I am one of the backers of Robelf Indiegogo compaign, they started this two years ago and yet has not shipped my robot but want to refund due to excess shipping fee.
I can’t believe after two years they just dump backers like this, this is the message they sent me.
Dear Backers,
Thank you for your patience and support.
We are writing this to inform you that we will refund the money you paid to the campaign for the following items: Robelf robot Elf eye & dock Charing station Elf Tower 3D VR kit The reason why we are refunding them is because we have encountered problems that were not foreseen during the campaign, such as excess shipping fee and duties.
I also heard they are going to CES in 2019, I am afraid they will keep lying to Americans and just treat us like this for another two years.
I also do not know when they will refund the money, they have not even told us when the refund will be made.
During the two years they kept saying the robots were ready to ship, they even said it’s on the boat already. I can’t believe this is happening.
Does anybody know how we can expose this to the press or to get some help from Indiegogo? I sent them several emails they didn’t reply to me.
Keep in mind that you participed to a crowdfunding campaign and this wasn’t a regular transaction. You shouldn’t expect it to be a trade of money for a product but an investment in a possible future product.
That being said, yes, a lot of people get burned from crowfunding campaigns.
I put $800 into Hubert the humanoid on Kickstarter.
My only complaint is that Arcbotics was never able to refund me.
The account used to fund Hubert 2 years ago was closed shortly after I paid.
So now I’m out $800. Now, as far as I’m concerned Arcbotics is a well known company.
They have 2 successful robots. I have one.
The problem they had was the screen. The Chinese manufacturing company modified their module.
The OS also didn’t support a lot of the hardware. This has been a major destructive force.
It’s killing on average two successful startup robotics companies a year since 2013.
I have a personal project Gizmo. Gizmo has a screen, but is not standard in my specs. The problem I encountered was a lot of ineffective drivers. That had to do with an older RPi and OS Wheezy. I will attempt to experiment in August on Gizmo using an RPi 2 with the USB screen OS of Jessie. However, it honestly isn’t necessary. To be more precise the screen altogether has been a little poison in my own efforts. For this reason, I will probably be hand making robot parts for this Tracbot model, not assembling full robots themselves unless per request.
It’s important the public know what’s going on. Everyone should be aware of what kind of steps it takes to produce these models. It’s equally important to know what steps are taken to acquire incorporating certain parts. It’s a lot and sometimes too much. The days of looking ahead in 2013 are over. Most projects have failed. Few products like Sphero have survived. I recommend that we learn all that we can in 2019. 2020 is going to be very different. What we know is that it could be a very expensive decade. Products may not be affordable. Few products will be released. Most consumers may be on a small budget. So I can understand why Robelf is struggling. Its design uses a screen. It’s cheap (<$500) like Cozmo and Vector. Its potential threatens investors. It’s not made in USA. All these things are important to investors, consumers, and trade partners.
