List of Dodgy Crowd Source Funded Projects

[flapjackboy]

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/chargebite-a-social-charger

Well, at least these guys have working prototypes. Can't see the concept catching on though.

[rollatorwieltje]

Tell me how would that pass any sort of Energy Star certifications or even run on its fan when on standby.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d10470.pdf

Even a fake gas powered alarm clock managed to get a certificate.

[Keef Wivanef]

Why not charge your Iphone with a Wanko-Charger tm. patent pending
Simply attach the alligator clips and hi-power niobium magnets to your plonker and apply vigorous hand motion.
Send munny now 

[Winston]

Kickstarter is supposed to be a source for crowdfunding of new and, hopefully, innovative projects, not as a way for some individual to come up with the front money to make bulk purchases of already-existing Chinese hardware to sell at a profit to the ignorant:

Ultra-high capacity battery for mobile devices ($144,516 pledged of $25,000 goal)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/560071831/ultra-high-capacity-battery-for-mobile-devices?ref=card

This individual presented these battery packs of widely different styles (indicating different designers) which were undoubtedly already available from various Chinese manufacturers on alibaba.com as his own development at which point 2,461 clueless people who didn't know these sort of devices have been available for quite some time supported his "project."  All he actually was was nothing more than an eBay seller with people fronting the money to make his bulk purchases of already existing Chinese goods.  I mention this here in case he tries to pull something like this again.

[Keef Wivanef]

He's got the money.
They're still waiting for their batteries.
Nice one dude 

[John_Edward]

Kickstarter is supposed to be a source for crowdfunding of new and, hopefully, innovative projects, not as a way for some individual to come up with the front money to make bulk purchases of already-existing Chinese hardware to sell at a profit to the ignorant:

Ultra-high capacity battery for mobile devices ($144,516 pledged of $25,000 goal)

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/560071831/ultra-high-capacity-battery-for-mobile-devices?ref=card

This individual presented these battery packs of widely different styles (indicating different designers) which were undoubtedly already available from various Chinese manufacturers on alibaba.com as his own development at which point 2,461 clueless people who didn't know these sort of devices have been available for quite some time supported his "project."  All he actually was was nothing more than an eBay seller with people fronting the money to make his bulk purchases of already existing Chinese goods.  I mention this here in case he tries to pull something like this again.

Well, he does make up a fight though, as there is a long-ass post at the end of the FAQ where he claims to disprove the china-copy accusations.

TL;DR, he pretty much says that yes, the cases were designed by a Chinese company, but that they have 'our' one-of-a-kind charging circuit in them.
Best case scenario, if he is telling the truth?
He asked a Chinese manufacturer to make a USB charger with a circuit that he hired someone experienced to design just for him.
Not very kickstartery thing to be honest.

[cybergibbons]

The incoherent designs of the three different products really does look suspicious to me.

[snoopy]

Has anyone heard of these Lutec dudes ? They are still at it with their "free" energy contraption after 10 years. Somehow they still need to drive it from a power source and can't get it to run itself and provide that extra "free" energy at the same time. They obviously failed high school calculus which is what you need to calculate average power

Like PT Barnham said there is a sucker born every minute

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/08/10/121755_local-business-news.html

Engineers unveil Lutec 1000 free energy machine

Daniel Bateman

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

© The Cairns Post

THE world may soon be able to buy one of the Far North's most controversial yet revolutionary inventions.

The Cairns creators of the Lutec 1000 free energy machine have resurfaced after six years of steering clear of the public spotlight, having been granted patents in at least 60 countries around the world, including the US, China and India.

Engineers John Christie and Lou Brits, who have endured intense criticism after they first unveiled their invention in The Cairns Post in 2001, are now preparing to construct a prototype of their revolutionary power device they hope to market within the next two years.

The dynamic duo said they felt somewhat vindicated they had been able to land patents for their device and have had the Lutec verified by an independent engineer.

"When we first kicked off, there was a huge fuss about it and people said we’d never get patents for it," Mr Christie said.

"They said it would never work, so we couldn’t get patents, so it’s a good thing to see now."

The generator works as an energy amplifier, generating up to 10 times the amount of electricity it consumes.

The Lutec draws its power from a bank of batteries, with the motor turning due to powerful permanent magnets at its core being attracted and then repulsed from steel cores of fixed coils.

It does not work via perpetual motion, rather it relies on natural magnetic forces and a pulsed electrical input.

