…And the links don’t work. If interested, go to TinyPics and look up IControlPad2 – that’s the tag I used for both images.

Just to add a post mortem to this project, some prototypes were created. At some point, someone involved offered these in lieu of anything else. I opted for that and actually got one. Showed alot of potential even if the project showed alot of poor management. I’ve posted pics on TinyPics if the links below don’t work.

IControlPad2 Front

IControlPad2 Back

The easiest way to get the ball rolling would be to consider your legal options, then make sure to let Link know before you proceed. Give him a predetermined amount of time to respond before proceeding. He continues to suggest that Craig is going to do something, but we can see how well that’s going. I’m sure he has a lot on his proverbial plate, so to speak. He may need a gentle, yet stern reminder that the project is still going on until all refunds have been processed.

Seems like since the vocal people have dropped out Link has gone slack. Guess I need to look into legal proceedings against him.

Thanks @benjiTK =)

@sdpenaloza Link (at) ithic (dot) com

I hope people are still reading this ryan I am one of the many who got scammed out of money in hopes of a iCP2.

Ryan do you know the contact for Mark?

I don’t know if ED’s even reading this thread anymore. After I and another was refunded, they watered down the fires a bit and it’s been quiet. I did get ED (or one of his staff) to finally process the deletion of my OpenPandora forums account.

Your best bet at this point is to consider pursuing legal action, and notifying Mark Linkhorst of your intentions.

Just to clear things up a bit (Michael Mrozek aka EvilDragon here):
I was NEVER a consultant and NEVER bowed out – because I never was in.
I never gave the permission to use my name on the kickstarter page nor was I involved in the development at all.

Legally, you have no involvement. I’m sure you have consulted with a lawyer on your end to square that away. Personally, you were related and involved.

OK, and how about this, and who is responsible for that:
http://www.girlgamersuk.com/2012/09/icontrolpad-2-the-open-source-controller-needs-your-support/

September – 17 – 2012
Craig Rothwell, Michael Weston, Michael Mrozek, Mark Linkhorst, Dave Cancilier, Jacquelyn and Debs all have one thing in common. They’ve all spent the last ten years in the technology industry and need your help on Kickstarter. In the past they have worked on a selection of projects from OpenPandora, iControlpad, and GP2X &GP32 and much more.

or:
http://www.ijailbreak.com/accessories/icontrolpad2-kickstarter-open-source-bluetooth-controller/

September 15, 2012
The iControlPad was built by Product 3 LLC, which is a team of Craig Rothwell, Michael Weston, Michael Mrozek, Mark Linkhorst, Dave Cancilier, Jacquelyn and Debs.

(Jacquelyn and Debs are Craig’s sister and mother and sister. “Crew” knew that.)

Of course, ED do not know nothing about. Btw this 1st week, probably, came most of expected money. Or enough to start avalanche.
Nobody is responsible now, money just flew away.

@Exophase

My April 4th post refers to Craig Rothwell and Mark Linkhorst. The “upstanding individuals” was more of a play on words, considering the situation.

I never said that Mark was doing scams under other companies as you stated. I simply said that the reputation of Mark Linkhorst and how he deals with a Kickstarter he put his name on will follow him to other endeavors. He has a bunch of other companies he owns and works with. If he is their spokesperson, someone who is considering investing a large sum of money will likely do their homework and research his prior dealings. This is a prior dealing.

I responded with a request to you to send me a pm to see if you were really serious. It didn’t necessarily mean I was going to accept. To date I was given 3 buyout requests with a number of stipulations. I contacted Kickstarter and wanted to transfer my pledge and they refused. That ended those negotiations. I showed your message to my legal counsel and they advised me to ignore it and not respond to the message. That’s what I did. None of these things were legally binding. No contracts were signed. The only legally binding agreement was between me and Product 3 LLC. If you work for Product 3 LLC, I was not aware and you were not representing yourself as such. I figure you transferred your money to Mark, and he gave me a “official refund” per my request.

To this date, I’m not sure why you even did what you did. Being disgusted by my comments that you disagree with on a message board is not enough reason. Your actions are not normally done in situations like this. Maybe you have an agreement with Mark or Craig, who knows. I doesn’t really matter to me though. I have received my refund and in the eyes of the law, I have been “made whole”.

