With this new project (who ever the project belongs to Harold or smart marker, I don't really care. I will just referrer to them as well them :-p) a update was pushed out to everyone saying
This is the deal. As part of the campaign, I'm raising a budget to create a multimedia and multi-language course. The funding of this course is voluntary and who ever makes a contribution will have 6 months of private access to the course, before this will be released to the public. Please read the detailed information on the campaign's page.
If you choose to support this new campaign and if you choose a perk that includes the $10 dedicated to the funding of the course, then you will get the shield for free!!!
But they have now back tracked saying.
I'm pleased and glad to offer a free shield, the best match possible to the Arduino compatible board you have funded already, for those of you who will help with the funding of the project dedicated to the production of a full multimedia and multi-language course.
Unfortunately, cause the excitement for the new campaign just launched, this morning I used the wrong words, as I wrote that the free shield will be guarantee to those who offer a $10 contribute for the production of the lessons.
What I meant and I failed to explain was: a KIT plus the $10 for the lessons.
I know that I gave mixed expectations to many and I'm sorry for this. I hope you can understand that I'm extremely grateful to all of you for the great support you have given to my projects, but I think that it should be clear that I can't offer a free shield to those who just pledge $10, as it will be a clear lost and it will not bring any benefit to the cause.
They then "sold out" the perk and created a new perk stating it wouldn't be eligible for the free shield but what about the people (20 of that perk have been "sold" at time of writing) who took the first mass mailing at face value? It sets my spidey senses off. An honest mistake? fair enough, but will they honour the perk to the people who paid up before the clarification? Because as its a flexible funded campaign the money as already been taken out of the backers accounts and is now in the account of the person (or people) running the campaign.
I guess only time will tell.
EDIT: I understand that this is crowd sourcing, but when you use words such as guarantee(sic) it does make me think that not only are backers thinking they are buying something, but Harold is using the platform to sell something too.