The results of the generator were verified by independent engineers from SGS Australia following a test earlier this year, which confirmed the energy output from the generator was indeed greater than its input.

Mr Christie said he and Mr Brits were currently working on a production prototype to suit the domestic market, which they hoped to produce locally.

"If we go with our plan now, there is no reason why it couldn’t be available in Australia in two years," he said.

The engineers’ invention has drawn the ire of many people over the years, including the Australian Sceptics Society.

Mr Christie said it had been a roller-coaster ride since they debuted their invention, involving occasional death threats and rumours of their untimely demise.

"Last year I was apparently killed in a hotel in north  Perth somewhere, according to the internet," Mr Christie said. "I was really quite  surprised."

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/10/28/lutecs-perpetual-mot.html

http://pesn.com/2011/08/16/9501896_Update_on_Lutec_and_Evergreen_Enterprise_International/

[TheEPROM9]

The point is if you really want to save money on the electric bill, just switch off the socket at the wall (UK), anywhere else. Unplug the device, or build an adapter that allows you to switch it off, plenty of power switches in old appliances.

This is related but no the same, One thing that makes me laugh when ever I see it is products such as TVs being advertised with "power saving switches". Yes because TVs have not had power switches since they were invented, the funny thing is that people actually buy into this crap.

[free_electron]

TL;DR, he pretty much says that yes, the cases were designed by a Chinese company, but that they have 'our' one-of-a-kind charging circuit in them.
Best case scenario, if he is telling the truth?
He asked a Chinese manufacturer to make a USB charger with a circuit that he hired someone experienced to design just for him.
Not very kickstartery thing to be honest.

so what? this guy has an idea , went to a chinese manufacturer , specified i want these battery packs ( maH wise) i want to charge it through mini-usb , i want 4 leds and a button that show how much juice ie remainign and i want these colors.
chinese factory does engineering work , builds proto. dude looks at it , mods it a bit so it is more to his liking, contracts another company to make paper box , contracts desgn company to make logo.

there is nothing wrong with that. just because he didn't etch his own board , or knows nothing about electronics means this is a fake. he just sources various bits , has written a specification of what it needs to do and found a manufacturing partner.

his last post shows the chinese truck loaded with boxes coming this way.

its no different than the makerbot guys. their first version they simply bought an arduino and slapped on some bits of wood and two motors. they had no clue how to make a pcb. they simply sourced something. worse. they even 'found' their software. it's all slapped together bits from other people.. even today...

it' also no different from sony ... you buy a lcd tv from sony , take the shell off and what do you find ? samsung... all the way. sony specs it , desings the case and packaging and has samsung mass produce the . the 'design' is sony as far as the livery and logo. they didn't even specifiy one resistor in the whole thing. samsung produces that model for sony and sony only.

this is what a lot of OEM's do. they design 50 different products all variations on a theme and they publish a catalog. proespective buyers pick a model and pay for the rights to make it their own. that particular model is then 'tweaked' in dress colors and sold under the buyers name.

Haier , Taepo and Minhwa are a wellknown manufacturer of such things. they have a massive catalog of products. first come first pick and its yours's. nobody else will get that exact model.
almost any LCD tv you buy from off-name brands (coby, magnavox, memorex , westinghouse and others ) are made by taepo. they have over a thousand models. but model 734 is exclusively licences to coby and will get the coby logo on it. nobody else can use model 734.  these catalogues are updated every year or every 6 months.

So this batterypack dude did the same. he went through the catalogue, picked three models he likes ,specced blue lcd's ( all these models can be finetuned with options. the option mix is your exclusivity ), psecced batterygauge, specced the cables that need be in the box. then he picked a packaging supplier , signed contracts , plonked down money and off we go. he did the legwork.

condemning for him would be like blasting away at a car dealer becasue 'he doesn't build the cars.. he gets them for a manufacturer, marks em up and then peddles em to the masses.  same stuff.

i know one thing. when that aluminum one hits the store shelves, i'm getting one.

[maiakaat]

When trying to cut the electricity bill we tried turning off every device not being used by removing the plugs from the socket, and it made NO difference at all on the electric reading.

[Keef Wivanef]

High capacity battery packs with usb are readily available from China and have been for several years.

http://tinyurl.com/d5tzaf5

What part of SCAM don't you understand?

[free_electron]

High capacity battery packs with usb are readily available from China and have been for several years.

http://tinyurl.com/d5tzaf5

What part of SCAM don't you understand?

