So ridiculous that the CEO, owners and at least the upper management should be going to prison for theft by fraud. Beyond the pale that if an single person did this they would go to jail but since they call their criminal gang a company they get to walk after stealing literally millions of dollars.
Corporations are legally people all their own. There's a town in Delaware that is considering giving all people the franchise, including corporations. Don't move to Seaford.
@@MasterMalrubiusI know you're trying to be funny here, but you've missed the mark a bit on accuracy. Government is the entity that sets the laws therefore this wouldn't really apply to them.
They are not the founders of the company, they bought out the original owners who did produce the robots. These robots were supposed to be a version 2 of the original. The first thing they did when they bought the company was make the original robots require a monthly subscription for to operate. Mine is now just a paper weight.
I'm getting increasingly angry over the number of decisions made by humans who go unaccountable for "corporate" decisions. Sueing a company might MAYBE lose the decision makers their job.
I pre-ordered some books once. They were part of a series of sheet metal machine books and I already had threee of the intended seven book series. The self-publiser died before the series was complete so no other books. Someone bought the rights from the widow and I eventually had to buy the remaining books again. Since then I've never pre-ordered anything.
@@kennethstaszak9990 That's why at that point, is better to just close the series. The guy who wrote The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo died before finishing the series as well, so some other guy bought it and kept writing books, and the quality change was very noticeable.
I'm a fan of an author and pre-ordered the e-book of his upcoming novel. Then on release day I got burned by a "flash sale" of the hardcover version that cost a few bucks less. Not the end of the world but that was my last pre-order.
I've only ever preordered 2 books, and I guess I lucked out. Both were from Artists I liked, trying to self-publish their artwork. ...But even if they didn't deliver, I figured I'd enjoyed at least that much worth of their art online.
Pre order money should be held in an account that a company can borrow against part of it some of it being insurance against loss the rest held in banks earning interest and as delivery occurs the money is released .
I _was_ going to say that I was pretty sure there was a red turnip called something like "bull's blood," but it turns out to be a type of heirloom beet. Prove a botanist wrong, get a Like.
Out of curiosity at what point would it not be fraud? If they can show they had every intention to fulfill the obligations but just misjudged the costs associated?
Reminds me: I bought one of those 'Cosmo' robots back around 2015, but the company (Anki) went out of business in 2019, which means no updates or support of any kind. Since it was controlled by smart phone, that pretty much made the thing useless when I moved to my latest phone in 2022. I heard there was another company that bought the rights, and would produce updates, but nothing seemd to materialize, and now it's collecting dust in a box in my garage. Poor little guy. 😅
Well, yes... _Investor buys company from original developer, reorganizes business model, and promises more than is currently technically possible..._ Aye, that *does* sound like a company we know.
Back before everything was web based I sent in a check to pre-order a collectors' booklet that never got published. I still believe it was meant in good faith since the $6 check was never cashed, at least not two years later when I closed that account.
One may ask "Why is there a robotics company in Pittsburgh?" It could be because Pittsburgh is where CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) is, which is one of the top schools for AI & robotics.
Steve, if you read this comment, would you please do a video on the illogical reasoning that a debit card doesn't have the same protection as a credit card? I don't understand that logic.
I'm not Steve but it's perfectly logical. there's a reason there's different protections, you need to put in a PIN to prove it's you making the purchase specifically to prevent a need for charge backs
I made that mistake on farcebook thinking I was getting a great deal on an ebike. The bike was real but the company was a scam out of China. I paid almost $200 for a fake gold unicorn necklace. I used my BofA debit card and the bank said they have no control over what I buy. It's up to me to make sure the company was legitimate. Facebook was of course useless because it wasn't part of marketplace.
A debit card transaction, if not technically then at least in intent and concept, transfers money directly out of your account to someone else's to pay them, just as if you had drawn cash. A credit card is an agreement between you, the person you're buying from, and the crediting company. You are borrowing from the credit card company/bank, and they are also promising to pay the vendor. I don't really know if any credit card company is going to reverse charges two years later. If they do it would probably be more as a customer service to the buyer than as a real "reversal", because they probably would have already paid the vendor.
My bank gives me the same protections as a credit card on my debit card. No hassle, refunds/charge backs, cancel fraud charges and replace card. On the spot too, no waiting.
They should have added a term where if you have had a Disney Plus trial they don't have to refund or fulfill order. That would have covered their butts. 😂
I think that's called fraud, and I think that the owners of the company deserve 1 charge per case of fraud for every single item they did not deliver. It's one thing if **** happens and you refund the money but that's not what they are doing.
