"Court Orders Restitution in 1st Ever Kickstarter Judgment" Topic
13 Posts
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Mako11 | 05 Oct 2015 11:04 p.m. PST |
Looks like Washington State has weighed in, bigtime, with a first ever ruling against a delayed Kickstarter program: link Hopefully, this will put others on notice, like Ken Whitman, that they can't get away with continuing to mismanage, and/or not deliver on their Kickstarter campaign promises. notanotherdime.blogspot.com dontfundkenwhitman.blogspot.com They have rather catchy names, like "dontfundkenwhitman", and "notanotherdime" (for Ken Whitman). You can read more info on some of the blogs, in the sidebars, too. Ken has allegedly had a bad streak of running various ventures, over the course of the last 20 years, and is involved with six failed Kickstarter programs, and a number of other direct sales ventures through his LLC, D20 Entertainment. There, he's sold a lot of resin and metal, Traveller Spaceships to people, but has allegedly not delivered on most of those to many of his customers. I, for one, paid for some almost four months ago, and have yet to receive anything from him, including even an e-mail response to my inquiries about my purchase. There's been a lot of talk about these "failures" of late in the news, and there are at least two blogs solely devoted to informing others about his alleged failures, so that people don't lose more money to the guy, and his "company". Here's a link to just one of his six allegedly, failed Kickstarters – Knights of the Dinner Table: link |
Mako11 | 05 Oct 2015 11:47 p.m. PST |
Note – D20 Entertainment currently has two items for sale on their website. One for $49 USD, and another for $250. USD Both appear to be books related to the Knights of the Dinner Table. Given the above alleged Kickstarter failures/scams, I recommend extreme caution in purchasing any of them either. The Limited Edition and Unpainted Resin Traveller Spaceships have been de-listed from the D20 Entertainment, LLC site, which doesn't bode well for people that purchased those, I suspect, or the planned 20 different resin, Traveller vessels that were to be made available for sale this year. |
Murphy | 06 Oct 2015 4:29 a.m. PST |
Mako, the KOTDLAS was a complete mess. I was pretty much reading about it, and one the lines with this one, and to say that well "it's a mess" is pretty much an understatement. It was outright complete fraud (IMHO), conducted by someone who knows how to "talk the talk". The fact that there was so much private support that stepped in to form the after party at Gencon, showed how much people believed in the product. Whitman is a fraud and a huckster plain and simple. |
surdu2005 | 06 Oct 2015 5:01 a.m. PST |
Perhaps this means I might someday get the Baker Company Winter War Kickstarter I paid for a long time ago. Not only have the figures never arrived, but Gavin has stopped responding to my Emails. |
Mike Bravo Miniatures | 06 Oct 2015 5:16 a.m. PST |
Surdu, have you checked out their KS page recently? Gavin has popped up recently. Still seems to be trying to fulfill what we all knew was an over generous set of freebies. The bloke must have lost a small fortune trying to fulfill this one. |
Thomas Nissvik | 06 Oct 2015 5:43 a.m. PST |
Yep, this will not affect Baker since they are simply out of money, there is none to be taken. Gav is still working through it, though. We made a deal to trade in a lot of metal for a lot of resin vehicles (cheaper material and production for Gav, more use for us) about a month ago and I got a bunch of trucks ad stuff. Contact him again, he is trying. As for Battlefront and Dust Studios on the other hand, who are both doing well and simply playing the blame game as the backers of the Dust Babylon KS sit and wait, they should be paying attention to this. They have funds that can be taken. link |
clibinarium | 06 Oct 2015 7:16 a.m. PST |
Note that in the story in the original post the Washington court entered judgement in default, and the defendant did not enter an appearance; this is what happens when the defendant ignores the court and doesn't try to contest the matter. If he had it may not have been so straightforward. That said the judgement sets out some of the circumstances in which the creator of a kickstarter campaign can be sued (in Washington at least). |
Darkest Star Games | 06 Oct 2015 7:55 a.m. PST |
I was freaking out when the DSG kickstarter sent it's last box out 2 weeks late (we had a lot more casting than expected), but was told by backers how "refreshing" it was for a KS to actually deliver. I couldn't understand a successful KS NOT delivering. is wrong with people… I really think it would behoove Kickstarter and other crowd funding places to not allow any funding drive to go forward if it involves a company or individual that has an unfulfilled KS program. That would stop the slew of groups that have 3 or 4 KS per year, and haven't yet delivered a single one, or the comapnies that use it as a business model. |
Mako11 | 06 Oct 2015 10:43 a.m. PST |
I agree, in the case of Whitman, from everything I'm reading, in my opinion it does appear that all of his projects seem to be complete frauds, especially since he's had six of them in rapid-fire release of late. $180,000 USD – $300,000 USD in "sales" is nothing to sneeze at. Seems he's been doing this for 20 years, or so, based upon the comments from others. I'm really surprised he's not in jail for wirefraud, but the justice system can be overly lenient frequently. Given all the money it appears he's allegedly defrauded from people, he certainly should get some time off to spend in the "big house". If so, I hope they keep him away from their computers. |
Murphy | 06 Oct 2015 11:22 a.m. PST |
Mako, IIRC, D20 Entertainment and Mr. Whitman have been banned from running any more kickstarters. One day you and I shall have to have a beer together and I'll tell you what I know and what all went down at Gencon this year…. |
Mako11 | 06 Oct 2015 12:02 p.m. PST |
That is good news, Murphy. I'd love to hear about that, when/if you have the time. I've read a bit about some other "debuts" which didn't happen as well, on-line. Surprised he isn't in jail. Now, if we can just get Marc Miller to pull his licensing for Traveller, due to alleged fraud, etc., perhaps at least he will have difficulty running similar scams on others. Surely, there must be some sort of clause in the contract to cover that. If not, I hope there will be in the future, assuming there ever are similar programs. I've raised the issue on the Citizens of the Imperium (CotI) website, and someone responded that Marc is at least aware of the situation. Not sure if he will do anything to attempt to help rectify it, but Ken Whitman is sure damaging the Traveller brand with his non-performance on the Spaceship minis, and apparently the Spinward Marches Kickstarter too. I suspect of course, this means Ken will be popping up on IndieGoGo, GoFundMe, etc., etc., so people will have to watch out for him there as well. |
ced1106 | 08 Oct 2015 6:06 a.m. PST |
> Hopefully, this will put others on notice I don't think so. Most articles about the Washington DA don't tell you that the creator (who originally started the project but couldn't KS it because he resided in country ineligible for KS) worked with a lawyer backer who worked pro bono to gather evidence. I don't think there are enough KS projects to make a solid conclusion, but the ones I've seen where the KS creator faced litigation involved a lawyer backer working for free. The Doom that Came to Atlantic City was, imo, a slap on the wrist. The creator settled with the FTC and promised not to run another business. Backers did not receive compensation. Yeah, *that's* sending a message. Any news on ADW Games?? |
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