And just what part of 'i buy cheap battery packs in china, put em in nice packaging, throw in a few cables , take care of importing them in bulk to get price down ,  take all the work out of the process so you don't have to deal with shady sites and add a markup for this work' is part of a SCAM ?

Anything sold in western stores sails under the above flag...

[Keef Wivanef]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/560071831/ultra-high-capacity-battery-for-mobile-devices?ref=card
Read the pitch
Read the comments and updates.

$150,000 raised and nothing delivered as yet.
Sharp business practice?
Scam?
 

[c4757p]

Why the hell is an "ultra-high capacity battery for mobile devices" even worth backing for people?? The batteries are rechargeable! I've never had a phone that didn't last me almost all day at least. Get better phones... 

[EEVblog]

Has anyone heard of these Lutec dudes ? They are still at it with their "free" energy contraption after 10 years. Somehow they still need to drive it from a power source and can't get it to run itself and provide that extra "free" energy at the same time. They obviously failed high school calculus which is what you need to calculate average power
Like PT Barnham said there is a sucker born every minute

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/08/10/121755_local-business-news.html

So, it's two years done the track, can I buy one? 
These Lutec guys have been pushing this forever it seems.

[snoopy]

Has anyone heard of these Lutec dudes ? They are still at it with their "free" energy contraption after 10 years. Somehow they still need to drive it from a power source and can't get it to run itself and provide that extra "free" energy at the same time. They obviously failed high school calculus which is what you need to calculate average power
Like PT Barnham said there is a sucker born every minute

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2010/08/10/121755_local-business-news.html

So, it's two years done the track, can I buy one? 
These Lutec guys have been pushing this forever it seems.

They claim to have patents in 60 countries so it must work except they can't seem to demonstrate it powering itself which is the true test of any of these claims. Why do they keep wanting money for if they claim it works ? If something like this worked as they claimed, it would easily sell itself in much the same way as a battery that never went flat !! The BS meter is working over time with these dudes 

There's a whole webpage devoted to their crap. http://www.rexresearch.com/christie/christie.htm#challenge

[Skimask]

When trying to cut the electricity bill we tried turning off every device not being used by removing the plugs from the socket, and it made NO difference at all on the electric reading.

Just maybe all of those devices you turned off and/or unplugged, had a negligible draw while idle or in standby mode...
And the last time I checked, most electric meters don't have a sub-unit resolution (e.g. won't indicate .1 or .01 kWh).
So, for example, let's unplug 20 devices, each of which draws 1 watt in idle/standby, all the time, 24/7...
1 W * 24 hours  * 31 Days = 744 WH = .744kWh.
In my area, that comes out to $.08USD.

Scale it up a bit...
50 devices, each drawing 5 watts in standby...
250 W * 24 H * 31 D = 186,000 WH = 186 kWh.  Again, @ $.11USD/kWh, comes out to about $20.46USD.

Can you really make a good call as to whether or not unplugging all those devices for a month can save you any money?
Is anybody's electrical usage bill that constant over time (and changing seasons) that they'll see a measurable, noticeable difference without some well thought out analysis and number gathering?
Me thinks not...

[free_electron]

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/560071831/ultra-high-capacity-battery-for-mobile-devices?ref=card
Read the pitch
Read the comments and updates.

$150,000 raised and nothing delivered as yet.
Sharp business practice?
Scam?
 

his timeline says delivery mid may. his last post from a few days ago shows a chinese truck full of cardboard boxes with his product on its way to the harbour ... so he's still on track.
as for the pitch . i understand from the pitch that it;s a box with a rechargeable battery in it that can be used as a powersource to recharge your phone. ideal as a mobile powerpack if you are going on a multiday hike where there are no poweroutlets around. you can recharge your gps , cellphone or whatever. ideal for devices with non-removable batteries as an extrnal mobile powerpack.

it's no more or less than that and he doesn;t make any claims beyond that either. it has a fancy charge status bargraph that tells you how full it is , comes in 3 capacities and the unit itself can be charged from a standard usb port allowing you to charge it from a desktop computer or a usb wall-wart.

i don't see what is wrong with this. it's in the same leage as that bearded dued trying to pitch his newest super shammy or silicone burger spatula or kaboom cleaner on tv.
he has a product idea. he will have em made according to his specs , cables thrown in as well as a carrying pouch , packaged , and will import them . he takes care of everything.
in order not to shell out a ton of money he basically takes pre-orders. anyone signing up through kickstarter basically buys one. he collects the orders and place the bulk order in china. once they arrive in us he sends them out to the end buyer. he pockets a markup for his work.

so again : where is the SCAM ? it's only a scam if you pocket the money and deliver nothing.

the fact that there are other power banks ( i vaguely remeber having seen something lableled 'power  bank' already . i believe energizer ) does not preclude this one.
after all there are already 500 other cleaners , burger spatulas made from non stick silicone, tomato slicers or super absorbent synthetic towels.