I know the L.L.C. and the INC. are protective instruments for the employees of the company. After the owner/ceo and /or others are found guilty of scamming can their personal assets be seized to satisfy judgements? After all it was fraudulently acquired wealth.
No. It sounds like the boring company. Not a troll. Just sounds like that company. Promise the moon. Take years. Underdeliver. Well, there is _one_ tunnel... and you _can_ buy a brick if you visit. 😮💨
When I saw the video title I was worried it might be like that one car company that was sued into bankruptcy with claims that they weren't delivering cars they sold despite the first batch already being sent out.
Sounds a bit more like an investment company in over their heads in the tech end of things... _Investor buys company from original developer, reorganizes business model, and promises more than is currently, technically possible._ The current customers see problems at the 2nd step. The future customers see problems at the 3rd step. Especially when they "bought" a thing in advance. ...I had problems with a Gardening/Nursery company once. They made me so _very_ *very* angry. "Once bitten, twice shy" is real.
This is disappointing to hear about. I had been loosely following the development of the Cozmo & Vector robots for a few years, & had been on the fence about ordering a Vector. I was mostly concerned about long term support. As I write this, I'm also recalling reading about how the company shut down its servers that the online service depended on a couple years ago(-ish?), which now takes on a different context... What a shame...
DONT . the servers have been down since just after covid and still are, so my vector is just a lil robot sitting on a shelf. he went haywire shortly after the server problem and kept running off the large table he was on. I had to shut him down permanently and put him on display. waste of 800$
It would be hard to prove fraud because the company DID ship a lot of their V1 robots(Vector). The pre-sales were for Vector 2.0. Was it a scam after the fact? Could be. But proving criminal intent is going to be a long shot.
Here in South Africa the directors of a company which trades while insolvent are personally responsible for losses / unpaid creditors. It seems that is not the case in the USA?
@@LDuncanKelly here the criminal charge is "trading while insolvent" About 10 years ago I and a business partner shut down a company when we ran into headwinds.
That's a very good question. _I_ like to believe that the safe where it was being stored became possessed by some kind of よかい, and would purposefully hide either its contents or itself every seven and a half hours within a 2.16 mile radius of the business's location for the last 4 years, and would alter its locking mechanism each time it did so. The Company _really was ernest_ in its proposals and promises, but that _blasted_ safe had other ideas! "That's why you should never eat chicken on a Thursday, unless it's also Christmas." - An 日本人 Moral-Writer, probably
I have had good luck with pre-orders. But I have been buying from people who were established in other ways if not that actual product line. One time exception was a board game from a guy who was demoing them at a convention. His first time making a game and it is a nice game. It did take much longer than expected (over a year delay), but the game was delivered, in excellent condition and build. Found out the guy ended up having to sell his house to cover cost overruns. That was a RARE guy. But a lot of offered pre-orders I would not touch with a ten-foot pole. Sometimes you can just get a feel from how the presentation goes as to whether it is legit or not. The more hype put in, the less likely it is going to come through.
I have been stiffed too many times doing b2b pre-orders for band-merch back when I was voluntold to become the manager for the band my then BIL were in, so no way I preorder anything other than games with yearly releases or that are sequels to games I already have in my collection
I read you comment and had to go look up this Digital Dreams Labs. It's pretty funny to imagine those little Vector or Cozmo bots being used for such a purpose. I thought about it, and it's pretty funny to think of. I'm not saying that a well-motivated, industrious type could not adapt it for that purpose, though... 😆
This is not a new occurrence. There is a well-known company that now has website that was in bankruptcy for a short time years ago. They continued to take orders even though it was shipping none. I myself had an order that I placed, they cashed my check but never shipped the product. I fought with them for a short period and decided it wasn't worth the effort. They are still in business and have a website right now but I will not name the company for fear of potential ramifications from that company. But this is not a new occurrence.
Was it that Dutch Tulips place, with the multiple cloned websites running under different names but the same mailing address? That would happily sell items that were not in stock, "wait for everything to be available so they could ship all at once," make you call people without the tools to do anything for _months_ after you placed your order, and _eventually_ send you a box of dirt-that-might-at-one-time-have-been-a-viable-seedling??!
@@morsemurraidh1314 no it's an American Business that sells Auto parts. I won't get any more specific than that. I don't know that they operate under different company names but I haven't heard of it before. I just stopped ordering anything from them no matter how good the price or the item looked in their catalog. I just checked to see if they have a website and they do.