@Emusan
Your claim that I am hurting every single other backer is false and baseless. Kickscammed is a 3rd party site acting as a mediator in cases such as this. It is serving it’s purpose, and doing it well. The OpenPandora forums should have never even hosted iControlPad discussions, especially with the past problems ED had with Craig.

In the real world, laws exist that wouldn’t have let things get to the point they have today. The only reason why this hasn’t already happened is because “Crowd Funding” is a new field, still in its infancy. Cases like this are creating the basis for which new projects will be measured. How Mark and Craig handle their affairs will go into history and serve as an example to others.

The only source of information you should have is the project managers on the Kickstarter page. OpenPandora forums were starting to turn into a place where project managers could hide in plain sight. This project was a sore which was getting bigger each day. By ED closing that section of his forum, he was doing a service to Pyra. Pyra will have much better success the sooner it cuts all ties with other projects, such as icontrolpad1 and icontrolpad2. It will always have relations with Pandora, but at last it can shed the icontrolpadCraig skin. I respect Ed for closing that forum section. I feel it will better serve his and his company’s interests in the future.

I already got my refund, have you?

>2) available for Kickstarter staff to check

Kickstarter staff are done with this project, and they don’t care. Kickstarter clearly states that they have no legal liability in the projects posted onto their site.

>Now, I can only see you attempting to hurt an individual who did nothing more than seek just retritubtion from the curator – and was ignored, like ALL of us were. And then he sought legal council, and maybe that council advised against these “under the table” offers.

He got his money, and now he’s trying to ruin the chances of anyone else getting theirs back, so you’ve got your story backwards there. There is nothing “under the table” about this, the project creator refunded him IN FULL, which he is not even required to do.

>That is how business in the real world works

I’m sorry, but you don’t seem to have a single iota of understanding of how “the real world works”.

>I don’t care at this point. Call me callous, but Mark should either take a loan to instantly refund the money and then he waits out the sale of the parts

In the real world you can’t just take out a $200,000 loan.

>or be forced legal to liquidate his assets and then the state pay us back.

Now you think that “the state” is going to pay you back? A good number of the backers of the project don’t even live in the Northern Hemisphere, much less North America, much less the US, much less the state where all this supposed legal action would take place. And what does the state owe you anyway? You made a bad decision when investing some money into a product that didn’t come to light, and you lost it, you gambled, you lost, that’s not the *states* fault.

I’ll say it again, going with legal action is the WORST idea possible at this point, if we go down that road the only people that will benefit will be the lawyers, believe me. If we just act like adults here and be a little bit patient, we’ll at least get something back.

I’m sorry that your mommy and daddy aren’t here to bail you out of this one, and I deeply regret having to inform you that no, no bank is going to magically give out a massive loan to repay us all, and no, “the state” isn’t going to either. This is what we in the “big persons world” call losing. Accept it and move on, and maybe you’ll get some money back along with the rest of us.

Or you can keep throwing your hissy fit, keep ruining innocent peoples reputations, and keep delaying refunds for the rest of us, up to you :).

I feel you are entirely mistaken – if you feel the OpenPandora forums were your “only source of information”, you are the one now spinning the situation. You should have never relied on an un-official means of communication, that majorly hurts backers as we can’t ensure it is 1) documented and 2) available for Kickstarter staff to check. Now, I can only see you attempting to hurt an individual who did nothing more than seek just retritubtion from the curator – and was ignored, like ALL of us were. And then he sought legal council, and maybe that council advised against these “under the table” offers.

And as for the selling of the parts to try and get back the money – I don’t care at this point. Call me callous, but Mark should either take a loan to instantly refund the money and then he waits out the sale of the parts – or be forced legal to liquidate his assets and then the state pay us back. That is how business in the real world works – and like it or not, but the Terms of Service on a Kickstarter is indeed a legally binding contract.

Ryan, as another backer of the iControlpad (at the same tier no less), please just stop. So far you’ve done nothing but harm every single other backer. You have removed our only source of information about what was going on and threatened our only hope of getting a refund with legal action. If this becomes a legal battle then no one but a few lawyers will get anything, someone as intelligent as you should know this.

In the real world things take time, you can’t just sell thousands of components instantly, and money transfers of sizesable quantities take more than a few seconds to process. Give them time to do this the right way, instead of butting in with your “legal counsel” and trying to destory everything we have so far.

You’ve got your money, now let the rest of us adults who are a bit more patient get ours. You have no reason to still be here other than to act as a troll and destroy the names and reputations of people who have done nothing but try and help us.

