EEVblog #1099- BattBump - Dumbest Kickstarter Ever!

[EEVblog]

It is unclear if the original was a hoax, a scam, a spoof or a scam based on identity theft.

It is not identity theft, and was no hoax, it was a legitimate campaign.

The original website is old for all we know it was an April Fool from 2015.

It was only created recently, it is not from 2015, and it's not a April fools joke, as confirmed by two other journalists who got replies from her.

[GeorgeOfTheJungle]

$whois 'battbump.com'
   Domain Name: BATTBUMP.COM
   Registry Domain ID: 2236991631_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN
   Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.namecheap.com
   Registrar URL: http://www.namecheap.com
   Updated Date: 2018-04-28T07:59:35Z
   Creation Date: 2018-03-09T01:37:12Z
   Registry Expiry Date: 2019-03-09T01:37:12Z
   Registrar: NameCheap Inc.
   Registrar IANA ID: 1068
   Registrar Abuse Contact Email: abuse@namecheap.com
   Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.6613102107
   Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited https://icann.org/epp#clientTransferProhibited
   Name Server: NS0.WIXDNS.NET
   Name Server: NS1.WIXDNS.NET
   DNSSEC: unsigned

[Lockon Stratos]

3rd Privacy claim
Same Blab video, so two claims on that now.

Cant you get someone at youtube to shot down these bogus complaints?

[elgonzo]

Cant you get someone at youtube to shot down these bogus complaints?

[erkko]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/catclark1/ is now redirecting to https://www.linkedin.com/in/unavailable/

busy little shit. and all efforts in right direction...

[Halcyon]

Cat Clark, instead of going to ground and pretending things didn't exist/happen, perhaps you could address the audience which you, yourself have single-handedly created. We're listening. :-)

For those who missed out and would like to learn a bit more about Cat's idea and a bit about herself:

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/06/26/battbump-wireless-phone-to-phone-charging-on-the-blockchain/

https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2018/06/27/battbump-update-the-project-backs-down-on-its-claims-then-cancels-and-vanishes/

https://web.archive.org/web/20180627123037/http://battbump.com/

[Lockon Stratos]

Cant you get someone at youtube to shot down these bogus complaints?

Worth a shot... 

[NivagSwerdna]

It is unclear if the original was a hoax, a scam, a spoof or a scam based on identity theft.

It is not identity theft, and was no hoax, it was a legitimate campaign.

The original website is old for all we know it was an April Fool from 2015.

It was only created recently, it is not from 2015, and it's not a April fools joke, as confirmed by two other journalists who got replies from her.

OK. I stand corrected.

I looked at the KS page.  The reward levels don't involve any technology just T-shirts, hoodies etc so I guess it was a misleading (AKA scam) marketing exercise.
Given the rewards don't actually rely on the technology working I'm surprised they pulled it.

[EEVblog]

Her entire personal website is now gone, just a Wix banner page.
Silly stuff going full nuclear, she could have just let this fade quietly into the night.

[EEVblog]

A German article:
https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Aus-fuer-skurrile-BattBump-Kampagne-Smartphone-Akkus-per-NFC-laden-4093729.html

[MT]

It's her attack of freedom of the press.

Dave Jones the last bastion outside Fake News cabal!

[SparkyFX]

Her entire personal website is now gone, just a Wix banner page.
Silly stuff going full nuclear, she could have just let this fade quietly into the night.

It never goes that way, because it is that all or nothing type of personality that comes with broad claims but empty hands.
Be fast to occupy the right spot before others do, might be a motivation to go ahead. Making a mistake in doing so, ok... happens. But already collecting money is a bit too much, other forms of publication would have fulfilled the same purpose.

Crowd funding is very unfiltered in that regard, a run of the mill venture capitalist would have sorted that out beforehand to avoid legal trouble (it would be fraud after all). OTOH, there have been all kinds of scams in the investment sector even before online crowd funding was a thing.

[Rasz]

Silly stuff going full nuclear, she could have just let this fade quietly into the night.

and face "and what about that scam kickstarter" questions while being passed over for a promotion every single time, or even fired because TV/marketing place cant afford having questionable public facing employees. Cmon, you know this was never an option.

Her only moves were contacting you and hope for a redemption Video on EEVblog channel where she plays stupid and pretends to learn new things and is truly sorry for making a mistake and being over enthusiastic, or deleting herself and hoping YT will let her censor others.

[cprobertson1]

Her entire personal website is now gone, just a Wix banner page.
Silly stuff going full nuclear, she could have just let this fade quietly into the night.

This is usually about the time the Streisand Effect kicks in!


So, I just noticed that not one of the reward tears tiers feature anything more interesting than a hoodie - to be delivered by around December 2019 no less...

Did they ever offer anything actually interesting in the reward tiers? Don't suppose anybody noticed if it got changed after the big reveal?

[WacKEDmaN]

her damage control is truly epic! shes doing quite a good job at removing herself from the internet..shame its all too late!

[Halcyon]

her damage control is truly epic! shes doing quite a good job at removing herself from the internet..shame its all too late!

I guess she took the hard way out. Cat has a lot to learn about the industry (and how the internet never forgets). As someone who works/worked for CBN Media, who centres itself around technology and the media, she should know better!

