's a not-bad collection of the better-known disasters, but I wanted to expand on the story behind The Doom That Came To Atlantic City, as I was interested in the game (but not a KS investor), and read up a bit on its history, and Thrillist got it wrong: the case was not that "the would-be creators behind The Doom That Came To Atlantic City decided [they] couldn’t produce the product, walking away with a fat stack." Here's the real story: the creators, Lee Moyer, Keith Baker, and Paul Komoda, entrusted the management of the campaign to a guy named Erik Chevalier, who spent all the money on himself without producing a single copy of the game, and blamed simple inexperience for being unable to make a board game, even though another company eventually stepped in and fulfilled the pledges. It's not even the first time he's pulled a stunt like this. Chevalier was eventually hit with an FTC judgment, but the money had already been spent.
Damn cost sunk fallacy!
Kinda feel like I missed an opportunity by running a Kickstarter thst delivered as promised, on budget and only a couple of weeks past the projected deadline. Think of all the crazy shenanigans I could have got up to instead!
I never mailed one of my backer rewards because that backer NEVER SENT ME THEIR ADDRESS after repeated requests, and it haunts me to this day. Seriously, if you backed the Neurotic Owl tarot, I have your deck! I will still send it! The guilt, she plagues me!
So how can anyone steal all of that money and not, just, pass out from shame?
What to do for this?
Talk to police
Can't speak for Saskatchewan, but it is quite easy in Ontario!