So Ryan, this is what you say now:

I was paid the full $87 (item cost + shipping) but it looks like it was because another user sent the full amount to Mark, and he then refunded me. The other user did contact me outside of the refund time and wanted to essentially pay me to keep quiet in the forums and to leave Mark alone. I didn’t like the sound of that and was advised otherwise, so I ignored him. He then gave it to Mark so Mark didn’t have to use his own money.

Here is what actually happened – it started with this post of yours on April 4:

Granted, if one of these upstanding individuals contacted me and gave me a refund on their own free will, without me needing to “opt in” to some silly refund program, I’d likely take it and call it a day. I am an American after all.

Now in hindsight I don’t really know who you were referring to, but it clearly couldn’t have applied to Link and Link alone because you spoke in the plural. But I responded with this:

Give me your paypal, I’ll do it. This conspiracy theory bullshit you’re piling on Link is totally unfair. He didn’t scam anyone here, and I don’t know where you get off saying he’s going to go on to do scams under other companies. But I guess you don’t need evidence of anything and you don’t care about throwing people in the mud so long as you get your fucking retribution over your miserable little Kickstarter contribution.

And believe me, the very thought of covering for even a penny of Craig’s mess makes me sick, but not quite as sick as you’re making me right now.

But I’m sure you’ll just say I’m a big shill like you did with sswam and I’m sure you won’t take me up on it either.

Which you accepted:

If you are serious, feel free to send me a private message on this forum. The last person who offered this type of action was not serious about it. You have a post count next to your name and a rep around here. Gifted PayPal, full $87 amount. Call it a buyout if you like.

So I PMed you. And you ignored it. BTW, that other person whom you claim “wasn’t serious” got ignored by you too.

But the way you’re spinning it now is basically like I gave you an underhanded silent offer to shut you up while it couldn’t be further from the case. You ASKED for a refund, I offered you one (while insulting you – something I apologized for afterwards but am feeling pretty right with now), you ignored me, and now it’s something you “didn’t like the sound of”? And you act like me paying Link is a dirty little secret too, when I said right on the same forums that I was going to do it before I even did it.

Apparently it’s not enough for you to play games with me and waste my time, you have to try and make me look bad too. This is exactly what I mean by you smearing people. If only the money actually get to do what you said you would, but I was taking the risk that it wouldn’t.

The direct note on the refund is “ICP2 Refund – 10% Kickstarter/Amazon Fees”. I will heed your advise and accept this – I will count my blessings that I got anything back from this ordeal.

I can’t thank you enough for our guidance and support Ryan – you have honestly done more good than any of the members of the Product 3 team.

I am printing hard copies all of my attempts at correspondence with both Kickstarter, Mark/Product 3 LLC, and my letters to the DA office in Vermont. I will be happy to furnish these to any other backers that are also hoping to have restitution and are looking for some assistance. More over – I would be ELATED to give this information to a news outlet that would like to cover the story.

I was paid the full $87 (item cost + shipping) but it looks like it was because another user sent the full amount to Mark, and he then refunded me. The other user did contact me outside of the refund time and wanted to essentially pay me to keep quiet in the forums and to leave Mark alone. I didn’t like the sound of that and was advised otherwise, so I ignored him. He then gave it to Mark so Mark didn’t have to use his own money.

If Mark paid you an odd number like that, he’s likely paying you out of his own money so that you don’t proceed with legal action. You could wait and demand the full amount, but the longer this goes, the less chance of being made “whole again”. You could contact Kickstarter and Amazon and say that he’s not using the official refund process they have setup. Kickstarter probably won’t care. Amazon may investigate, but I don’t think much would come from it. In the end you may get a few bucks more, and Amazon would add funds to the amount (they would be putting back their processing fee). Mark may have closed the bank account he used for Amazon Payments, essentially blocking chargebacks and his not being able to send Amazon Payments cash.

Note potential feature for better security: A project manager should not be allowed to close his Amazon Payment associated bank account until the project is completed or all refunds are processed.

Was there a note attached to the payment that said something like “Refund for ICP2 Kickstarter”? If so, I would accept the money. If not, reply back to the email address on the payment and ask “Is this the refund payment for my Kickstarter pledge? I need to know this so I can properly inform my legal counsel and close my claim.”? If he replies with “Yes”, then you’re done. If he doesn’t respond at all, then you may need to make your best guess on the matter. If you received 50% or more of your claim, I’d accept. Make sure to keep records of everything though.

