Debunked: Triton Artificial Gills (Indigogo Campaign)

Am I the only one who finds the newest set of comments on the tritons campaign a bit off putting? A good example of "debunking gone wrong" with personal attacks - like accusing saeed of being an untrustworthy business partner because he has a tattoo o,O. I feel like the only thing that is achieving is discrediting the remaining debunk effort :/ Then again, as we approach the deadline we're going to have to shift from debunking to collecting evidence of fraud that can be used after their december deadline.
 
exclamationMarek said:
Am I the only one who finds the newest set of comments on the tritons campaign a bit off putting?
Click to expand...

No, I do as well. Being of the 'dirty tricks' mindset, I've come to wonder if those comments are there to create the impression that anyone who is opposed to Triton is immature, unbalanced or has no firm grasp on reality.

The other thing those comments do is hide earlier comments by driving them down and out-of-sight (since most people won't click on a "see more" tab) where they're less likely to be seen.
 
exclamationMarek said:
Am I the only one who finds the newest set of comments on the tritons campaign a bit off putting? A good example of "debunking gone wrong" with personal attacks - like accusing saeed of being an untrustworthy business partner because he has a tattoo o,O. I feel like the only thing that is achieving is discrediting the remaining debunk effort :/ Then again, as we approach the deadline we're going to have to shift from debunking to collecting evidence of fraud that can be used after their december deadline.
Click to expand...
Yes, its been very disappointing to see and, in my opinion, has hurt the effort by lessening the importance of the comment section. Nevertheless, given that Indiegogo appears to be wiling to let the clock run out I don't think additional comments are going to be too important now.

The next significant step will be a reasoned and persuasive presentation to members of the California Legislative Assembly because, ultimately, that's the best shot at dealing with what appears to be endemic bad behavior as far as Indiegogo is concerned. While Triton will be the flagship example, it will be important to include several of the other glaring examples of Indiegogo "Scampaigns." I've been collecting material from this board (thank you all for your work in that regard) and from other sources. I don't want to bog down this thread with reports from that front so if anybody wishes to help lend assistance (or simply wants to remain informed) please send me a message privately and I'll include you in our ad hoc group.
 
I've been watching the Triton campaign for some time now with morbid curiosity.
I think the efforts made to educate people in this scampaign should be applauded, well done guys.
http://scampaignscandal.spacecrafted.com/ is a wonderfully put together site to educate people to the obvious flaws in the Triton campaign, well done.

I've contributed to a number of campaigns on both kickstarter and indigogo and its sad to see so many people get drawn into something with so many obvious flaws.
Saeed's lack of actually being engaged to answer these problems shows the lack of understanding behind what they want to accomplish, the contributors should be expected to not receive the product that they funded.

I've been gathering data on this campaign such as number of backers and contributions made per day, sadly I didn't think to capture comments.

Here are some pretty charts, data is still ongoing...
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9JAagj5H9PdbC1lSVpFVzNqekE
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9JAagj5H9PdRXNRTkgyOFcxNWc
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9JAagj5H9Pda2lIRDBfWFZXbVk
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9JAagj5H9PdTDczWTlHRUFMcm8

Raw Data
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B9JAagj5H9Pdd2NHMFlFMFVhRDA
 
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wazzgood said:
I've been gathering data on this campaign such as number of backers and contributions made per day, sadly I didn't think to capture comments.
Click to expand...
If you followed this thread earlier, you could have saved you the effort. You can see the evolution of any campaign for example at backerit.com (there may be more such sites). As posted already earlier, the data of both Triton campaigns is available at https://www.backerkit.com/projects/world-s-first-artificial-gills-oxygen-respirator--2
See below a sample from that page:
backerit.png

As for the comments, the ones they kept are accessible on their IGG campaing page, and the ones they deleted are at https://twitter.com/TritonDeleted - bot written by exclamationMarek. He in fact has a database with all the comments, if needed later.
 
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What would be really interesting is to see how many new backers they attracted each day versus the amount the backer total increased - from which you could work out how many backers were cancelling each day? (I realise it is maybe a bit late to suggest that unless someone already thought of it...)
 
txt29 said:
If you followed this thread earlier, you could have saved you the effort. You can see the evolution of any campaign for example at backerit.com (there may be more such sites). As posted already earlier, the data of both Triton campaigns is available at https://www.backerkit.com/projects/world-s-first-artificial-gills-oxygen-respirator--2
See below a sample from that page:
backerit.png

As for the comments, the ones they kept are accessible on their IGG campaing page, and the ones they deleted are at https://twitter.com/TritonDeleted - bot written by exclamationMarek. He in fact has a database with all the comments, if needed later.
Click to expand...

Backerkit, good to know :)
 
wazzgood said:
sadly I didn't think to capture comments.
Click to expand...

Well no worry, that's what I have. Raw file included. It's in JSON, so it's best viewed with some JSON viewing app. After the first 30 I started noting the exact date a comment was added, in UTC. Deleted comments are properly tagged, along with the date of deletion.
 

