[Writer Post] How I Was Ripped Off
It’s Wednesday. Time for a blog post. Whee… So I checked out a meme on Facebook a few weeks back – how will you die based on your Meyers-Briggs personality test. Mine sounds about right – ESFJ, dies by telling the wrong secret to the wrong person. Yep. I can see that. It’s not that I go out intending to blab secrets just sometimes being a storyteller it just happens. And sometimes it’s a situation where the ‘the story needs tellin’…” (kinda like the “just needed killin'” defense).
It’s time to tell one of those stories. I’ve mentioned in the past that I was ripped off by a Kickstarter project. Out of deference to people who know this person and the “benefit of the doubt” good person in me, I’ve put off point fingers and naming names. I’m done with that. Yes, I realize Kickstarter is a risk. But this is completely different this was a scam from the beginning, and I got sucked in. This is a project specific thing not a sweeping condemnation of crowdsourcing – just to be clear.
About a year ago I backed a simple little Kickstarter because it would be a fun promotional thing for my writing stuff. I had the creator on Facebook. We had tons of people in common. So I started out with a minimal investment – that after a discussion with Jimmy was bumped up to a bigger investment. The project was a thing called “Pencil Dice” – it’s a wooden pencil with monogramming and pips on the six sides that you can “roll” in a game. It was cheesy and funny and we thought they’d be a good thing to give out at conventions. So we bought in at a storefront level for like a 1000 pencils for $250. This thing blew through stretch goals like nobody’s business. The updates were encouraging and often. Then… it all went to crap.
The creator stopped communicating regularly – and when he did it was platitudes and then flat out lies. Lies that were documented. We confronted him on social media, through Kickstarter, and in person – Pencil Dice wasn’t the only project he failed to complete. The comment lists on Kickstarter are long and voluminous – and angry. Other people and companies got involved to help other projects out because their names were being tarnished. But time has passed. Nothing has happened. And when noise started rising about law suits and official paper work, he moved to another state (for personal reasons) and changed his name (slightly). He’s been defensive and derogatory to those who have chosen to confront him – when he deigns to reply at all. He’s removed his Wikipedia entry and scrubbed his company D20 Entertainment off the web. And I’m done.
He’s still on Facebook – we still have friends in common – but Ken Whitman, I will never let anyone I know do business with you. Don’t let is “cute” name change to “Whit Whitman” (for acting purposes I’m sure). You’ve screwed over me, hundreds of other people for thousands of dollars. You’ve damaged the reputations of companies and artists who gave you license to use their names or their products. You’ve shown no remorse, all the signs of a pathological liar. My $250 isn’t a lot of money – but it was a large chunk of my promotional budget for this last year, which kept me from doing more things for my readers/fans. Ken Whitman hurt my business, my budget, and my faith in humanity. Ken Whitman’s lies, cons, and cluelessness are documented and should not be allowed to stand.
Yes, there are at least two sides to a story. This is my story. My experience with this man. I’m almost glad he changed his name and his Facebook profile. I kept him on my feed to see if he’d come clean, apologize, admit to any wrong doing. Now I don’t have to bother with unfriending him. (Actually he took it private and blocked me.) It’s done. I’m done.
Seriously, I know Crowdsourced things are a risk. But if you overextend, have issues come up, or simply screw up – man up and admit it. That’s all a lot of us asked for in the beginning. And I know manning up is hard (I had the screwed up credit to prove it’s hard to admit to some things because I wanted it to “just go away), but in the long run it’s better all around. This is so far beyond that now.
1 Comment
I can tell you right now (and I believe I still have the texts to prove it) the money from Pencil Dice went right to me to pay the huge debt Ken owed me when I backed the KoDT Kickstarter.