So ridiculous that the CEO, owners and at least the upper management should be going to prison for theft by fraud. Beyond the pale that if an single person did this they would go to jail but since they call their criminal gang a company they get to walk after stealing literally millions of dollars.
Multiply that by thousands and you have the government.
Corporations are legally people all their own. There's a town in Delaware that is considering giving all people the franchise, including corporations. Don't move to Seaford.
@@MasterMalrubiusI know you're trying to be funny here, but you've missed the mark a bit on accuracy. Government is the entity that sets the laws therefore this wouldn't really apply to them.
If you are Wells Fargo Bank or Goldman, Sachs, you can commit fraud all day, pay a fine (from shareholders' hides) and get an executive bonus.
Of course. Companies make the laws in America. What did you expect?
The website is still taking orders for puzzles!!
The puzzle is figuring out how to get your order...
Let’s see. Sue the guy. Depose him. Then criminally charge him after his deposition.
They are not the founders of the company, they bought out the original owners who did produce the robots. These robots were supposed to be a version 2 of the original.
The first thing they did when they bought the company was make the original robots require a monthly subscription for to operate. Mine is now just a paper weight.
They are still trying to charge that monthly on TONS of people and the AWS isn't even running anymore.
You can use server software called WirePod to replace the manufacturer's service.
Looks like that WirePod is from the Original Developer.
I recall, some famous huckster of times past, once quipped:
Americans will buy anything, as long as there’s a strict limit of 1 per customer!
I'm getting increasingly angry over the number of decisions made by humans who go unaccountable for "corporate" decisions. Sueing a company might MAYBE lose the decision makers their job.
Hey kids, it's Robby the Ripoff Robot! Another fun toy from Scamo!
🤣🤣🤣
They were supposed to deliver themselves.... Did you check again?
Theft by Deception & Fraud would be the two charges I would expect but it could also include Breach of Contract depending on the purchase terms.
Would this also fall under breach of warranty?
@@barnabusdoyle4930/videos
Possibly but not sure because that usually occurs after the product is received but found faulty.
Rick and Morty, butter robot. I ordered one too and never got it, I thought this was a licensed product too.
Ben - You're still on the Turbine.
I pre-ordered some books once. They were part of a series of sheet metal machine books and I already had threee of the intended seven book series. The self-publiser died before the series was complete so no other books. Someone bought the rights from the widow and I eventually had to buy the remaining books again. Since then I've never pre-ordered anything.
Damn, that's like every writer's worst nightmare 😂
@@jimf.1318 The hard to sort out part was it was a one-man operation and none in his family had any knowledge of his project.
@@kennethstaszak9990 That's why at that point, is better to just close the series.
The guy who wrote The Girl With A Dragon Tattoo died before finishing the series as well, so some other guy bought it and kept writing books, and the quality change was very noticeable.
I'm a fan of an author and pre-ordered the e-book of his upcoming novel. Then on release day I got burned by a "flash sale" of the hardcover version that cost a few bucks less. Not the end of the world but that was my last pre-order.
I've only ever preordered 2 books, and I guess I lucked out.
Both were from Artists I liked, trying to self-publish their artwork. ...But even if they didn't deliver, I figured I'd enjoyed at least that much worth of their art online.
Pre order money should be held in an account that a company can borrow against part of it some of it being insurance against loss the rest held in banks earning interest and as delivery occurs the money is released .
Mr. AG. If Preorders are so bad, and rife with Crime and Fraud. Why haven't you made it illegal and anti consumer yet?
Never going to get blood from a turnip.
I _was_ going to say that I was pretty sure there was a red turnip called something like "bull's blood," but it turns out to be a type of heirloom beet.
Prove a botanist wrong, get a Like.
Rookie mistake; should’ve done a Kickstarter and they’d be scott free.
Out of curiosity at what point would it not be fraud? If they can show they had every intention to fulfill the obligations but just misjudged the costs associated?
Life in prison
Two million dollars will buy a permanent vacation out of the country.
Aside from all this drama, it was a great business plan.
IF the company took orders knowing that it could not fulfill them, this may constitute fraud in the inducement which is both a tort and crime.
Reminds me: I bought one of those 'Cosmo' robots back around 2015, but the company (Anki) went out of business in 2019, which means no updates or support of any kind. Since it was controlled by smart phone, that pretty much made the thing useless when I moved to my latest phone in 2022. I heard there was another company that bought the rights, and would produce updates, but nothing seemd to materialize, and now it's collecting dust in a box in my garage. Poor little guy. 😅
With Asset Forfeiture, the lawsuit *could* be against the robots.
