Updated: Scammed: The X-Tra battery campaign on Kickstarter

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unfocused

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I'm going to keep this civil and concise.

The CanonRumors brand is fatally wounded. The trust is gone.

Delete at will, but you know it, everybody knows it. You were a shill for a scammer. There is really no coming back from that.
Fatally wounded is extreme. Damaged yes. Fatally no.

But, I would hope that going forward @Canon Rumors Guy would be more transparent about financial relationships with companies that he is promoting. I would suggest the following:

1) A disclosure that Canon Rumors has a financial relationship with the company and will profit from the sales;
2) That Canon Rumors has not vetted the advertiser, the product or its claims;
3) Full disclosure of any payments or goods or services provided to Canon Rumors, including cash payments, sample products, promotional materials, travel, etc. etc.
3) A disclaimer that third party products may void the Canon warranty.
 
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Jan 29, 2011
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Fatally wounded is extreme. Damaged yes. Fatally no.

But, I would hope that going forward @Canon Rumors Guy would be more transparent about financial relationships with companies that he is promoting. I would suggest the following:

1) A disclosure that Canon Rumors has a financial relationship with the company and will profit from the sales;
2) That Canon Rumors has not vetted the advertiser, the product or its claims;
3) Full disclosure of any payments or goods or services provided to Canon Rumors, including cash payments, sample products, promotional materials, travel, etc. etc.
3) A disclaimer that third party products may void the Canon warranty.
That seems like a much higher bar than everybody else has to get over.

Kickstarter is a gamble and knowing somebody might or might not benefit from it doesn’t change the feasibility equation all backers must personally answer. Craig didn’t benefit from it one iota, quite the opposite in fact , which is a lot more than can be said for many of the paid and biased real shills out there for any number of companies who send out ‘loaners’ that never need to be returned, ‘sponsor’ content and generally blur the lines of their word and advertising.

As far as I could see Craig just put the link up and copied and pasted the verbiage from the link, he didn’t say back it or anything close to it.
 
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Canon Rumors Guy

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I'm going to keep this civil and concise.

The CanonRumors brand is fatally wounded. The trust is gone.

Delete at will, but you know it, everybody knows it. You were a shill for a scammer. There is really no coming back from that.

I understand that there will always be a number of humans that are stupid and we have to deal with it. Hopefully, you also produce this rant to the other dozen sites that promoted this campaign as affiliates without disclosure. I won't name them here, but they're easy to find with Google. I was #3 on the list of sites when it came to affiliate referrals and both PetaPixel and DPReview outsold me, even without an affiliated link. I have better friends than they do and am privy to this information. Neither of those sites would have ever written about the scam if I hadn't, but they gave a bunch of BS in their articles to make it look like they were innocent. You do you though.

I've been doing this for more than a decade, and I think we've built a community of great people, so I don't believe my brand is "fatally wounded", because the people that feel that way, I don't want here anyway. I like good people, I'm not into the people that think they're perfect and that everyone else is out to screw someone. As I've mentioned.... $3500 amounts to two months of hosting this site, it's not a dollar amount that would motivate me to do anything nefarious.
 
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Canon Rumors Guy

Canon EOS 40D
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Jul 20, 2010
10,779
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www.canonrumors.com
Fatally wounded is extreme. Damaged yes. Fatally no.

But, I would hope that going forward @Canon Rumors Guy would be more transparent about financial relationships with companies that he is promoting. I would suggest the following:

1) A disclosure that Canon Rumors has a financial relationship with the company and will profit from the sales;
2) That Canon Rumors has not vetted the advertiser, the product or its claims;
3) Full disclosure of any payments or goods or services provided to Canon Rumors, including cash payments, sample products, promotional materials, travel, etc. etc.
3) A disclaimer that third party products may void the Canon warranty.

  1. There is now an affiliate disclosure site wide.
  2. I completely screwed up my vetting, I'm 100% wrong here. I spent years at Lens Rentals Canada vetting renters, I have to do better and I will, I will never promote another Kickstarter campaign that isn't from a reputable company. Most Kickstarter campaigns pay 10-20%. That includes Peak Design, Gura Gear, Kurvd and others. That percentage that people keep hanging on to isn't unusual for Kickstarter. B&H, Amazon and others pay various levels of commissions. If a site is pointing you to a product page, it's affiliated most of the time.
  3. If I have ever promoted an eBay sale, I have always had a disclaimer about the warranty. Those grey market retailers are gone now for the most part.
 
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Canon Rumors Guy

Canon EOS 40D
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Jul 20, 2010
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That seems like a much higher bar than everybody else has to get over.

