Various news publications picked on the story and warned their readers about the possibility of a grand-scale scam. WeTag claimed they did not release answers to some obvious questions in their effort to protect its patented technology thus it refused to explain how “the world’s first battery-free item locating tag” was supposed to work. Unsuspecting KickStarter backers thought this was an OK-ish excuse and did not give it a second thought.
KickStarter analysed the case however and decided to suspend the campaign before WeFind got their hands on the already pledged money. The following message was sent to all the affected backers: “Hello,
This is a message from Kickstarter’s Trust & Safety team. We’re writing to notify you that the iFind – The World’s First Battery-Free Item Locating Tag project has been suspended, and your $40.00 USD pledge has been cancelled. A review of the project uncovered evidence of one or more violations of Kickstarter’s rules, which include:
A related party posing as an independent, supportive party in project comments or elsewhere
Misrepresenting support by pledging to your own project
Misrepresenting or failing to disclose relevant facts about the project or its creator
Providing inaccurate or incomplete user information to Kickstarter or one of our partners
Accordingly, all funding has been stopped and backers will not be charged for their pledges.
No further action is required on your part. “
WeTag defended itself against the claims and insisted their project was not a scam. They declared a new crowd-funding campaign will not be started again because of the “negative publicity” formed around their product.