Thanks!
Pre orders...loooong waits... bad sign...Who do we know...
*coughTesla
😅😅😅
Troll much
@@rerodmuskrat...
Well, yes... _Investor buys company from original developer, reorganizes business model, and promises more than is currently technically possible..._
Aye, that *does* sound like a company we know.
If you paid with credit card you probably safe. Just do a chargeback/fraud charge. Can't hurt to try.
Don't think that works after waiting 2 years.
Back before everything was web based I sent in a check to pre-order a collectors' booklet that never got published. I still believe it was meant in good faith since the $6 check was never cashed, at least not two years later when I closed that account.
Ben is still casting shadows on the Turbine car Steve's RHS
One may ask "Why is there a robotics company in Pittsburgh?" It could be because Pittsburgh is where CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) is, which is one of the top schools for AI & robotics.
Toy company
Mr. Biggles??! How've you been?
@@davidh9638 Robot Toy Company... Do you think that doesn't take engineering? Or do you think that a history major will get you there?
Steve, if you read this comment, would you please do a video on the illogical reasoning that a debit card doesn't have the same protection as a credit card? I don't understand that logic.
I'm not Steve but it's perfectly logical. there's a reason there's different protections, you need to put in a PIN to prove it's you making the purchase specifically to prevent a need for charge backs
@@ulfrtheredNot if you run debit card as credit card.
I made that mistake on farcebook thinking I was getting a great deal on an ebike. The bike was real but the company was a scam out of China. I paid almost $200 for a fake gold unicorn necklace. I used my BofA debit card and the bank said they have no control over what I buy. It's up to me to make sure the company was legitimate. Facebook was of course useless because it wasn't part of marketplace.
A debit card transaction, if not technically then at least in intent and concept, transfers money directly out of your account to someone else's to pay them, just as if you had drawn cash. A credit card is an agreement between you, the person you're buying from, and the crediting company. You are borrowing from the credit card company/bank, and they are also promising to pay the vendor. I don't really know if any credit card company is going to reverse charges two years later. If they do it would probably be more as a customer service to the buyer than as a real "reversal", because they probably would have already paid the vendor.
My bank gives me the same protections as a credit card on my debit card. No hassle, refunds/charge backs, cancel fraud charges and replace card. On the spot too, no waiting.
Does Orange Donald have something to do with this?
East Liberty" is a section of Pittsburgh inhabited by mostly "inner-city" people. (Wink, wick, nudge, nudge.)
Giant Robot 🤖 Scam?
Ben is still behind the Turbine.
They should have added a term where if you have had a Disney Plus trial they don't have to refund or fulfill order. That would have covered their butts. 😂
Units made: 0
Units sold: 14,000
Units available: 0
The Pennsylvania AG says consumers will be out of luck. That's because the company was a prominent Democrat Party donor.
SOLD OUT ..... Dang, I wanted to get one so bad......
I'll be more scared of tax evasion $2 million😂
I think that's called fraud, and I think that the owners of the company deserve 1 charge per case of fraud for every single item they did not deliver. It's one thing if **** happens and you refund the money but that's not what they are doing.
I know the L.L.C. and the INC. are protective instruments for the employees of the company. After the owner/ceo and /or others are found guilty of scamming can their personal assets be seized to satisfy judgements? After all it was fraudulently acquired wealth.
If the police can bring a case against money (asset forfeiture), then why not robots? Lol.
Sounds like kickstarter
No. It sounds like the boring company.
Not a troll. Just sounds like that company.
Promise the moon. Take years. Underdeliver. Well, there is _one_ tunnel... and you _can_ buy a brick if you visit. 😮💨
When I saw the video title I was worried it might be like that one car company that was sued into bankruptcy with claims that they weren't delivering cars they sold despite the first batch already being sent out.
Sounds a bit more like an investment company in over their heads in the tech end of things...
_Investor buys company from original developer, reorganizes business model, and promises more than is currently, technically possible._
The current customers see problems at the 2nd step.
The future customers see problems at the 3rd step. Especially when they "bought" a thing in advance.
...I had problems with a Gardening/Nursery company once. They made me so _very_ *very* angry. "Once bitten, twice shy" is real.
This sounds like the Intellivision Amico crew....
This is disappointing to hear about. I had been loosely following the development of the Cozmo & Vector robots for a few years, & had been on the fence about ordering a Vector. I was mostly concerned about long term support. As I write this, I'm also recalling reading about how the company shut down its servers that the online service depended on a couple years ago(-ish?), which now takes on a different context... What a shame...