Kickstarter is a gamble and knowing somebody might or might not benefit from it doesn’t change the feasibility equation all backers must personally answer. Craig didn’t benefit from it one iota, quite the opposite in fact , which is a lot more than can be said for many of the paid and biased real shills out there for any number of companies who send out ‘loaners’ that never need to be returned, ‘sponsor’ content and generally blur the lines of their word and advertising.

As far as I could see Craig just put the link up and copied and pasted the verbiage from the link, he didn’t say back it or anything close to it.

That's true, I posted the press release information given to me. I also purchased two batteries myself. I've learned a valuable lesson here with Kickstarter. I've only posted one other campaign that didn't work out, but it wasn't a scam and people did receive refunds. The affiliate income that did earn from the campaign was used to refund people that backed it that fell through the cracks.

We live in a world now where everyone is perfect and no one makes mistakes. If someone does realize they've made a mistake, they pass the buck and blame it on someone else. I will always admit when I've messed up.
 
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unfocused

Photos/Photo Book Reviews: www.thecuriouseye.com
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  1. There is now an affiliate disclosure site wide.
  2. I completely screwed up my vetting, I'm 100% wrong here. I spent years at Lens Rentals Canada vetting renters, I have to do better and I will, I will never promote another Kickstarter campaign that isn't from a reputable company. Most Kickstarter campaigns pay 10-20%. That includes Peak Design, Gura Gear, Kurvd and others. That percentage that people keep hanging on to isn't unusual for Kickstarter. B&H, Amazon and others pay various levels of commissions. If a site is pointing you to a product page, it's affiliated most of the time.
  3. If I have ever promoted an eBay sale, I have always had a disclaimer about the warranty. Those grey market retailers are gone now for the most part.
I appreciate your candor and your willingness to make changes. That all that we should ask.
 
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zim

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Oct 18, 2011
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I'm going to keep this civil and concise.

The CanonRumors brand is fatally wounded. The trust is gone.

Delete at will, but you know it, everybody knows it. You were a shill for a scammer. There is really no coming back from that.
There were plenty of people in the original thread sceptical about this (and of Kickstarter in general) buyer beware, your money, your responsibility.
 
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I understand that there will always be a number of humans that are stupid and we have to deal with it. Hopefully, you also produce this rant to the other dozen sites that promoted this campaign as affiliates without disclosure. I won't name them here, but they're easy to find with Google. I was #3 on the list of sites when it came to affiliate referrals and both PetaPixel and DPReview outsold me, even without an affiliated link. I have better friends than they do and am privy to this information.
Stupid? I'm not the one who got greedy and got myself and others scammed. Just because you were third on the list.. that isn't any kind of mitigation.

Can you clarify on your comments around DPreview?

DPreview say:
"We had nothing to gain from readers backing the project, as we were not at all (and never have been) a part of any Kickstarter affiliate program."

Is this not the case?
 
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LDS

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Well, DPReview is owned by Amazon. AFAIK, Amazon runs its own "affiliate" program.

That's why I read these sites, they have useful information, but never put my blind trust in any of them. None is a charity. I appreciate the disclosure about this event, and no, it doesn't surprise me where some of the revenues to run this site (and make a living) come from. Still it should have been more clear for those who aren't aware of how this kind of things work. Better late then never.

I'm more surprised people still trust Kickstarter & C. - if they can't even vet the identities of supposed "CEOs" using their platform.
 
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Canon Rumors Guy

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Stupid? I'm not the one who got greedy and got myself and others scammed. Just because you were third on the list.. that isn't any kind of mitigation.

Can you clarify on your comments around DPreview?

DPreview say:
"We had nothing to gain from readers backing the project, as we were not at all (and never have been) a part of any Kickstarter affiliate program."

Is this not the case?

Yes, you're stupid.
 
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tron

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I could not see the point since if I recall correctly the "battery" was bigger and protruding from the base. A second battery and or a battery grip with two batteries does exist. Even when someone does not want to bye an expensive battery grip, any 45W USB-C Powerbank with Power Delivery capability and a USB Type-C cable that is at least 3A rated can support R5 while being ON. I have observed that this works even with LP-E6N batteries. And a 18W USB Type-C Powerbank with Power Delivery capability can charge the battery while the camera (R5, R6, R) is set to OFF.
 
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Yes, you're stupid.
You're a greedy shill for fraudsters. You were complicit in all this. You called it when you realised you were getting bumped, shame you didn't call it when you were hoping to take the undeclared kickbacks. It doesn't really matter what anybody else got wrong as well. All the best.
 
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