EEVblog #751 - How To Debunk A Product (The Batteriser)

[rx8pilot]

Do real people even use facebook ?
 
 to much time on there hands. ( yes I have too time on my hands but none to waste )

A few billion or so.

At least a few million use it for advancing humanity. The rest seem to make political memes and cat videos.

[Brumby]

Facebook - Facepalm ..... I see no difference.

[Jay_Diddy_B]

From an alleged Frost & Sullivan Roohparvar interview dated July 2015:
VS: What kind of customer feedback mechanism do you have in place to ensure that the product development and innovation matches market and customer needs?
  BR: From the start, Batteriser is committed to maintaining a strong online presence, which will allow for customers to contact us whenever they’d like. Consumers will be able to reach out to us through our web site, via e-mail, and via social media like Facebook and twitter....

To help understand I have inserted some comments..

BR: From the start, Batteriser is committed to maintaining a strong online presence, [similar to that of ruthless dictator], which will allow for customers to contact us whenever they’d like [It will not help. We will respond, with marketing weasel words, on our schedule. We will use phrases like 'Within a few days, we'll provide an update to give our customers a little peace and assurance.'  or 'We'll be posting an update very soon. We have not forgotten our indiegogo customers.[although we are trying hard]' and even 'We do see the value in having some photos to show you all, so we plan on including some in our future updates'.[being careful not to commit or promise] Consumers will be able to reach out to us through our web site, via e-mail, and via social media like Facebook and twitter....[Reaching out won't help. At our discretion, your messages will be deleted or not answered...]


Jay_Diddy_B

[SL4P]

From an alleged Frost & Sullivan Roohparvar interview dated July 2015:
VS: What kind of customer feedback mechanism do you have in place to ensure that the product development and innovation matches market and customer needs?
  BR: From the start, Batteriser is committed to maintaining a strong online presence, which will allow for customers to contact us whenever they’d like. Consumers will be able to reach out to us through our web site, via e-mail, and via social media like Facebook and twitter....

To help understand I have inserted some comments..
and a couple of extras

BR: From the start, Batteriser is committed to maintaining a strong online presence, [similar to that of ruthless dictator], which will allow for customers to contact us whenever they’d like
We may not respond, but that's our prerogative, as 'we're very busy'.  It will not help.
We will respond at our leisure, with marketing weasel words, on our schedule.
We will use phrases like 'Within a few days, we'll provide an update to give our customers a little peace and assurance.'  or 'We'll be posting an update very soon'.
We have not forgotten our indiegogo* customers.[although we are trying hard]' and even 'We do see the value in having some photos to show you all, so we plan on including some in our future updates'.[being careful not to commit or promise]

Meanwhile, you are free to copy and enjoy the photos of Probes and the Batteroo team.
Consumers will be able to reach out to us through our web site, via e-mail, and via social media like Facebook and twitter...

[Reaching out won't help. At our discretion, your messages will be deleted or not answered...] to free up our time to concentrate on our holidays development activities.
You may like to get in touch with our Contract Manufacturers (Wan Hung Lo Global Ltd) to verify the production and shipping schedule.. I'll post these details in our next scheduled update.


Jay_Diddy_B
*indie money comes, and outde money go-go's - whoosh, like magic.  Teknology is wonderful to make silicon valley millionaires!

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

Talk of class-action

[Smokey]

Talk about the riding the wambulance a little too far.  Isn't it right in the backer agreement that there are no guarantees of anything?  Scam or not this isn't a legal issue, at least not for indegogo.

[Fungus]

Isn't it right in the backer agreement that there are no guarantees of anything?

Yes.

Scam or not this isn't a legal issue, at least not for indegogo.

I really don't think any of them are lawyers. 

Even if they were, IndieGoGo wouldn't be worried. It's not their problem.

Batteroo are obviously lying but it's all very carefully worded lies. There's no promises or guarantees in anything they say.

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

People are waking up I think

Im not a lawyer.......

Nothing stops someone or a group from filing a suit. Successful suit is different.

But for IGG platform, I think it's in the realm of possibility they could get in trouble for not making it clear (platform as a whole) - a lot of people seem to not get it. When you go to contribute, there is a two sentence warning, in a light grey that doesn't stand out. That's kinda iffy imo. Also just because terms say they aren't responsible, doesn't actually mean they aren't because law overrides all. Companies like google would be in a lot of trouble as a platform, but they comply with certain laws to make sure they don't have liability; they can't simply write in some agreement that they aren't responsible.

Even if a lawsuit is not won, or even a bunch thrown out, they increase the odds of triggering regulation or having new laws put into place.  For example, it used to be anyone could openly invest in small startups or whatever... but too many people were scammed... so now there is a ton of regulation and most people can't invest (certified investors have to have net worth +$1,000,000, or income level of +$200,000 for several years, by law in the US. There are a bunch of sites like IGG but for certified investors only (you buy equity or debt invest)).

