Haven't had much to report so pardon the lack of updates.
Just checked on other Kickstarter projects and I'm seeing a significant up tick in delayed/failed projects where funding goals are met but products never ship and the firms go dark with no responses, emails, updates (sound familiar?).
One of the main differences I see is that BrewBot collected thousands from backers and most of the others are in the few hundred down to fifty dollars.
In all cases, Kickstarter hides behind their ToS claiming no foul on their part and redirect blame out to the project with no accountability and no apparent concern for these potential fraudulent projects.
Add in the international component and it becomes very difficult and costly to pursue prosecution and/or recovery. Maybe we need a good non-profit law enforcement/legal team to take up this cause. I'm sure this is not just a Kickstarter issue and likely is observed across most/all of the other crowdfunding platforms too.
Full disclosure: I have backed 12 projects on Kickstarter for a total of about $3,500 USD. Of those, I received a partial refund on BrewBot directly from Chris, successfully canceled and was refunded $100 for a failure to deliver on a project, received my product on 6 (50% fulfillment!), and am still waiting to see if I receive anything for the remainder of my backed projects although all have missed their delivery dates by over a year. I have not, and will not back any future projects via these type of funding paths.
