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Crowdfunder Slammed Over Playing Cards
In a first for donation-based crowdfunding, the creator of a Kickstarter campaign has been ordered by a state court to pay civil penalties, restitution, and court costs for failing to deliver products to his contributors. Edward J. Polchlopek, aka Ed Nash, and his company, Altius Management, have been ordered to pay a total of $54,851.29 for failure to deliver decks of ‘retro-horror themed’ playing cards.
Polchlopek successfully raised $25,146 on a $15,000 ask back in October 2012 for his crowdfunding campaign for Asylum Playing Cards. The campaign promised to ship contributors a single deck of the cards for a donation of $9 by December of the following year; however, it took until June 2015 before any contributors reported receiving their cards or any other rewards offered. Polchlopek also made no attempt to communicate with his contributors since July 2013. As a result, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit against Polchlopek and Altius Management under the state’s Consumer Protection Act in April 2014.
According to Ferguson, “Washington state will not tolerate crowdfunding theft. If you accept money from consumers, and don’t follow through on your obligations, my office will hold you accountable.”
Out of the 810 contributors to the campaign, 31 were from Washington. The $54,851.29 Polchlopek has been ordered to pay is based on $668 in restitution to those 31 contributors, $31,000 in civil penalties ($1,000 each), and $23,184 in court costs and fees. It should be noted here that court costs and fees accounted for about 42 percent of the fine.
The case against Polchlopek and Altius Management is considered to be the first to set a legislative precedent for crowdfunding theft, which according to Ferguson, will no longer be tolerated by Washington state. Ferguson has also encouraged affected contributors from other states to “file a complaint with their state attorney general to seek restitution,” so Polchlopek’s financial troubles may be far from over.
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He didn't have $15k to start with, now you expect him to come up with $54k. Let me know how that works out.
The criminal justice system and courts are as usual, nothing new to see here. Come down like the wrath of God on small time crooks, leave the billionaire crooks, who steal people's pensions and destroy US infrastructure untouched in their mansions in the Hamptons and LaJolla.
Fireman make 120k a year here. 24 on 48 hours off. Ping pong and chili cooking contests. My son in law is streets and San in a ritzy Chicago suburb. A buddy of his has been a fireman 8 years and never fought a house fire on duty. Plenty of car wrecks and an occasional drowning in suburban pool call. Pension with head to toe health care til death and firemans pensions are written into Illininois law and untouchable.
Remember too if you have to call the fire department for your house and you didn't have a fire extinguisher you are pretty much fucked. Like our friends in police department when you really need one in seconds they are just a dozen or more minutes away !
most of the ones on bainbridge are volunteer.
How long until his Kickstarter campain to fund the lawsuit?
Go for the free market solution. Just publicize his address and let people come beat the shit out of the loser.
If we had a free market "solution", then the angry mobs would overrun John Corzine's mansion in the Hamptons, chop him up and feed him to his guard dogs.
Judge comes down on this guy but John Corzine still lives in extreme lux.
Judge might come down on Corzine if someone had the balls to prosecute the fucker.
Lesson: People will crowd fund fucking anything.
Hookers and blo?
Oh yeah. Hookers wit big boobs!
How much did Bela Lugosi's estate make from these cards?
You can't have retro-horror cards without Bela as Dracula.
If this becomes a trend the whole crowd funding industry will collapse. I'm surprised that kickstarter wasn't included in the lawsuit since they profited off the scam as well.
Sounds like Don Federali DC needs to remind his Capo Washington State who is boss of dis here interstate commerce. Seems like the Don will want a sit down, and decide how dese crowdfundins will be skimmed.
it's the end of the world as we know it.....and I feel fine....
Does this work for 401K contributions in 'managed' funds?
According to Ferguson, “Washington state will not tolerate crowdfunding theft. If you accept money from consumers, and don’t follow through on your obligations, my office will hold you accountable.”
HAHAHAHA - I live in WA and I'm still waiting to see them sue the fucking teachers union for holding the kids hostage for not following their obligations. "It's all about the kids" the union and teachers say. If that is the case why are you not back in school? Every single item they differ on was resolved prior to the scheduled first day of class. The only thing they didnt agree on from prior to the first day of class and still to today is teacher pay. They want a 12.75% increase in pay over two years. The district has been offering a 9-10% over 3 years. They claim they have gotten no COLA for the last few years which is a complete lie. The city (seattle) voted to levy themselves to pay for COLA for the seattle district for the teachers. At least they are down from the 18% increase they wanted last week to be over 2 years. But... It's all about the kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ya know, If you want to argue that pay for teachers with engineering, chemistry, physics, and similar type degrees, need to be paid for because they aren't competitive I might be able to buy that. But the rates these guys make with most of them with a fucking history or liberal arts degree is just insane. 10 years gets you close to $70k salary for 9 months work. WTF? And you can never be fired unless you rape a kid. WTF?
Pay and benefits for unionized government workers has increased relentlessly over the years.
30 years ago the average private sector worker made more than the average cop or teacher and the trade off was that the government drones got more security.
But now teachers make $70,000 with rich benefits and cops make $100,000 with even richer benefits while the average guy in the private sector is lucky to get $35,000 and minimal benefits.
Hardly sustainable.
Always astounds me how out of touch people are. Yes, even you, Binko, who obviously has an interest in such things.
For example, 15 years ago, when the City of Vallejo declared bankruptcy, some of the problem was attributed to the fact that the average policeman there, just like every other cop, made $128,000 per year. You think cops wages have gone down since then?
About 20 years ago, some enterprising independent journalist wrote to the City of Huntington Beach asking for a list of city employees and the amount reported on box 4 of their [whatever it's called, their IRS thingie reporting income]. The city refused, but the paper he was writing for was owned by the Los Angeles Times, who, for some reason, took an interest and sued. The court said, "C'mon ... it's public record."
Easy to understand why the City was so reticent; viz., turns out there were 140 city employess making over $100,000 per year. Back in the mid 90's.
And it's only gotten rediculously worse since. Only difference is that others are starting to take notice, too.
I've been watching meetearl.com, an outdoor adventure tablet. I thought it might be a fraud, promised in Fall of 2013. Still nothing. Luckily I didn't do the crowdfunding. By now, the specs are behind average tablet.