I would also make it known that you received this refund after posting here and direct other people to this page. I will edit the first post with the known refunds (yours and mine thus far).

So Mark L. just wired my money back via Paypal… but didn’t include what I paid for shipping and also withheld 10% for “Kickstarter/Amazon fees. I don’t know, since it also didn’t come through Amazon Payments – I’m hesistant to accept the money. Ryan, did you also have a similar situation? Did you just accept it, say “good enough” and move on (I mean, emotionally, clearly you are still here helping others :P). At this point, I think the 62.10$ Mark sent maybe my best chance of washing my hands of this project.

And for those curious — it took over 14 direct emails, contacting Kickstarter Support 5 seperate times, posting on Kickscammed, and then ultimately threatening legal action before Mark finanlly crawled out of his hole and honored my request for a refund.

After all that has happened here, I hope Mark never gets a chance to own/operate a project again — he has clearly shown he is not at all competent enough to manage something like this.

Heh – sorry, with “closing here” I meant the section at the Pandora boards, not this thread 😉

Actually I’m not going to close this thread. I will amend the original post above to reflect your comments and they can read the rest in the posts you made here. But until the other 2,000+ people are refunded, my closing this thread will likely anger alot of people. Others may wish to comment, especially if the lawsuit in Washington state goes through and implicates Kickstarter by relation. Then they may shut down failed project pages to stop their involvement.

This is a good move Ed, Pyra needs to be kept entirely separate from ICP/ICP2/Craig. They should have never existed on your forum, it should have stayed entirely on the official Kickstarter page. I’d go as far as calling it the official Pyra forum and then having a Pandora section on it for those relations. That’s up to you though, or whomever handles your PR/Public Image.

Well, the problem is: Craig was the main guy behind the Pandora and I was playing a smaller role there.
When the Pandora crashed, I took over and managed to get it stabilized, while Craig still was at the boards. Even I didn’t know 100% if it was his mismanagement or just bad luck with the companies that lead to the downfall.

I helped him with the production of the iControlPad 1 (PCB production), and he used the Pandora boards as subsection for that (as he was also part of the Pandora team).

That’s the reason the section even existed. I made it clear to him though I will help with the iCP2, but do not want to be involved with it.

Hopefully, closing everything here now and redirecting everyone to Kickstarter should help.

This is a good move Ed, Pyra needs to be kept entirely separate from ICP/ICP2/Craig. They should have never existed on your forum, it should have stayed entirely on the official Kickstarter page. I’d go as far as calling it the official Pyra forum and then having a Pandora section on it for those relations. That’s up to you though, or whomever handles your PR/Public Image.

Legally, you have no involvement. I’m sure you have consulted with a lawyer on your end to square that away. Personally, you were related and involved. By distancing yourself from the project, this will bring forth more honesty that is needed. Trying to help is fine, but there’s too many implications that occur when you work with Mark and Craig. The public will judge you on the company you keep. You need to protect yourself and Pyra first and foremost.

Well, seeing how some people are unhappy how at least I tried to tell them what’s going on (as the official team didn’t do that), I agree I shouldn’t have posted anything.
I was just trying to help, but okay.

Still, there’s absolutely nothing where I’m legally involved here, but following your advice, I’ll close down everything iCP related off the official OpenPandora boards and servers this weekend.

In reply to ED: yes, if you claimed you were not involved, you should have shut up and said nothing as far as “status updates on PCB manufacture” . Or if your soul just wouldn’t let you sit quite – you could have simply pointed to those in charge (give us contact information for them!) and made it known they were the only source of information.

You are entirely involved, whether you like to admit it or not, and absolutely none of this is a “smear campaign” — all parties involved, official or unofficial, have acted in a very unprofessional and unethical manner, hell even (borderline?) illegal. The only way to resolve this and “clear your name” would be to pressure Mark and Craig legally for their role in your ‘defamation’.

Heck, the fact you are even maintaining updates here should imply your culpability – all it is doing is keeping us for actually getting through to people that are “officially” involved…

My only gripe is that he claims no official involvement but he’s obviously involved. Saying that every thing he mentions is totally unofficial reminds me of the American cultural bit where a person says “I mean this in the best possible way but…. You are an asshole”.

