Ohio AG: Westerville Kickstarter promised to save turtles, but money used to buy crypto
Following a three-year investigation by the Ohio Attorney General's office, a Westerville man has agreed to repay more than 100 backers who supported his Kickstarter campaign to sell watches, in part for turtle conservation efforts, neither of which ever happened.
As part of Samuel Darling's settlement agreement, the 30-year-old also agreed to civil penalties of $4,000 for consumer and charitable law violations and to not participate in future crowd-funding campaigns in Ohio for at least five years.
Darling collected $31,753 from 101 supporters of the campaign called "Turtle Conservation Diver" which promised "Buy a Watch, Save a Turtle." But Darling didn’t deliver, and failed to return donations to the charities identified as the campaign beneficiaries until he was pressured by the Attorney General’s office and local police.
“When it comes to allocating funds for a charitable cause and it doesn't materialize, it truly gets my blood boiling,” Yost said in a provided statement. “Consumers should have confidence that their investments in crowd-funding campaigns are protected by the law."
Kickstarter allows people to create campaigns online to solicit monetary pledges from supporters. Once a campaign reaches its goal, the pledges are paid and the project creator is contractually obligated to deliver on the promises outlined in the campaign, including any specified rewards for contributions.
After collecting pledges in July and August of 2020, easily surpassing his fundraising goal of $18,000, Darling wrote on the campaign page that there were production challenges with the watches but assured supporters that the watches would be delivered.
After another “production delay,” Darling acknowledged in a June 21, 2021, posting on the campaign page that he couldn’t deliver the watches and promised to refund donors. He also wrote that all of the money contributed by donors had been used to buy the watches.
When refunds were slow to come, many donors complained to the Federal Trade Commission and in the comments section of the Kickstarter campaign page.
The Attorney General’s office discovered that Darling had deposited the donations into his personal bank account and had purchased cryptocurrency, among other things, but made no purchases toward fulfilling the campaign promises. The investigation also uncovered that Darling had no evidence that he ever attempted to produce the watches.
Yost's office sued Darling, alleging violations of both the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act and the Ohio Charitable Organizations Act.
Contributors to the Turtle Conservation Diver campaign who were promised goods they did not receive, can file a complaint by calling 1-800-282-0515 or by filing one online at OhioProtects.org.
dnarciso@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio AG: Westerville man scammed Kickstarter supporters to buy crypto