Attachments

  • TritonComments.json.txt
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$441,193.00 shows as the final total.

Unbelievable. At least it's not the million the first campaign attempt would have netted them.
 
No public utterances from the campaign team in more than 24 hours since the campaign closed. Perhaps they haven't sobered up enough to operate a keyboard yet...

Edit - There is still a call for debunking here. They can continue to collect funds after the campaign close date with their 'in demand' option. One thing I noticed - the 'donate now' buttons have changed to be specifically labelled 'Get this perk' since the original campaing period closed. That seems to me to be much more like a clear promise that backers will actually recieve the promised perk in return for their money. I don't know if it is enough to change the legal position though?
 
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John Lewis said:
Unbelievable. At least it's not the million the first campaign attempt would have netted them.
Click to expand...
If nothing changes, it will be 2 millions or more before December, when the most impatient backers may start asking questions, but I doubt it will stop new victims from sending more money anyway. So the final bill may be even much higher than that.
 
txt29 said:
If nothing changes, it will be 2 millions or more before December
Click to expand...

I wouldn't think so. Unless they get a major outlet promoting them, their popularity will only die out. It's a natural path that most campaigns follow, you make most of your pledges in the first couple of days when you are new and exciting - when the press is linking to you and when you're on the front page of indiegogo.

If memory serves me right, this other obvious scam https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-dragonfly-futurefon--3#/story collected around $690,000 during their campaign, and only $30,000 during the 17 months of being "in demand".
 
exclamationMarek said:
If memory serves me right, this other obvious scam https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-dragonfly-futurefon--3#/story collected around $690,000 during their campaign, and only $30,000 during the 17 months of being "in demand".
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Triton collected ~$10,000 already in the first 2 days after the deadline of the campaign, despite that they went into the stealth mode already a few days before the end. That's about the same rate as during the campaign (except of the strong first week). If they were not totally stupid and lazy, and continued communicating, posting some updates with more lies and faked photos and videos up and then, they could easily keep the hopes high minimally another year. Skilled scammers would be able doing it indefinitely (for comparison Andrea Rossi is scamming investors since 40 years, Black/Brilliant Light Power for 25 years, Steorn for 10 years, ...). It is likely that the stream of new backers will eventually get weaker, but if they continued with the scam, I do not think that multiplying the amount a few times in the next 12 months would be totally impossible.
 
It looks like they indeed read this forum, and decided to continue with the scam - there is a new update:
878% Funded
We want to say thank you all of our backers that have contributed for our campaign.

This is just the beginning on our journey and you all will follow us step by step, we will post a new videos of Triton with the new improvement that we have done and that we explained in the last update.

We are still developing it with our manufactures and we will show it to you, our backers before we show it to the public.

Thank you once again and we really mean it from the bottom of our hearts, no matter what the "naysayers" have been saying you guys have been loyal to us and we will bring you a amazing product at the end of this year.

Best regards
Saeed, Jeabyun, John
Content from External Source
 
txt29 said:
It looks like they indeed read this forum, and decided to continue with the scam...
Click to expand...

Had no doubt of that; there were a couple of clues that gave that away. Stuff mentioned here that got corrected/added to the campaign shortly afterward, for example.
 
...The funds raised on the Triton campaign page just dropped to zero over 15 minutes or so, along with the number of backers. Now the page is unreachable. ...Did it just get closed down?
 
Yet now there is a new splash page up saying that Triton is about to launch! Stay tuned, think this is going to be a bumpy ride...
 
If this really is a relaunch, maybe to take advantage of the initial burst of publicity, this is beyond brazen.

But they have already established that people are willing to throw money at anything so why the hell not.
 
huwp said:
If this really is a relaunch, maybe to take advantage of the initial burst of publicity, this is beyond brazen.
Click to expand...

I thought the "launch" mentioned is the actual product launch. But then it says "coming soon on Indigogo". :confused:
 
Before the new page was set up, both huwp and me, we observed the numbers of the backers and the raised funds progressively dropping till zero (within several minutes).
 
Mick West said:
I thought the "launch" mentioned is the actual product launch. But then it says "coming soon on Indigogo". :confused:
Click to expand...

Yes, it implies they are restarting the crowd funding campaign. I'd like to see an actual product launch... :)

By chance, I viewed their page today (as did txt29) and watched as the dollar total and backer count slowly dropped to zero over 20 minutes or so. It looked like a mass refund, as if the campaign was being closed down - but now the re-launch page is up???
 
Jesus.
Wonder what indigogo is going to do about it this time? Is there any way we can see what the backers are saying or if there was indeed a mass refund?
 
There are a number of "scampaigns" that are still up on Indiegogo and they show the amounts funded even though the money was disbursed. I've never seen anything like this before and question whether they could take down a page without refunding money.

This is definitely something new. Whether it is something "good" or just more "bad" remains to be seen.

For instance, the infamous Healbe scampaign suckered people out of a million bucks and you can see the campaign page (noted as 'closed') here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/...matically-measure-calorie-intake/x/13874177#/

Given that Khademi pledged to deliver in December and keep backers updated (something few people believed he was sincere about) it is really strange to imagine the page going down like this unless contributions were refunded.
 