Well, the reason I knew a lot about PCB development is because I translated the eMails and documents between the production company and iControlPad Ltd.

I didn’t even want to comment on anything (you can find that on early posts at the boards), but as Craig never ever replied to any questions and people were crying out loud for news at the boards, I wanted to at least let the people what’s going on and posted what I know and what I assumed.
Because of the assumptions, it was unofficially.

Would you have preferred it if I kept everyone totally in the dark regarding the PCB production?

ED keeps saying the has no hand in the project. If this was the case, Mark wouldn’t mention him in his updates. He also wouldn’t have had $62500 transferred to his company to purchase the parts.

The money has been transferred to the account of my company, yes.
However, my company never OWNED the money or had any control over it.
It was setup as a trustee. Global Components (the PCB production company) made a quotation for the full production and the parts, and Product3 LLC transferred the money onto the bank account of my company to be able to pay the invoices of Global Components.

The reason? Well, in Germany, you pay in EUR, not in USD.
Every transfer would have triggered costs for the money conversion. Additionally, you never know how the exchange rate changes in the future.
So even though not all invoices had to be paid at once, the full amount needed for the production has been sent to my company to prevent these costs and the danger of the exchange rate.

But it was setup as a trustee – so my company doesn’t own a single cent of the money nor is it allowed to touch it itself.
Even if my company had to file insolvency, that money couldn’t have been touched, as it’s now owning it.

(Per the last update). Ordering parts, translating, moving funds, that’s called involvement whether he admits to it or not. What that means will be determined by the remaining backers waiting for refunds if they wish.

I can not make a single transfer of that money without the approval of the owner.
Global Components sent out the invoices addressed to iControlPad Ltd. (Craigs company) and the money has been sent on their command, not on mine.
I didn’t order anything.

That’s what a trustee is used for.
It’s similar to a bank – except that I did that for free.

I’m basically as involved as your bank:
Your bank holds your money on your account.
You told your bank to transfer money to Product 3 LLC. They can’t do transfers on their own.

It’s the same here:
My company (as trustee) holds the money of Product 3 LLC / iControlPad Ltd.
When an official representative tells me to transfer the money, I do that.

And that’s it.

I would hardly call standing up for my rights smearing innocent people.

You might not have done it intentionally, but it is still smearing.
You have no ideas of how the whole thing is setup.
Did you know my company is only a trustee and could do nothing with the money except what the owner tells us to?
Nope, you didn’t.
But that’s the case.

I had nothing to do with the production, the development, the ordering, kickstarter, etc.
I can not decide on anything nor am I allowed to pay anyone a refund or whatever from that money, as I don’t own it.
I didn’t even sign any contract with Global Components nor is any of the invoices or documents from them adressed to me.

The only thing I did was doing translation for free (in my spare time) and keeping the money as a trustee.

The only innocent person in the entire project is Michael Weston.

He received money to design the PCBs and used most of it for the prototypes (which exist).
I received money as a trustee and translated between Craig and the production company for free. The PCB production is setup and working fine, 100 prototypes have been produced.

How is he more innocent than I am?
Care to explain?

That’s not to say that ED hasn’t been honest in his relations. There’s no proof here that he has not been truthful. I really have nothing against him. My only gripe is that he claims no official involvement but he’s obviously involved. Saying that every thing he mentions is totally unofficial reminds me of the American cultural bit where a person says “I mean this in the best possible way but…. You are an asshole”. As long as the person says they mean it in the best possible way, it supposedly negates the second half of the statement. Compare this to ED, who can say anything he wants about the project because he’s not officially involved. That way he’s protected just in case something happens to those officially involved in the project. This would be fine if he was just a commenting bystander. He isn’t though, his involvement is obvious even if considered ” unofficial “.

I would hardly call standing up for my rights smearing innocent people. The only innocent person in the entire project is Michael Weston. ED keeps saying the has no hand in the project. If this was the case, Mark wouldn’t mention him in his updates. He also wouldn’t have had $62500 transferred to his company to purchase the parts. (Per the last update). Ordering parts, translating, moving funds, that’s called involvement whether he admits to it or not. What that means will be determined by the remaining backers waiting for refunds if they wish.

Exophase, thank you for coming forward as the one who put up the cash for my refund. When my legal counsel read that, I once again can comment on the project. Still, I have a refund that is sent from Mark Linkhorst with the words iCP2 Refund. That’s good enough for me. I have the closure I wanted. You however are invested now. Hopefully you receive something from Mark besides well wishes.

