Revisiting that fraudulent Kickstarter watch project
After writing about my month long experience with the Apple Watch, I decided to revisit a Kickstarter watch project I wrote about two years ago to see if the backers did eventually receive their watches. Was there a happy ending to it all?
So, did backers eventually receive their watches?
Just last week, I wrote about my month long experience with the Apple Watch. Since we are on the topic of watches, I decided to revisit a topic I talked about two years ago, about the dangers of Kickstarter watches.
In that post, I highlighted a fraudulent project where the project creator marketed his watch as something it was not. If you haven’t check out that post, it is worth doing so here. What is worse is that despite having received the funding he asked for - the project actually received over US$60,000 out of its US$7000 goal - it seems that many backers did not receive their watches.
Yeah! Let's make some watches!
The expected delivery date of the project states June of 2013, while I wrote that post a couple of months later in August. However, let’s give the project creator the benefit of the doubt, because he did say that he was “emotionally unstable” because of a “cyberbullying campaign” against him. That was in July, to which he also said that he would be “back in the trenches” and that “it’s time to kick some ass with making bad ass watches.”
That's not all, there's more still.
But now that it is August of 2015, we know better. A look through of the comments left after August 2013 shows that a good number of backers did not receive their watches and some were even threatening legal action. You can look at the comments left by angry backers here.
Since 2013, Kickstarter has made some amendments to their Terms of Use. However, the gist of it remains the same. Kickstarter does not offer refunds nor does it oversee projects and mediate disputes between users. With the sheer number of projects and users, I don't think its feasible for Kickstarter to do so either.
So at the end of it all, our advice when selecting Kickstarter projects to back remains the same. There are lots of cool projects on Kickstarter, such as this portable solar charger, but let the buyer beware.
Our articles may contain affiliate links. If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission.