One miiiilllliiiooon dollars!

[mach1.9pants]

My point was the other way around, if the creator does a runner/fails to complete the project with your money there is no come back. You cannot 'not pay' if you pledged after the kickstarter has gone live because it comes straight off you credit card the instant it goes live (unless your CC is maxed I guess and the transaction fails)

 

[wedgeski]

My point was the other way around, if the creator does a runner/fails to complete the project with your money there is no come back. You cannot 'not pay' if you pledged after the kickstarter has gone live because it comes straight off you credit card the instant it goes live (unless your CC is maxed I guess and the transaction fails)

This is true, the trust goes both ways. We give the fundraiser money on little more than a promise, which is why you should never pledge more than you would give as a gift with no guarantee of a tangible reward.

Kickstarters of this magnitude do make me nervous, as I dread the inevitable day that a major class-action lawsuit is filed against a project that under-delivers, either because the project managers woefully mis-calculated the money they would need, or because some other real-life problem got in the way. I hope Kickstarter's legal footing is rock solid.

Anyways, enough of the doom and gloom, OOTS ROCKS OH YEAH!

 

[Rogue Agent]

This is true, the trust goes both ways. We give the fundraiser money on little more than a promise, which is why you should never pledge more than you would give as a gift with no guarantee of a tangible reward.

Not really. AFAICT, from a legal standpoint, backing a Kickstarter project is no different than preordering a product. Last time I reviewed their terms of service, Kickstarter was very careful to make sure they weren't "caught in the middle"; but the creator of the project is still legally obligated to deliver what they promised.

 

[prosfilaes]

Not really. AFAICT, from a legal standpoint, backing a Kickstarter project is no different than preordering a product. Last time I reviewed their terms of service, Kickstarter was very careful to make sure they weren't "caught in the middle"; but the creator of the project is still legally obligated to deliver what they promised.

I won't argue about a legal perspective. However, when you preorder a product, you usually do it from a known company that either have the product already at the printers or at least have a history of completing stuff (and if they miss deadlines, you know.) They've got reputations to uphold, and can't trivially walk out them.

When I put up 50 dollars for some guy's book, if he takes the money and runs, then what? There's a lot of legal theorizing I can do, but it's non-trivial to find him and haul him into court; it's a lot easier to write him off as a con-artist (or someone who bit off more then he chew) and walk away from the whole thing.

I've never found or heard of much problem with Kickstarters. I'm comfortable pledging money on there. But as I write this post, I have to wonder why; Kickstarter, as far as I know, provides no support for bad sellers, so it's like Ebay (without ratings or any support Ebay provides) or a random seller on the Internet.