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Indiegogo in particular is super sketchy, I did a campaign with them and they had an employee there contacting me and telling me all the shady stuff they can do

Indiegogo in particular is super sketchy, I did a campaign with them and they had an employee there contacting me and telling me all the shady stuff they can do to help me be successful and if that I can guarantee I'll raise x amount they'll do all these extra things like put it on the front page and in the newsletter and whatnot. They let you extend campaigns forever if you arne't about to hit your goal so you can keep saying "ending soon", then if you do hit your goal, instead of ending, they will let you keep it open to ride the momentum of that, or they will then let you up (or down) the goal and change the date so you can keep catching people who want to just be able to get it, or who want to pile on to a super successful project whose goal is now 1/10 of the original so it looks even more legit. You can also back your own stuff anonymously for as high as you want, so often you'll see campaigns with like $1MM and only like 20 backers and most are anonymous or not listed and you know obviously 20 people couldn't have legitimately backed for that much. I can't recall a lot of the other stuff you could get away with, including have no proof of concepts and just using renders and being fully funded already and such, but I had to unsubscribe from their emails it was so disgusting. You can tell if you look at their site overtime which kinds of things just stay up forever or how they instantly are over the goal and whatnot. One item stayed up for like 8 months, constantly over the goal.

talltimtom 8y ago
“all the shady stuff ... things like put it on the front page and in the newsletter and whatnot.” I really don’t get how you could consider them helping to promote popular campaigns shady. I mean it’s the very point of the entire platform, and how both they and their users and the backers of projects gain value.
- csbrooks 8y ago
  All the stuff he describes after that does sound really shady to me, though. Yuck.
  - rococode 8y ago
    Especially the "you can anonymously back yourself for as much as you want". That sounds like fraud to me...
interesthrow2 8y ago
Well, what do you expect? the more money you raise, the more money they earn. Kickstarter isn't better, they allow campaigns to put a staffpick logo in their description even though there was no staffer picking that campaign. They are both as scummy IMHO. https://petapixel.com/2018/10/17/if-you-backed-a-meyer-optik-gorlitz-on-kickstarter-your-money-is-gone/ https://petapixel.com/2018/10/17/if-you-backed-a-meyer-optik... They allowed the same business to run multiple campaigns concurrently, opening new ones when the old ones were not even fulfilled. Turns out these scammers were using new funds to fulfill old campaigns and since a ponzi scheme always collapses... I could go on and on like this with Kickstarter. I studied their business model a bit, and came to the conclusion that these businesses are actually B2B with the appearance of B2C. These are marketing platforms,selling marketing services to you, paid by fees and the client is you, the project creator, not the backer since they successfully claimed they have zero contractual obligations toward backers. But backers are still billed by Kickstarter, at no point the project creator issues a bill or is forced to issue one. This is extremely clever from a legal perspective and it is what sets them apart from ebay and likes. But what are backers billed for then? that's the most interesting question, they they are not billed for the good they "backed"...
jen729w 8y ago
Funnily enough just this morning my inbox has this: --- From: Indiegogo Subject: Your Indiegogo Innovation Award Hi there! We're excited to inform you that your project is eligible to receive an Indiegogo Innovation Award this January! To honor your crowdfunding achievements, we cordially invite you to reserve your award, available for pick-up at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Our theme at this year's CES is "Indiegogo Means Business," and your campaign is proof that creative ideas indeed grow into successful businesses with Indiegogo. As only 100 entrepreneurs will receive this gift, we hope you enjoy it as much as the Indiegogo community has enjoyed your ingenious ideas. Thank you for being a pivotal part of Indiegogo! --- I have never run a campaign on Indiegogo.
- avian 8y ago
  Same here. It must have been sent out to everyone with an account.
nickelcitymario 8y ago
This is fascinating. I, too, had a weird experience with Indiegogo. I was raising funds for a project, it was going OK (not great but OK... I had two or three backers after a few days), it was climbing the ranks of active projects, and then suddenly it disappeared from the search results entirely. It wasn't a slow descent into irrelevance; it was sudden and total. Multiple emails and phone calls to Indiegogo resulted in zero response from them. The project close, the funding was sent to me, and I had to manually refund my few backers because I couldn't possibly fulfill their expectation with so few supporters and so little money. I suspected foul play but had no proof. Now I'm thinking this is much more wide spread than I ever realized. Lesson learned.

talltimtom 8y ago

“all the shady stuff ... things like put it on the front page and in the newsletter and whatnot.” I really don’t get how you could consider them helping to promote popular campaigns shady. I mean it’s the very point of the entire platform, and how both they and their users and the backers of projects gain value.

csbrooks 8y ago
All the stuff he describes after that does sound really shady to me, though. Yuck.
- rococode 8y ago
  Especially the "you can anonymously back yourself for as much as you want". That sounds like fraud to me...

interesthrow2 8y ago

Well, what do you expect? the more money you raise, the more money they earn. Kickstarter isn't better, they allow campaigns to put a staffpick logo in their description even though there was no staffer picking that campaign. They are both as scummy IMHO. https://petapixel.com/2018/10/17/if-you-backed-a-meyer-optik-gorlitz-on-kickstarter-your-money-is-gone/ https://petapixel.com/2018/10/17/if-you-backed-a-meyer-optik... They allowed the same business to run multiple campaigns concurrently, opening new ones when the old ones were not even fulfilled. Turns out these scammers were using new funds to fulfill old campaigns and since a ponzi scheme always collapses... I could go on and on like this with Kickstarter. I studied their business model a bit, and came to the conclusion that these businesses are actually B2B with the appearance of B2C. These are marketing platforms,selling marketing services to you, paid by fees and the client is you, the project creator, not the backer since they successfully claimed they have zero contractual obligations toward backers. But backers are still billed by Kickstarter, at no point the project creator issues a bill or is forced to issue one. This is extremely clever from a legal perspective and it is what sets them apart from ebay and likes. But what are backers billed for then? that's the most interesting question, they they are not billed for the good they "backed"...

jen729w 8y ago

Funnily enough just this morning my inbox has this: --- From: Indiegogo Subject: Your Indiegogo Innovation Award Hi there! We're excited to inform you that your project is eligible to receive an Indiegogo Innovation Award this January! To honor your crowdfunding achievements, we cordially invite you to reserve your award, available for pick-up at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Our theme at this year's CES is "Indiegogo Means Business," and your campaign is proof that creative ideas indeed grow into successful businesses with Indiegogo. As only 100 entrepreneurs will receive this gift, we hope you enjoy it as much as the Indiegogo community has enjoyed your ingenious ideas. Thank you for being a pivotal part of Indiegogo! --- I have never run a campaign on Indiegogo.

avian 8y ago
Same here. It must have been sent out to everyone with an account.

nickelcitymario 8y ago

This is fascinating. I, too, had a weird experience with Indiegogo. I was raising funds for a project, it was going OK (not great but OK... I had two or three backers after a few days), it was climbing the ranks of active projects, and then suddenly it disappeared from the search results entirely. It wasn't a slow descent into irrelevance; it was sudden and total. Multiple emails and phone calls to Indiegogo resulted in zero response from them. The project close, the funding was sent to me, and I had to manually refund my few backers because I couldn't possibly fulfill their expectation with so few supporters and so little money. I suspected foul play but had no proof. Now I'm thinking this is much more wide spread than I ever realized. Lesson learned.