This is a drama that will play out on the web and not in a courtroom.

In this sense, the crowdfunding forum gives a focal point for thousands of not only backers but also spectators to debate a continuing thumbs-up/thumbs-down narrative over whether something is great/viable/the-hope-of-the-future/flaky/scammy or whatever. By definition, such a forum will invite submissions from promoters who are, variously, supremely gifted, naive and unrealistic, crafty and conniving, or just hopeful founders who see this is their best funding mechanism, whether it turns out to be good, bad, or mediocre at it plays out. For any given project, who can tell exactly who the promoters are apart from the reputations they manage to build as they do various things in the development community or otherwise in the startup world. If they were doing a true securities offering by which they were selling equity in their ventures, they would be liable if they raised funds through intentional misrepresentations or other forms of fraud (which can include making specific promises without ever having any intention of performing them). But where is the liability when no equity is being sold and instead you have commitments that backers will receive only little perks associated with a completed development effort? There are all kinds of startup ventures that never manage to bring their development efforts to completion because of unforeseen technical issues, bad market conditions, lack of funds, and all sorts of other reasons having nothing to do with fraud or other actionable wrongdoing. If this is true where a venture sells equity interests that are true securities subject to the protections of securities laws, it is doubly true where the only thing being offered is a small perk tied to a development effort that is not guaranteed to be brought to completion or at least that is not guaranteed to be brought to completion within any specified time period. In such cases, you might conceive of cases where actionable wrongdoing might be proven, e.g., if a promoter raised the funds and immediately absconded with them, having made no effort toward development whatever. In almost every case but that extreme one, though, it is pretty hard to prove that a promoter never had any intention of making some good-faith effort to do the development, even if the promoter is flaky or uses bad business judgment in how funds are spent. In front of a jury, that one is a long shot by any measure and very likely a loser.

Which brings us to the economics of a federal class action case. Only specialty lawyers handle such cases. They are procedurally complex, take years to process, and are worth doing (usually) only against defendants with deep pockets where the remedy sought is (a) damages in a sufficient sum to make the case economically worthwhile for the lawyers or (b) an injunctive or other specific performance remedy aimed at curbing some abusive, recurring practice by a large company or important player in some key market.

Those conditions, by definition, do not exist here. A lawyer billing hourly would easily bill a six-figure sum in a typical class action case just to get through the class certification phase. Of course, such cases are not billed hourly precisely because the whole point of a class action is to allow the courts to aggregate a bunch of little claims to allow for a practical remedy for cases that would not be economically worthwhile to pursue separately. Thus, the class action vehicle requires that one or more "class representatives" appear in the action as named plaintiffs to represent the innumerable small claimants. But the claims of the class representatives have to be typical of the claims of the others, meaning that they are small claims as well. Because of this, no named plaintiff will be fronting hundreds of thousands in legal fees on behalf of the class and so, by definition, such cases are always done on contingency. That means that, for the lawyer, the case has to make sense as a business matter: it must involve the prospect of getting a recovery that will be large enough so that a 20% or 25% (or whatever percent) cut of such recovery will make the case attractive to the lawyer for the likely thousands of hours that will need to be poured into it (in cases where there is no money recovery, you still need defendants who, as part of a settlement, will be able to pay what is usually millions in fees to compensate the lawyers for their efforts in effecting the settlement). Of course, it is possible that a lawyer may be willing to take on the case, at substantial cost, just to get publicity or for some other non-monetary motive. That too would make little sense here. Class action lawyers are highly specialized and very busy. They will occasionally do something that is the equivalent of a loss leader but not in an area for which there is no long-term practice advantage. Since, for the reasons just mentioned, I don't see any long-term future for class action lawyers pursuing smallish claims over failed crowdfunding ventures, I can't see a lawyer doing it for that reason either.

To sum up: dubious liability, no deep-pocket defendant, a very small amount at stake, no economic or other normal motive for a lawyer to do this = no ingredients for federal class action.

Therefore (and conceding that I know little about the particulars here), I would imagine that the "class action preparation" here is mostly a rhetorical device by which to call out the promoter involved in this venture and, by the measure of those questioning his motives, to expose the fact that he allegedly took advantage of innocent backers in a way that went beyond the pale of what is legitimate. This may be a worthwhile debate but it will never see the light of day in a courtroom as a class action unless it defies all odds of how such cases work.