If she was truly serious about releasing a product like the BattBump, the best thing she could have done was take Dave's professional advice and realised it wasn't going to happen, admit her lack of planning/homework and cancel the Kickstarter project that way. Instead, she got greedy and tried to use Kickstarter as her own personal cash machine to which there is no retort. She got caught out, panicked and now hopes that it will all go away soon and people will forget her name. People now just assume she is a scammer. She could still possibly redeem herself somewhat if she just came out with it and spoke with Dave (and others), there is no shame in being wrong and admitting your failures.

[westfw]

maybe involves identity theft as well

I doubt it.
They would have to control her website account, LinkedIn account, Vimeo account, her mobile phone, and maybe others.

How do you figure?  One email password, and I think you could forge the rest...  Yeah, it might be difficult to take over someone who has a significant existing web presence, but if you were a relatively anonymous student who had her phone stolen (for example), it might be pretty trivial (I'm not sure I want to consider HOW trivial) to go out and CREATE an entirely fictitious web presence...

The aftermath could be the person desperately trying to shut down all the fake accounts made in their name, or it could be the perpetrator trying to clean up after themselves after being informed just how far beyond "harmless prank" their activities have gone...

[wilfred]

I don't think anyone is "beating up" on her. She tried to make a quick buck for personal gain by launching a carefully worded Kickstarter project which basically meant that she could make $30,000+ and do nothing more than produce an application that didn't do anything. Those who skim-read the Kickstarter page could have easily backed the project expecting that the hardware and concept would come to fruition. She got caught out and now she has gone on a delete spree in an attempt to cover it up. It's probably more of a scam than Batteriser was, at least they had a product that kind of did something, not just a promise to wait until the technology became available.

Well, I don't actually know it was meant as a joke. Dave himself said he tried to raise money to buy a mansion as a joke. So joke crowdfunding campaigns are not unprecedented. But I doubt you can be equally certain it wasn't just a prank. At least it wasn't set up where the money pledged was taken even if the campaign fell short of the goal. Which is how I would have expected a genuine scammer to operate. I doubt it would ever have had a prayer of reaching the $30000 goal.

But as for beating up on her then, it is clear from the next few posts (after this one I am quoting) that at least some here are trying to publish her other names they claim she uses. And use phrases like "busy little shit" to describe her.

If anything, that is the reason I disapprove of these internet videos in that they can harness the worst of human behavior. It could so easily have been resolved by letting her take fright at the unintended consequences and move on with her life with a strong lesson learned about life on the Internet. But instead we have people with marginal reason to be interested piling in to reveal as much as they can about her and make it as difficult as possible for this incident to be consigned to history. Where it belongs.

[EEVblog]

If she was truly serious about releasing a product like the BattBump, the best thing she could have done was take Dave's professional advice and realised it wasn't going to happen, admit her lack of planning/homework and cancel the Kickstarter project that way. Instead, she got greedy and tried to use Kickstarter as her own personal cash machine to which there is no retort. She got caught out, panicked and now hopes that it will all go away soon and people will forget her name. People now just assume she is a scammer. She could still possibly redeem herself somewhat if she just came out with it and spoke with Dave (and others), there is no shame in being wrong and admitting your failures.

She has my email and phone number.

[innkeeper]

it's quite obvious that she was trying to get money to build a shell app for technology that would never exist in a form that could be used in the way it was promoted to work.
If that's not a conning people out of money then i don't know what is.  I really wonder if she is in any legal jeopardy for doing this, i don't know the laws in Australia. ... hmm, dave might be called to testify! 

[Bud]

All other things aside, does it really cost 30K to make a dummy mobile app with maybe a button or two and some fancy animated picture of a charging battery?

Disclamer: i am not a programmer, let alone mobile device programmer. So i have no clue of mobile platforms development costs.

[ataradov]

All other things aside, does it really cost 30K to make a dummy mobile app with maybe a button or two and some fancy animated picture of a charging battery?

Half a day worth of work, even you have no idea what you are doing and just googling tutorials.

Integration of blockchain will take longer. The longest part would be figuring out what exactly blockchain will do here.

[chickenHeadKnob]

All other things aside, does it really cost 30K to make a dummy mobile app with maybe a button or two and some fancy animated picture of a charging battery?

Half a day worth of work, even you have no idea what you are doing and just googling tutorials.

Integration of blockchain will take longer. The longest part would be figuring out what exactly blockchain will do here.

The good folks on this forum have been focusing on the kickstarter/technology aspect of this campaign as we are wont to do, but what if the real scam here is the initial coin offering? They only need a flashy kickstarter as a prop, the real deal  will be the BattBump tokens, get in on the ground floor now whilst you can! Before the Nigerian princes get in like flynn and drive the price up. Part of the pitch for the kickstarter was that you would go around and charge random strangers phones to score BB tokens. Maybe they figured no one would question the technical implausibility so quickly and completely.  Initial Coin Offerings are where the heavy weight scammers  are toiling now.

[elgonzo]

[...] Dave himself said he tried to raise money to buy a mansion as a joke. [...]

Apples and oranges.
Making a joke about raising money is quite a different thing than actually asking for money.

All other things aside, does it really cost 30K to make a dummy mobile app with maybe a button or two and some fancy animated picture of a charging battery?

Half a day worth of work, even you have no idea what you are doing and just googling tutorials.

Or - equally possible - you would go to StackOverflow, briefly tell your idea and ask a question like "Can somebody help me write this app?". Then you sit there the whole day and wonder why no one seems wanting to write that app with you while everybody under the sun downvotes your cry for help. Then you spend half of the next day googling tutorials...

[dcac]

BattBump - Dumbest Kickstarter Ever!

I wonder how long that prediction will stand.