Hi,
Link (Mark Linkhorst / Product 3) is the only one who can take legal action against Craig, we have no connection, I am in the UK but I can’t take Craig to court.

So we the KickStarter backers have to suffer Craigs “poor management” and not Link?
Link / Product 3 are 100% responsible for our money, I would guess he gave ~$200,000 (in parts and directly) to Craig to produce the ICP2, I assume there were some contracts? (I wouldn’t be surprised if there were not!) he should be taking action (legal if required) to get it back so he can refund us.

I assuming Link isn’t really that interested?

This is a neat scam really, almost impressed, to be fair it probably wasn’t at the start, but looking at it now, Craig has had all the money and pretty much can’t be touched! Kickstarter / Amazon don’t want to know, and Link has 2168 individuals spread around the world who mostly can’t economically sue him! nice!

Ryan (and to others who are probably interested as well), you are correct that I was the one who forwarded the funds to Link to reimburse you. This wasn’t much of a secret, since I said I was going to do it on the Pandora forums. I’m not an iCP2 backer so I can’t post on the KS comments, but at least this thread is linked there so hopefully it’ll be more visible.

I can’t speak for Link since I haven’t talked to him outside of giving him the money, but from his comments it seems clear that he doesn’t have and pretty much never did have the money that you guys funded for iCP2 – that money either went to Craig or to fulfill purchase orders for parts (parts which are currently owned by Craig’s company, AFAIK). So if you go after him for a refund you probably won’t get anything. I think it goes without saying that I am also not willing to reimburse over $200,000 of money for a project I have nothing to do with.

A lot of you must feel that it isn’t very fair that Ryan is able to get a full refund that’s not available to the rest of you. And I agree, this really isn’t very fair. Please hold me accountable for this, not Link. Like ED showed, I already offered to refund Ryan directly.

I gave Link the money to refund Ryan because I don’t think that Link should suffer the consequences of Craig’s poor management. Ryan was threatening legal action that could have eaten up a lot of time and money for Link, and if it forced his (now dissolved) company into bankruptcy or even worse, forced him into personal bankruptcy (if his company was found to be too closely coupled to his personal accounts), which would have pretty seriously screwed him over. And I don’t think this would have ever done anything to resolve what Craig did with the money, much less get any of it back. On the contrary, it would have made it a lot harder for Link to pursue legal action against Craig himself, if he ever decided to do something like that.

Now I don’t personally know Link very well, I’ve only talked to him a few times. I only really know of his role in the Pandora community. I’ve just been close enough to the situation (the bickering on the Pandora forums) that I don’t want to see someone who, in my opinion, is totally innocent take the full brunt of Craig’s damage. And I’m definitely not supporting Craig here, there is no way I would have given Craig money to give the refund if Link weren’t involved in this.

The other thing that really concerned me was how Ryan seemed to be setting his sights on EvilDragon now, who is not even connected. I can’t stand seeing this kind of smearing based on false allegations (especially since Ryan has already been informed his claims were wrong). And even if Ryan failed to push any legal threats against ED, this can still damage his reputation and his business.

The whole thing is a really ugly compromise. I don’t like knowing that the person who complained the hardest and smeared innocent people is the one who got rewarded for it. I don’t like knowing that other people, especially the more patient and reasonable people, don’t get anything from this. I can only apologize for that. But the practical reality of the situation is that most backers, no matter how frustrated, are not going to pursue legal action over such a small claim – it just doesn’t make sense financially. The risky cases are where a lawyer is willing to work with someone for free (as appeared to be the case with Ryan) or if a backer is a lawyer himself who is going to seek not only a refund but attorney fees (which is what Neil Singh was trying to get when he served Seth Quest over Hanfree’s failure)

I guess they just refunded Ryan to keep him shut up. Wonder what they expect us to do…

I don’t really understand why you care so much about someone in the OpenPandora forums wanting to buy me out though, ED. Something is a bit fishy there to me. I’m not sure why someone would want to take the loss upon themselves anyway. Unless that same person put up the funds and forwarded them to Mark, which then refunded me. Care to comment on that and fill in the gaps, Unofficially of course?

Kickstarter customer support is refusing to remove my backer status because I was paid via PayPal by Mark Linkhorst and not via the official refund process which utilizes Amazon Payments. Then again customer support is a bit of a joke so I’m not surprised.