[metalphreak]

How much of a percentage do indiegogo and kickstarter take from pledged payments?

What stops someone funding half of the required target themselves to make it appear as if there is big interest? They don't have much to lose since all the money will be going back to themselves anyway... I have seen a few where there are no pledges except one overly-enthusiastic individual who also posts comments.

[elgonzo]

How much of a percentage do indiegogo and kickstarter take from pledged payments?

Indigogo: http://www.indiegogo.com/how-pricing-works-on-indiegogo
Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/start (look for "What fees does Kickstarter charge?")

What stops someone funding half of the required target themselves to make it appear as if there is big interest? They don't have much to lose since all the money will be going back to themselves anyway... I have seen a few where there are no pledges except one overly-enthusiastic individual who also posts comments.

Nothing stops them. While potential con artists don't risk paying fees on Kickstarter if their con game doesn't play out, the involved fees are probably not much of an issue for a professional con. Their concerns are likely more about executing a convincing (faux) campaign than about the involved fees...

EDIT: And executing a Kickstarter campaign means to have a demonstratable(?) prototype, which creating can be a significant cost factor and requiring expertise the con artist doesn't have. So, although Kickstarter does not charge fees in case funding goals are not met, Kickstarter won't be easy-peasy for con artists -- in most cases it would presumably be more difficult than Indigogo...

[Rasz]

he has a product idea. he will have em made according to his specs

His product idea was being sold on dealextreme 2 years ago, probably in same case with same electronics

[GermanMarkus]

What do you think about this one: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/retrievor-the-complete-gps-tracking-retrieving-solution? I think it´s a scam. They were always talking about the GPS module and there is no information at all how the GPS positioning signal will be transferred (online?) to any receiving device. So at least the GPS module has to be connected to any 3G transceiving device to transmit the actual positioning data to a mobile phone or central positioning station via SMS or other message service. They also claim "Using satelites orbiting the earth to keep track of your RETRIEVOR is an expensive business, which means there is a $5.95 monthly subscription fee for your first RETRIEVOR." Isn´t that complete bullshit? - for me it is! And all the comments seem to be erased.
For me also it seems that in indiegogo there are a lot more scams than in kickstarter. Anyway, my problem is that I´m living in Germany and it seems a lot more easy to me to set a project in indiegogo than in kickstarter, because in kickstarter I need some "friend" in the US or UK.

Best regards, Markus

[Keef Wivanef]

Similar GPS trackers are available for purchase
http://www.dhgate.com/hot-sale-mini-personal-tracker-for-pet-kids/p-ff8080813d66b868013d6cdc125872a0.html#s1-2-1

The "artists impressions" of the proposed Retreivor make it look very desirable.
It's a whole lot smaller than the real world models that you can buy at Aldis or on Ebay.
Always a good trick that.... it sounds nice....people will WANT to believe in it.

But wait.... here's another one...  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/trax-gps-tracker/trax-gps-tracker-for-children-and-pets

Sounds almost Too Good To Be True!

I wonder how the kickstarter campaign is going

"Amit Shivkumar 7 days ago
Hi All at the TRAX team.
Just wondering if there has been any updates. Less than a month for the deliveries to start !!!
Very keen to get my hands on these gadgets."


The idiegogo version has had all the comments removed. The updates are enlightening though!

RETRIEVOR Development Team posted an announcement 9 days ago
AS already mentioned, we will re-launch a second campaign once this one has run it’s course. We feel that the campaign video and the project page design needs to be of a better standard for our follow on campaign, so we will be calling in help to sort this out for us.

As stated earlier, as a gesture of goodwill to those who have supported us from the beginning with this campaign, we will not be offering the $129 early bird perk on our follow on campaign. The early bird pricing will start at $149 ($30 less than our expected RRP)

What's that horrible ratty smell?
 

[flapjackboy]

SUMPOD 3D printer. http://www.indiegogo.com/individuals/164862/campaigns

This guy has 7 campaigns going concurrently, 4 of which are for the same product!

My bullshit meter is going off the scale with this one.