3D printing allows for the potential reproduction of exact replicas of existing objects, a concept that has large brand names shaking in fear of having their IP stolen. But it’s not often that a crowdfunding campaign, a vehicle frequently used to launch 3D printing start-ups, is stolen as an attempt to deceive the community out of hard-earned dollars. This is exactly what happened to NEA 3D, the Ontario-based start-up gearing up for the launch of their own crowdfunding campaign next week. While NEA 3D will be unveiling their Indiegogo campaign on May 6th, you can find a cheap knock-off of their campaign on Kickstarter right now.
The Kickstarter campaign for NEA 3D isn’t the real deal, but it looks pretty close. The page is complete with descriptions, pictures, and videos of all of the NEA 3D printers. You might recognize some of the text from previous articles that I wrote myself, such as: “The NEA family is everything you expect from a Golidlocks fairytale: a baby, momma, and poppa bear.” Other text, however, you might recognize from the TIKO 3D campaign, like “Lastly, there is NEA’s liquefier assembly. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the only liquefier in the world that can extrude PLA without active cooling—and in an enclosed space at that.” Still other text, I’m not sure you’d recognize from anywhere, like, “Be a and save Early Bird and save BIG!!!”
In addition to the hodge-podge of text, another means of distinguishing the forgery from the reality is the pricing listed for the printer. The NEA Mini is listed on the false campaign with an early bird price of $99, while the Pro is offered at $300 and the Pro+ at $500. For the upcoming NEA Indiegogo campaign, however, the prices are listed below.
Luckily for the 46 backers, who contributed a total of $4,904 to the $500,000 campaign in just a few hours, it has been cancelled. This means that they’ll all get to hang onto their contributions. And, because the campaign has been shut down, things aren’t so bad for NEA 3D, either, as it demonstrated interest in their products, even if it was forgery. William Chang, CEO of NEA 3D tells me, “What it did do was give us some awareness from the Kickstarter community. The community members were great there, and were the ones that alerted us to the fraud that was taking place. So, it turned out to be okay in the end.”
Team members behind this groundbreaking deception are listed on the “campaign” page as follows: “Donny Mackenzie (Marketing 12 years) Has a team of 8, Bridget Lockets (Manufacturing 6 years) Has a team of 12, Me (Marketing 3 years, Managing 6 years, Engineer 2 years).” Obviously aliases, I’ve contacted Kickstarter to see if there might be any way to discover who is behind the false campaign and am waiting to hear back. I’m not sure how the fraudsters could have gotten so far into Kickstarter’s (supposedly) closely monitored quality control process, one of the benefits the crowdfunding site boasts over Indiegogo.
The TIKO 3D campaign, which sold its 3D printer at an early bird price of $149, was able exceed its goal in less than an hour. Had the NEA simulacrum done the same, it’s possible that the scammers behind the campaign could have gotten away with more than $500,000. In that case, we don’t know how long it would take to actually turn the funds into liquid cash, but what this proves is that the community responds quickly to such matters, so, hopefully, such blatant forgeries don’t survive long enough to hurt the trusting public.
This isn’t the first time that such a forgery has happened. In fact, an almost identical situation happened with Pirate3D in July of 2013. The massively successful Pirate3D Kickstarter campaign was able to raise almost $1.5 million for its desktop 3D printer and, as it was doing so, an identical campaign (text, photos, and all) launched on Indiegogo. Again, this campaign was stopped in its tracks, unfortunately, leaving Pirate3D to sail onward, to the ultimate chagrin of its backers who have had to deal with shipment delays, disappointing products, and lack of refunds. Both the fake scam of this “NEA 3D” Kickstarter and the real scam of Pirate3D indicate a new venue for Internet scamming resembling the penny stock scams you might find on the pink sheets.
Chang gives me his reaction to the false campaign, “Yeah, it was really crazy and unexpected. We live in such interesting times and you almost have to learn to expect the unexpected. We are extremely grateful to the community for alerting us to this situation, and extremely happy that it was dealt with as swiftly as possible.” He adds, “Honestly, as much work and effort that our team is putting into this launch, it’s nothing compared to the possibility of people getting duped out of their hard earned money.”
Now that the fake NEA 3D campaign has been stopped, we can await the authentic campaign, which will launch May 6th. Before then, there is still a pre-order page that will open up ahead of the campaign, giving 100 backers of each of NEA 3D’s three models (a total of 300) the ability to order the printer at 50% reduced early bird prices. Barring scammers, simulacra, and obstacles, the VIP pre-order will go live 24 hours before the actual campaign. Be there or be… cubed?