I would like to know how you were in contact with Mark directly if possible Ryan – I’m so sick of this project and want to receive the same refund/removal of backer status that you found.

My legal counsel has informed me that I cannot accept funds from anyone who’s name is not on the LLC. This means I wouldn’t be able to accept refunds from anyone except Mark Linkhorst. I was also told to cut ties with anyone who offered such an option. I do not know any more about this, but I follow my legal counsel when I’m so advised.

This is no longer relevant however because I received my refund in full from Mark Linkhorst this morning. I am no longer a project backer and will no longer comment on the Kickstarter. I submitted a support ticket with Kickstarter asking to remove the project from my backer history. I no longer wish to be associated for legal reasons.

I have also submitted a support ticket to close/suspend my account on the OpenPandora forums. Whomever owns or runs that forum can go ahead and close my account.

All emails I receive from other backers here on out will be referred to this page (if it continues to exist) or the Kickstarter page/management.

Moderators of this forum can decide if they would like to leave this post up or not. My claim is closed. There are over 2,000 backers of this project. It is now up to them to determine if they wish to post here or pursue their own actions.

Ryan, there is one thing I don’t understand.
One of the community members on the OpenPandora boards offered to pay your full loss back if you stop your legal action against Mark / Product 3 LLC and you agreed to that.
He sent you a PM asking for your PayPal address and never got a reply for that.

While I could understand you’re not after the money itself but want to stop scam, it’s still a breach in agreement you’re doing yourself here.

Could you explain the reason for that?
You don’t need to be the avenger for the backers – it’s up for every backer himself to decide what he wants to do.

In or not, our updates have been coming from you. Nobody will post anything of any merit to the Kickstarter page, it took us posting in the forum you are a moderator of to get any real answers.

I can’t post to Kickstarter, as I’m neither a backer nor a team member.
I can’t give you details why no one updated Kickstarter, I just tried to help all the backers out by letting them know the current status.

If you are not a part of the project, then don’t be a part of the project. By continuing to post unofficial updates in threads on OpenPandora and not leaving it up to the actual project creators, you have made yourself unofficially on board.

I emphasized with every post that I can only give details on the PCB production since I am the one talking to the PCB production company, but that I am not an official member and all my posts should be considered as unofficial.

So any backer who had a private talk with Mark or Craig and posted the information he got to the public is part of the team member as well, following your logic?

The fact that you are also rolling on with Pyra at the same time is not going to bode well for outsiders. Especially if you are going to distribute in the United States through ithic (Mark Linkhorst). If he can’t shore up his debts and recklessly sign on with known scammers, how is he going to handle things if there a speedbump in the Pyra project?

He has been handling the Pandora distribution for a while now.
As far as I know, he also handled everything that was his job with the iControlPad2 as well.

Everything he’s doing now is not part of his original iCP2 job, but he has to do it for legal reasons and because he tries to help as good as possible.

The real issue here is Craig, but he can’t be touched by the backers, which is the big problem.
For the backers, the only contact is Mark. For Mark, the only contact is Craig, and he doesn’t reply to anything.

Who is currently in possession of the parts and trying to sell them to return some sort of refund? If that is not you then who has them?

The legal owner of the parts it iControlPad Ltd. (all invoices from the PCB manufacturer are addressed to them).
Whatever the exact deal between iControlPad Ltd. and Product3 LLC is, is something I don’t know.

The paid parts are lying at the PCB production company as they are trying to sell them, but no one so far has showed interest in them.

There’s nothing iCP2 related lying around at my place.

Mark Linkhorst posted today in the OpenPandora Forums, which seems to have become the official unofficial discussion forum for the iControlpad 2 Kickstarter Project. It’s really annoying because it just makes more legwork for the consumer affairs offices I forward these links to. They are understaffed as it is, having to dig through twice as many forums is time consuming.

I am here and really disgusted with being looked at as a scammer. I will make a Kickstarter update within the next few days, and I’m sure this post will wind up on there sooner than later. I will detail where money was transferred/when and to where we can expect the funds for refunding backers.

I’ve had no word from Craig in March or April, so I’ve given up on him. I can’t see it being economically feasible to start a suit against him, but am not ruling it out at this point. I just don’t see how you can get blood from a stone. And at what cost?

