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Plastc Swiped $9 Million From Backers, Now It Plans To File For Bankruptcy and Shut Down (theverge.com)
Plastc announced today that it is planning to file for bankruptcy and will shut down on April 20, 2017, after raising more than $9 million through preorders and shipping to no backers. "Plastc launched in 2014 with the promise of shipping a single card that could digitally hold 20 credit or debit cards that a user could switch between," reports The Verge. From the report: With that, all backers' money is lost, and no Plastc cards will ship. Plastc announced the news on its website today along with the fact that all its employees have been laid off. Its customer care and social media channels have also been shut down. The company explains that it thought it would close $3.5 million in funding in February this year, but that fell through. Another possible investment deal of $6.75 million fell through, too. What's not clear is how more than $9 million wasn't sufficient to get backers their orders. Backers will likely have questions and want their money back, but with no one to turn to from Plastc, they'll likely be out the cash.
The three types of suckers are investors, clients and workers. The most profitable form is to steal from all three and keep the fraud rolling along indefinitely. That is the fundamental model for the financial industry. All the top banks, investment houses, hedge funds, etc skim the wealth generated in the country and put it in their own pockets. That's, along with regressive taxes, underlies the ever increasing wealth disparity between rich and poor.
So what do you think will happen to the scam artists who pulled this off? Will they suffer any economic or reputational damage? No way. They all got out fat and happy, and their business reputation will be enhanced because of their successful raid on a gullible public. I expect they will get better positions with larger companies because of their proven track record of theft.
I expect no change, although it might get worse. I just wish they would stop calling it capitalism.
Why is Snark Required?
The chip does NOTHING in the USA except make the whole process take longer.
I agree with you, but just to clarify.
It's not the chip that makes the process take longer, it's the US regulation that comes with the US chip that makes the process take longer. And the American regulation requires that the chipped card checks the bank balance and do all the handshakes between multiple networks in real time before it allows the transaction to take place, hence the extra delay.
As opposed to Europe, where the European chipped card could work in a place with no phone reception and no network access, the balance would be kept on the card, and the balance would later be reconciled in a central ledger at the end of the day, or at the end of the week (I'm not sure which). But this of course made the card super fast to use.
In other words, let's say you have one thousand dollars in your checking account. In the US, a cloned card could effectively steal that $1,000 from you. But in Europe, let's say you have 1,000 Euros in your bank account, you make 1,000 clones, and you ask 1,000 criminals to all use the card at the same time by sending them the pin via text messages all at once, then it would mean that the bank could potentially lose 1,000,000 Euros by the time it adds up all the transactions of 1,000 Euros when it finally reconciles everything.
Of course, I'm skipping over some technical details, but that's basically the gist of it. Also, I should mention that it's much easier to crack one card in a couple of weeks and clone it 1,000 times than having to crack 1,000 separate cards to clone them once. And also, some chipped cards are allowed to be used without the pin, because not everything on a chipped card is encrypted, and that's ok for some businesses because they'll limit the amount of the transaction when the pin is not used, and also they can take other security measures, like video recording the person, or video recording the car of the person who used it, or something else entirely. And in the end, no system is perfect, and that's ok. A security system just needs to be difficult enough for criminals to crack and low reward enough to make the risk too high for most criminals to want to take.
I think you got one thing wrong. The "cool new ecosystem" was not ruined by 'parasitoids' it was ruined by a lack of accountability.
Look at the Skully-AR1 funding on Kickstarter. This was a product with genuine potential, had working prototypes etc.
It's not that the founders were running out of ideas or their project was jeoperdised by scope creep or the like. They were blatantly using the money they got from backer for buying cars, last minute flight tickets to vegas, hotels, strip clubs and when the product did not arrive and there were delays they eventually filed for bankruptcy and made excuses.
Look at the shit they bought on campaign backers' money:
Rent for the brothers' personal apartments in the Marina
Security deposits for an apartment in Dogpatch used by the Wellers
Weekly apartment cleanings
Personal grocery bills for the Wellers
All restaurant meals for the brothers
Mitchell Weller's Dodge Viper, which was claimed for insurance following an accident, as well as the new Viper purchased by the company to replace it
Check here -> https://www.buzzfeed.com/nitas...
On the back of that, at the time, I pulled out of a major indiegogo funding campaign because I no longer had faith in the model. When I signed up to to it it had a large "back out at any time" message on the page. After considering the matter of Skully I decided to back out and was confused as to how this is done from my backers page. I read the FAQ and it simply said that I go to my backers page and hit the "Refund order" button. So simple except THERE WAS NO REFUND button.
I asked and I was told that SOMETIMES there is no refund button and that funds have gone to the campaign owner. So I cannot get a refund from Indieggo because they do not have the money. I emailed the campaign owner and got no response for two months. As I had no other information to go on I researched the campaign, backer and related company and sent them letters threatening to sue as they are subject to EU law (Luckily because US law is really shit on these sort of things). After some haggling I got my funds -12% for various fees, 2% were to Indiegogo...and you know what I was lucky to get anything at all.
They have since clarified their refund policy further -> https://support.indiegogo.com/...
Simply do not believe ANYTHING a campaign page says. It might very well say "hassle free refund." but really should say "limited refund options occassionally available, terms and conditions apply. If you believed this was honest and bought based on that assumption you're a sucker hahahaha"
Now ask Skully-AR1 backers if they got anything yet? Helemt? Refund? An apology? - There is ZERO accountability.
We MUST convince Indiegogo and Kickstarter - basically crowd funding in general to do more.
Firstly I would like FULL DISCLOSURE expense reports of backers money. There is NO excuse not to let backers of your porject know how you spent their money.
Secondly I want the crowd funding site to review sufficiently large projects, say over $1 million with a third party registered accountant to check this is not all BS.
Lastly, for blatant misuse of funds amounting to fraud I would like for Kickstarter/Indiegogo to sue these people to the ends of the Earth on backers behalf. I will pay good money, more than my original investment to make sure fraudsters are dealt with as harshly as possible.
Without any safety checks and so on I tell you now I will never ever back any product that has not been released and review or a has a money back guarantee I can trust.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.