Let me add some background to this and why I posted the original link the other day (which got no interest interestingly enough which is a discussion in itself)

Let me add some background to this and why I posted the original link the other day (which got no interest interestingly enough which is a discussion in itself). (And yes I called it fraud in the headline I should have said "could have been fraud") http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3001326 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3001326 I had contacted Washington back in July and asked the following question: "Can I get a link to your credentials or your linkedin page? I'm ready to support this I'd just like to know more about your qualifications to do this particular project. Thanks." I didn't hear back so 4 days later I wrote again with the same exact question. The response I received was: "Thank you for your interest in our project. However, at this time, I am not a Linkedin user. I'm honestly not a fan of the site." To me (and this is important) given lack of other information on this project this was a red flag. The issue to me though with kickstarter is not this specific case and what Washington intended to do. He could have taken the money with good intentions to build the device and simply failed. And people would be out whatever money they put in. That's why I wrote to ask questions. Its obvious though that the "public" didn't think the same way and gave him money. Alternatively the fact is that it would have been fairly easy for Washington to do all the right things, collect money, and make off with that money very easily. Right things that might have even fooled me. It's not hard to come up with an identity. On linkedin as anyone who uses it now knows you can easily put up credentials and get people to be your contacts. You can easily put up a site you could even put up a site and make it appear that you run or work at an actual company. You could simply copy the website of a legitimate engineering company and change a few names and identifying information and make a convincing site. Now nothing about this is new of course you could have done this before kickstarter and defrauded people. It's just easier now. Part of the friction is gone. Kickstarter makes it easy to throw something out there and collect money. Collect a lot of money. We're not talking selling something on ebay with buyer protection and karma.