Wasted $200 on a lawn irrigation kickstarter that never shipped

I backed this smart sprinkler system on Kickstarter last March that promised to cut my water bill in half, and after 11 months of delays they finally admitted they ran out of money. No refunds, no product, just a generic email saying sorry. Has anyone else gotten burned by a crowdfunded home gadget and actually gotten their money back?

2 comments

2 Comments

lunashah16d ago

Used to think Kickstarter was a safe bet for cool new home stuff because bigger projects seemed more legit. Then my smart thermostat campaign folded after taking everyone's money with the same excuse, and I realized there's zero protection for backers once they cash out. Never putting more than $50 into these again, learned that lesson the hard way.

oscarh1616d ago

Man I've seen this exact thing happen to a buddy of mine @lunashah. He backed this fancy kitchen gadget that was supposed to chop veggies and store them automatically, looked super professional with all these demo videos. They raised like half a million dollars and then just disappeared after a year of "production delays" and "supply chain issues." He lost about 200 bucks on that one and now he won't even look at Kickstarter anymore. The worst part is there's really no way to get your money back when these projects fail, they just close up shop and move on. I stick to backing stuff under 30 bucks now if I even bother at all, learned from watching him get burned.