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The ADGEX ELFE scampaign that was taken down by IGG, looks differently - it shows (since months)
"ELFE - The energy free flashlight is under review by the Trust & Safety team."

To me it looks more as if IGG wants to restart the campaign from zero again, just like they already did once. Another possibility is that Triton removes traces and plans to go underground, but it does not seem too likely. Another possibility could be a hacker who took the justice into his hands, attacked Triton's account, refunded all, and removed the campaign, but it does not sound too likely either.
 
txt29 said:
The ADGEX ELFE scampaign that was taken down by IGG, looks differently - it shows (since months)
"ELFE - The energy free flashlight is under review by the Trust & Safety team."

To me it looks more as if IGG wants to restart the campaign from zero again, just like they already did once. Another possibility is that Triton removes traces and plans to go underground, but it does not seem too likely. Another possibility could be a hacker who took the justice into his hands, attacked Triton's account, refunded all, and removed the campaign, but it does not sound too likely either.
Click to expand...
As you can see, the current page shows an e-mail field for those wanting to get "updates." This all appears definitely like an attempt to re-start the campaign rather than a hacker. When you fill it out you get a thankyou page with Indiegogo's logo saying you'll be getting e-mails regarding a "future" indiegogo campaign.
 
If the scammers actually received the funds already, then maybe they are restarting the campaign to sweep away the (many) comments pointing out that the claims were impossible, and start again from a clean slate.

I don't think this is IGG, I think this is just another gambit by the scammers.
 
huwp said:
I don't think this is IGG, I think this is just another gambit by the scammers.
Click to expand...
It does not explain why all backers were removed. The campaign owner could remove backers only by refunding them, and that's the last thing Triton would do with the $450K.
 
The timing is weird. It's 3AM in Stockholm now. Maybe they did return home drunk and decided not to be criminals after all? That would be rather nice. After all, it does look like it was done by Triton and not Indiegogo.
 
Then why the professional-looking relaunch page? That isn't something that IGG would do.

My guess is they have their ill-gotten funds safely stashed away, and IGG 'rules' allow them to 'cancel' the previous backers support without losing any cash. The backers will howl, since they now have neither their money nor even any hollow promise of a delivery, but we have already seen that new backers will fight to take their place in line to be ripped off in the face of whatever sane reasons there might be to hesitate...

"Might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb" as the saying goes.
 
[I've added avatars for people without them to make reading the thread easier, feel free to change them]
 
huwp said:
Then why the professional-looking relaunch page? That isn't something that IGG would do.
Click to expand...
To me it looks like the placeholder they already used when building the campaign. There was a temporary placeholder during several hours also after the the first reboot, though I do not remember whether it was identical.

Note for example the old wording of the title, where they use the word "re-breather" that they abandoned in the meantime. IGG when restarting the camping, could either have taken an old placeholder, or could have asked Triton to put one themselves, while reworking their campaign in the way conform to IGG's requirements.
 
Hi gents and ladies,

My first post here - been reading the site for a while after being linked to it RE: the Triton campaign.

I am 99.9% sure IGG has closed the campaign and refunded the backers. The creator doesn't have the ability to close a campaign after it's been successfully completed, and furthermore it takes IGG a period of a few weeks before they actually disburse the funds.

I am sure there was some back and forth between IGG and the Triton scammers, and IGG probably requested more documentation or proof of the legitimacy of the product, and when it was not forthcoming they have refunded all backers.

I am sure the Triton scammers will try to overcome this just like they did the first time, and will come up with some new bold lies about how the fake product works.


The sad part of all this is how much of a massive avalanche of proof is required for IGG to take action. Or, more accurately, it seems like IGG will let any obvious-scam campaign run unless the will of the entire internet is against them. Shameful.
 
Hello again,

I've been monitoring the Triton page with a linux script and I saw this:

Time,Date,Funds,Backers,Days Left
09:45,07/May/2016,438799,1137,-6
10:00,07/May/2016,213063,536,-6
10:15,07/May/2016,2296,21,-6
10:30,07/May/2016,,,

This was captured approx 11 hours ago my time.
This might indicate a refund!?
 
I've been going through the IGG help centre for some clues to this mystery and found this;
If the funds for your campaign have already been sent to you, you will not be able to process a refund on Indiegogo. In the event that you have refunded a backer off of our platform, we strongly recommend you mark that order as refunded on your dashboard.
Content from External Source
As it also seems unlikely that Indiegogo would go out of pocket themselves by granting refunds when they had already paid the money forward:
When are contributions not eligible for a refund?
Contributions cannot be refunded by Indiegogo, if any of the following are true:
  • The contribution funds have already been transferred to the campaign owner
  • The campaign has ended
Content from External Source
It seems that it could NOT be the case that the campaigners have received the donations, and the refunds would thus appear to be something exceptional performed by IGG. This doesn't explain why there is still a 'coming soon' page and not a 'closed' or 'under review' page.
 
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