[Cerebus]

Does Indiegogo have much power to do anything? What can they do 

They can't do anything. Batteroo already have the money.

Maybe Batteroo has the money - but aren't there non-financial actions they could take?

What, the kind involving pitchforks and torches? 

[Muttley Snickers]

What the backers needed before handing over the cash was the proper tools to identify another questionable product, from the get go and not after the animal has bolted, common sense trumps any app by the way.

[apis]

Talk about the riding the wambulance a little too far.  Isn't it right in the backer agreement that there are no guarantees of anything?  Scam or not this isn't a legal issue, at least not for indegogo.

Maybe not illegal, only a court can decide that, but IGG say scams are against their rules and we have pointed out to them this is a scam and yet they do nothing. IGG could have asked for some sort of verification this is real since bob claims they have several prototypes. It would have been so easy for them to verify (if they are too ignorant about electronics and the laws of physics to realize it by them selves). All-right, IGG is just in it for the money, nothing new there. Problem (besides a lot of honest but stupid people loosing their money) is it hurts all other crowd funding projects. In the end no one will want to sponsor legit campaigns either because they are afraid of being scammed. But hopefully it is only IGG that goes down and if Kickstarter (or someone else) keep the rubbish out people will stick to the more trustworthy service. :/

Anyway, so far it's been very entertaining and educational, and I can't wait for them to finally ship something that can be probed properly. It's the moment of truth, we are waiting for bob to put his cards on the table.

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

What the backers needed before handing over the cash was the proper tools to identify another questionable product, from the get go and not after the animal has bolted, common sense trumps any app by the way.

People are under the impression that IGG has and uses one of these

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

Anyway, so far it's been very entertaining and educational, and I can't wait for them to finally ship something that can be probed properly. It's the moment of truth, we are waiting for bob to put his cards on the table.

I want them to ship. It will be an awesome teardown Tuesday.

[apis]

Yes, it will be either amazing feat of physics and engineering, or hilarious fail. Either way it will be great.

[GoneTomorrow]

This thread now has more replies than the 2nd through 5th place threads in EEVBlog Specific combined  O0 I suppose Dave can be grateful of Batteriser Batteroo for stimulating such popular discussion.

How does this rank in terms of replies on the entire forum?

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

This thread now has more replies than the 2nd through 5th place threads in EEVBlog Specific combined  O0 I suppose Dave can be grateful of Batteriser Batteroo for stimulating such popular discussion.

How does this rank in terms of replies on the entire forum?

looks to me about 4916/877217=0.5%

[EEVblog]

Maybe not illegal, only a court can decide that, but IGG say scams are against their rules and we have pointed out to them this is a scam and yet they do nothing. IGG could have asked for some sort of verification this is real since bob claims they have several prototypes.

It's a fact that they have prototypes.
There is little to nothing IGG can do here. They can ask all the questions and proof they want, it would be trivial for Batteroo to answer those to the satisfaction of a non-technical questioner.
It is not against the law to have a ridiculous idea you think might work, be technically wrong about the claims, ignore the experts (because you think you are the expert), be horribly inept at executing on it, and then still having hope when it all falls apart.

Anyway, so far it's been very entertaining and educational, and I can't wait for them to finally ship something that can be probed properly. It's the moment of truth, we are waiting for bob to put his cards on the table.

It's the reason they never shipped the media kits as promised. Once they ship a single unit the game is up.

[Corporate666]

Talk of class-action

On the one hand, good!  Fraudsters should be sued.  But it seems to me that 99.9% of people have no clue how class action suits work.  It comes up incessantly whenever a crowd funding project is in trouble.

In a traditional class action, a lawyer sues a well heeled client.  The settlement is huge, the lawyer takes the lions share, and the defendants get a pittance, other than the original plaintiffs who get a better payout (but they also have to spent lots of time and possibly money on the suit themselves).

That's not going to ever happen with a crowd funding project creator, because even the largest crowd funding projects have a tiny tiny fraction of the money a traditional class action defendant has.  Furthermore, the talk of class actions is usually because the project went sideways, meaning the money is usually or likely gone - so there's nothing for the lawyer to get.

The only way it could ever work is if the backers wanting to do a class action all chipped in money to pay the legal fees.  Class actions are a lot of money, so you'd be taking about raising a few hundred thousand dollars, which is probably more than the original amount raised.  Who would ever spend $100 to collect $50 when the $50 can never be collected because it's spent?

And class actions are civil suits - so if the defendant loses, his exposure is financial.  Well, if the money is gone - there's nothing to pay. So the class doesn't even get the satisfaction of seeing the scammer go to jail.

