Talk of class-action
On the one hand, good! Fraudsters should be sued. But it seems to me that 99.9% of people have no clue how class action suits work. It comes up incessantly whenever a crowd funding project is in trouble.
In a traditional class action, a lawyer sues a well heeled client. The settlement is huge, the lawyer takes the lions share, and the defendants get a pittance, other than the original plaintiffs who get a better payout (but they also have to spent lots of time and possibly money on the suit themselves).
That's not going to ever happen with a crowd funding project creator, because even the largest crowd funding projects have a tiny tiny fraction of the money a traditional class action defendant has. Furthermore, the talk of class actions is usually because the project went sideways, meaning the money is usually or likely gone - so there's nothing for the lawyer to get.
The only way it could ever work is if the backers wanting to do a class action all chipped in money to pay the legal fees. Class actions are a lot of money, so you'd be taking about raising a few hundred thousand dollars, which is probably more than the original amount raised. Who would ever spend $100 to collect $50 when the $50 can never be collected because it's spent?
And class actions are civil suits - so if the defendant loses, his exposure is financial. Well, if the money is gone - there's nothing to pay. So the class doesn't even get the satisfaction of seeing the scammer go to jail.
It seems most people think saying they want to pursue a class action suit means they think someone else will do all the work and they will get a check for $0.73 cents a year from now. It doesn't work like that.
Not directed at you - just at the crowd funding people who talk of class actions.