Thomas Vles, the original founder of the now liquidated company behind Poopy Cat’s Kickstarter campaign, Poopy Pets Sales BV, has responded to us regarding the turmoil amongst a – according to him small fraction – of Kickstarter pledgers. “We regret that certain backers did not accept the offered solution to pay the additional shipping costs”, says Vles: “we have hundreds of happy backers.”
On Monday, we published a story about two of Poopy Cat’s, (now infamous) Landmarks Kickstarter campaign, backers, who weren’t pleased when they were faced with a steep increase in costs for shipping. As it turns out, they were even seeking legal counseling to see if they could still receive a refund.
According to Vles, the delivery for most backers has in fact taken place, without extra costs for backers within Europe and a number of other countries.
Regretful
“We find it, of course, very regretful that there is a limited group of backers who have not agreed to the offered solution to pay the higher shipping costs,” Vles comments. With regards to the article, he also states: “It is a pity that hundreds of happy backers are not mentioned in the article by Silicon Canals, along with the dozens of photos and videos of happy cats playing in the Landmarks”.
As proof, he has actually forwarded dozens of customer images of their cats happily playing in their Landmarks’. “Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website where new concepts are launched with a certain risk. We have invested a considerably larger amount of money in producing and distributing the Landmarks for Kickstarter and, unfortunately, we could not finance the increased shipping cost. We are pleased that most of the backers have shown understanding for our situation and were willing to pay the additional shipping cost.”
No alternative solution
Vles lets us know that the intellectual property belonging to the Poopy Cat brand has been sold to IJsvogel Groep, and they will continue the product lines. However, there’s no alternative solution in place for the backers who haven’t agreed to the additional shipping costs.
Vles: “Backers who have not responded to the offered solution will not receive products. Because this was unavoidable, we have also indicated this in the last update, where we insisted remaining backers to still agree with the shipping costs and thus guarantee the shipping of products.”
