I got burned by a kickstarter project. Like others, I naively believed that they were at least an above board outfit. I also appreciated that Amazon was the payments service because I believe they are above board as well.

I fell for the "Hexbright Flashlight" project:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/527051507/hexbright-an-o...

His pitch was that the product was designed and that he just needed the funding to underwrite manufacturing startup costs with asian and local suppliers. Having been well down the path of getting a consumer electronics product manufactured, and knowing the costs and understanding that a lot of those costs are upfront, I this seemed very reasonable to me. I thought his asking amount was a bit low, but the project was overfunded to the tune of $800,000 - more than enough to cover these startup costs.

Once funded, however, the October delivery date-- two months from the funding date, was never mentioned again.

Instead the updates have increasingly focused on design choices. In fact, the early updates made it very clear that many of the design choices hadn't even been settled!

He's clearly taking his time, doing some updates once a month or so, but it doesn't even look like this is full time. (excuses for having a new baby, etc. Jeez guy, you took on an $800,000 project with a baby on the way, really?)

I have the very strong impression that it was a slight con job-- he got the money to dick around with his ultimate flashlight and "really do it right", but doesn't seem too concerned about his commitment to deliver the flashlights in a timely manner.

I do believe has has every intention to deliver these flashlights... eventually.

But I bought them for christmas presents, I've been out several hundred dollars for 6 months and I don't even have a promise date for delivery. In fact, the whole thing is so half assed that he doesn't even know which colors I want because he didn't give us a way to tell him.

So, I contacted Kickstarter. I figured they had contingency plans for this kind of situation. I figured they were a standup organization. Their response? A form letter telling me that they advise their project leaders to deliver in a timely manner to backers. That's it. No suggestions for alternatives, nothing like that.

Of course the 30 day credit card dispute period has long passed. But I don't think it will come to that.

The FTC has a rule, that if you take money for a product, you have to deliver it in 6 weeks. This is why TV commercials and magazine ads often say "delivers in 4-6 weeks". Because they're using drop shippers, or whatever. If you don't deliver in 6 weeks, you have to get the customers permission to delay shipment, or you have to refund their money. Thems the rules.

Its debatable whether the 6 weeks started at the funding date when our cards were charged (and kickstarter got their $80,000), or at the "end of october" when they were originally supposed to ship. Either way that time is up.

Because I think this guy intends to deliver them, and was only dishonest about the level of completion of the project, and because I know that last %10 can take a lot of time, I'm going to give him a bit longer. Maybe the end of January. I'd go to the end of February if he promises to ship in that month.

After that point, I'm going to take up the dispute with Amazon. I expect that amazon, having handled the payment will resolve the issue, but if they don't then I'm going to escalate.

I actually blame kickstarter more than I do the guy behind the project. They should not blow people off when projects fail to deliver. This isn't a donation to some kid who wants to take pictures of trees in the Sierras. They are selling products here, and they are promising tangible goods on a specified date in exchange for the funds. That's the definition of being a store.

I don't mind giving people some time. I only even got annoyed about this one after christmas came and went and there wasn't even an apology for not shipping in a reasonable amount of time. And I only got upset when kickstarter blew me off when I wrote them. Because of that, if this isn't resolved in 4-8 weeks, I'm going to Amazon, and then the police.

Needless to say, I won't be backing any more Kickstarter projects, and until they start taking some responsibility, I no longer consider them a trustworthy outfit.

Here's the introduction of the project:
"I am offering pre-orders for two unique and powerful lights, the HexBright Prime for $35 and the HexBright Flex for $60. Both models are virtually identical looking with an ergonomic, very comfortable grip and use the best available LED light source. ... The major difference between the Prime and Flex models is the HexBright Flex is USB rechargeable and USB programmable. If you want, you can re-write the default code and tweak the HexBright Flex however you desire."

He's offering pre-orders. That's what the project promised. (Elsewhere it gave a "late september, early october" ship date, but that has since been removed.)

Kickstarter offers a FAQ. Here's the FAQ entry for this project:
When will you ship?
"Short answer- as soon as we can. Long answer- HexBright is not a product already on the shelf ready to be shipped. You are funding development of a top quality product where almost all your money is going into the parts and materials with almost no overhead, marketing or middlemen costs (we are projecting future retail prices to be over $100). As the saying goes, "CHEAP, FAST, GOOD, pick any two". Our price is fixed so we are choosing between "fast" and "good". Good wins every time. "

The thing is, this FAQ was changed. Kickstarter helpfully tells us so:

Last updated: Monday Nov 14, 1:22pm EST

So, during the time he was asking for money, we were given the opportunity to "pre-order" these flashlights that are described as already existing:

"the HexBright Flex is USB rechargeable and USB programmable."

NOT:
"the HexBright Flex WILL BE USB rechargeable and WILL BE USB programmable."

Then, about 2 months after he was supposed to ship, the FAQ changes to "You are funding development of..."

So, the project says one thing, but the FAQ says another, and the wording on the FAQ, updated 2 months after it should have started shipping, implies that people who expected it to ship when promised weren't actually promised a shipping product on any specific date.