DONT . the servers have been down since just after covid and still are, so my vector is just a lil robot sitting on a shelf. he went haywire shortly after the server problem and kept running off the large table he was on. I had to shut him down permanently and put him on display. waste of 800$
_That kind of behavior_ is "smart enough to take over the world?"
Bun Hundo's on the roof of the brown Chrysler Turbine coupe
Now just to start suing game developers for selling pre-orders for games that when released are so buggy they aren't playable.
Ben behind the turbine car
Still trying to open the passenger door. 😂
It would be hard to prove fraud because the company DID ship a lot of their V1 robots(Vector). The pre-sales were for Vector 2.0. Was it a scam after the fact? Could be. But proving criminal intent is going to be a long shot.
Ahhh ye ol pay now, get it later scam. Dang, I was going to apply for that CEO position….
Looks like they've some robotics dev positions open and posted.
My daughter has the Kozmo robot from Kickstarter.
Here in South Africa the directors of a company which trades while insolvent are personally responsible for losses / unpaid creditors.
It seems that is not the case in the USA?
Lol, no.
No such consumer protections are allowed in a Corporatocrisy... 😡
@@LDuncanKelly here the criminal charge is "trading while insolvent"
About 10 years ago I and a business partner shut down a company when we ran into headwinds.
And where did the money go?
That's a very good question.
_I_ like to believe that the safe where it was being stored became possessed by some kind of よかい, and would purposefully hide either its contents or itself every seven and a half hours within a 2.16 mile radius of the business's location for the last 4 years, and would alter its locking mechanism each time it did so.
The Company _really was ernest_ in its proposals and promises, but that _blasted_ safe had other ideas!
"That's why you should never eat chicken on a Thursday, unless it's also Christmas." - An 日本人 Moral-Writer, probably
I have had good luck with pre-orders. But I have been buying from people who were established in other ways if not that actual product line. One time exception was a board game from a guy who was demoing them at a convention. His first time making a game and it is a nice game. It did take much longer than expected (over a year delay), but the game was delivered, in excellent condition and build. Found out the guy ended up having to sell his house to cover cost overruns. That was a RARE guy. But a lot of offered pre-orders I would not touch with a ten-foot pole. Sometimes you can just get a feel from how the presentation goes as to whether it is legit or not. The more hype put in, the less likely it is going to come through.
i have a vector and they have been offline for about 2 years now. completely useless 800$ robot
Preorder should be outlawed. Never pre order anything.
Its a little spy bot.
Called onie and 😢
But there robodos are so good, so good-
I have been stiffed too many times doing b2b pre-orders for band-merch back when I was voluntold to become the manager for the band my then BIL were in, so no way I preorder anything other than games with yearly releases or that are sequels to games I already have in my collection
How does this differ from crowd funding?
It wasn't presented as crowd funding.
Sounds like a sex robotic toy that they figured no one would admit they ordered a sex toy. Just a guess
I read you comment and had to go look up this Digital Dreams Labs. It's pretty funny to imagine those little Vector or Cozmo bots being used for such a purpose. I thought about it, and it's pretty funny to think of. I'm not saying that a well-motivated, industrious type could not adapt it for that purpose, though... 😆
A fool and his money are soon parted.
Good afternoon
This is not a new occurrence. There is a well-known company that now has website that was in bankruptcy for a short time years ago. They continued to take orders even though it was shipping none. I myself had an order that I placed, they cashed my check but never shipped the product. I fought with them for a short period and decided it wasn't worth the effort. They are still in business and have a website right now but I will not name the company for fear of potential ramifications from that company. But this is not a new occurrence.
Was it that Dutch Tulips place, with the multiple cloned websites running under different names but the same mailing address? That would happily sell items that were not in stock, "wait for everything to be available so they could ship all at once," make you call people without the tools to do anything for _months_ after you placed your order, and _eventually_ send you a box of dirt-that-might-at-one-time-have-been-a-viable-seedling??!
@@morsemurraidh1314 no it's an American Business that sells Auto parts. I won't get any more specific than that. I don't know that they operate under different company names but I haven't heard of it before. I just stopped ordering anything from them no matter how good the price or the item looked in their catalog. I just checked to see if they have a website and they do.
Not first, nor am I last 🎉
👍
First
Meh
So? Since you never made a relevant comment then you aren’t really first.
Whereas _I_ am the Twelfthty-second!