For those of you thinking I made a ton of money on this project, my compensation for the project was $1 per unit sold via Kickstarter. $1 measly dollar. Kickstarter and Amazon made more money on this project than I did, and nobody is going after them for that money back, but I will try to see if they will refund what they took when the project was funded.

Do we go after MWeston for the money he received for the project, do we go after DaveC who Craig supposedly transferred money to for a case that doesn’t exist?

Personally I want this all to be over with and yes, there was no update lately because it would have been the same old story, and yes, we’d have people out for blood against me for trying to help someone out. Trying to help a guy who was down, or maybe just setting me up for failure, or ? I think it would be interesting to bring to light the post where I almost hit the cancel button on the project before it was funded/completed (even while the goal was met for funding). Does anyone remember that, anyone? I know that isn’t in a public area of this forum but it is out there, and I vocally addressed the situation then in September or October of 2012.

My gut instinct was that Craig couldn’t be trusted at the time the project was live for actions he took against ED involving 1GHz Open Pandoras at the time. And lets not forget the fact that Craig instructed ED to keep me away from 1GHz Open Pandora sales when he went ahead and announced them to the world for being for sale through Open Pandora LTD (Craig’s company).

My goal is to have refunds sent out by the end of summer. Hopefully ED can sell off the parts he can, and we can consolidate remaining funds to refund backers. I apologize for getting involved with the project and any bad light it is bringing on this community that has supported me over the years. My goal with the project was to help Craig get the device into the world, so that he could be rewarded for his invention(s) and resolve his financial matters with ED and others in the community that he owed products to.

I made a bad choice, but I’m not going to just walk away from everyone. I’m not that kind of person. I’ve been quiet to bring more to light and give Craig the benefit of the doubt when he said he’d sell his home and put that money back into the project for refunds. Craig also said he had ICPs that he has somewhere that he was going to give to me too, to sell and get more money in into refunds. Well, no words from Craig, nothing in months, no ICPs being shipped to me. It’s time to move on. I don’t think backers want to risk losing any remaining funds to pursue Craig legally, and receive less of a refund.

My sincerest apologies.

In or not, our updates have been coming from you. Nobody will post anything of any merit to the Kickstarter page, it took us posting in the forum you are a moderator of to get any real answers.

If you are not a part of the project, then don’t be a part of the project. By continuing to post unofficial updates in threads on OpenPandora and not leaving it up to the actual project creators, you have made yourself unofficially on board. The fact that you are also rolling on with Pyra at the same time is not going to bode well for outsiders. Especially if you are going to distribute in the United States through ithic (Mark Linkhorst). If he can’t shore up his debts and recklessly sign on with known scammers, how is he going to handle things if there a speedbump in the Pyra project?

Who is currently in possession of the parts and trying to sell them to return some sort of refund? If that is not you then who has them?

Michael Mrozek aka EvilDragon was consulting on this project, but bowed out early. He had his name removed from the Kickstarter page. Many people put up money for preorders because his name was on the project. It added a sense of legitimacy.

Just to clear things up a bit (Michael Mrozek aka EvilDragon here):
I was NEVER a consultant and NEVER bowed out – because I never was in.
I never gave the permission to use my name on the kickstarter page nor was I involved in the development at all.

The main issue the Pandora had was that the PCB production didn’t work properly, so I took over and moved it to a german company. In my opinion, the main reason was that Craig is not very good at organization with these things, but that was my personal opinion.

I handled the PCB production of the iControlPad 1, as the case, etc. was finished.

However, I made it clear to Craig and the community upfront that I will NOT be a team member of the iControlPad2!
I said upfront that I will merely act as a translator between the German PCB production company and Craig to help. I offered that for free (and didn’t receive any money for it) but was NOT doing anything else. I was not interested selling it, shipping it or even have any other involvement with it.
I didn’t follow Kickstarter, so I didn’t even know I was mentioned there as a team member, and as soon as someone pointed that out, I requested the removal of the name and that has been done shortly after.

So the fact is: I didn’t bow out, I never was in – and using my name without my permission doesn’t make ME responsible (heck, if they used your name there without you knowing, would it make you responsible? If yes, then I should make some debts and put your name on the paper, so you would be liable).

Just wanted to set this one claim straight, feel free to contact me anytime in case you got any further questions.

I don’t have too much to add, ryanflucas does a great job summarizing the situation above. I’m out $75 and my request for a refund has been ignored so far.