Shelly Palmer

Kickstarter to users: Backer beware

Kickstarter

The emergence of Kickstarter, the leader in the newish field of online crowd-funding, has been a paradigm-shifting boon for artists and other creators looking for a new way to bankroll projects that might otherwise never have happened. But as the popularity of the site, and others like Indiegogo, increases, users have been asking: What happens when I donate to a project but then the recipient never follows through? This week, the site said that while that rarely happens, there’s not much they can do about it when it does. “Kickstarter does not investigate a creator’s ability to complete their project.”