It seems most people think saying they want to pursue a class action suit means they think someone else will do all the work and they will get a check for $0.73 cents a year from now.  It doesn't work like that.


Not directed at you - just at the crowd funding people who talk of class actions.

[SL4P]

Anyway, so far it's been very entertaining and educational, and I can't wait for them to finally ship something that can be probed properly. It's the moment of truth, we are waiting for bob to put his cards on the table.

I want them to ship. It will be an awesome teardown Tuesday.

Everyone knows they won't ship a working Batteriser - but if they shipped out a 'Probes' monkey toy as a sweetener instead, they'd go part way to restoring their loss of goodwill from Batteriser.
Ex China, the monkeys would be $1 packed, $1.50 shipped - so they'd still be $1 ahead... but this maths is probably beyond Bobby Batteroo. (and he'd supply the wrong batteries for the toy!)

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

So it looks as if the trademark issue is not holding up shipping: [edit maybe not true... see follow post]

IN THE UNITED STATESPATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE BEFORE THE TRADEMARK TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
..
JOINT REQUEST FOR ENTRY OF STIPULATIONS, SCHEDULE MODIFICATIONS, AND A PROTECTIVE ORDER On February 10, 2106 Energizer Brands, LLC and Batteroo, Inc.

"Batteroo, Inc. agrees to provide a sample of the product to be sold under the opposed marks after the product has been shipped to consumers.  Batteroo estimates that shipment will occur in March."

[EEVblog]

So it looks as if the trademark issue is not holding up shipping:
IN THE UNITED STATESPATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE BEFORE THE TRADEMARK TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
JOINT REQUEST FOR ENTRY OF STIPULATIONS, SCHEDULE MODIFICATIONS, AND A PROTECTIVE ORDER On February 10, 2106 Energizer Brands, LLC and Batteroo, Inc.
"Batteroo, Inc. agrees to provide a sample of the product to be sold under the opposed marks after the product has been shipped to consumers.  Batteroo estimates that shipment will occur in March."

That's really interesting. It's one thing to dick around with the public and backers, it's another thing entirely to dick around with Energiser's lawyers.

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

So it looks as if the trademark issue is not holding up shipping:
IN THE UNITED STATESPATENT AND TRADEMARKOFFICE BEFORE THE TRADEMARK TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
JOINT REQUEST FOR ENTRY OF STIPULATIONS, SCHEDULE MODIFICATIONS, AND A PROTECTIVE ORDER On February 10, 2106 Energizer Brands, LLC and Batteroo, Inc.
"Batteroo, Inc. agrees to provide a sample of the product to be sold under the opposed marks after the product has been shipped to consumers.  Batteroo estimates that shipment will occur in March."

That's really interesting. It's one thing to dick around with the public and backers, it's another thing entirely to dick around with Energiser's lawyers.

Ok here is the really interesting part I just read buried in the document.....so there could be a problem if I'm understanding correctly

1.  The trademark dispute seems to be scheduled well into 2017

and

2. The amount of information batterizer and energiser seem to be looking into for discovery. "The parties agree to search E-mail and unstructured data (e.g., word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentation slides) of the individuals identified on their initial disclosures. ....shall include searches of shared drives, network storage, cloud storage, etc. (“Non-Local Data Storage”)...."

That can be a lot

and

3.   "Parties agree to initially limit e-discovery to the period of time most likely to contain the most relevant information to this dispute, 6 months prior to the first consideration of the BATTERISER and BATTERISE Marks [Date to be provided by Batteroo] to December 15, 2015"

BUT

"Parties further agree that ESI related to Batteroo’s technology embodied in the commercial products to be sold under the BATTERISER and BATTERISE Marks will be searched back to 6 months prior to the date of conception [date to be supplied by Batteroo] without the need for further negotiation.


So to me, it looks like if they do sell the product, then discovery goes way back.........

http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=86571464&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch     Documents tab->Proceedings Documents->PAPER RECEIVED AT TTAB    on 2016-03-02

Have no idea if they agree to this, document seems to be before-signature and not a lawyer...but is interesting and I see nothing else

[SL4P]

EDIT:  My error reading the docs

(redacted)

 Oh to be a fly on the wall!

[ChunkyPastaSauce]

I may be wrong, but following the timeline in that trademark schdule... it seems that Batteroo/Batteriser started the IGG campaign AFTER the initial trademark claims were lodged by Energiser - between March and June 2015.

The fact this action was not mentioned to potential IGG backers is 'interesting'.

It's also interesting that Energiser must have been 'looking' at Bob and family sometime prior to IGG for some reason.   Oh to be a fly on the wall!

Where do you see that? To me it looks like  2015-09-11 or  12/15/2015, both after IGG?

[SL4P]

Sorry, you're correct... I misread one entry as bein an Energiser action, whereas it was in fact triggered by Batteroo.