Mumsnet verdict needed: is this morally wrong?

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A friend of mine has done this, is it it morals wrong? Some details slightly changed.

He has run a kickstarter to raise money for a board game he has designed. You can back at different levels etc. He has raised £2,500.
He is now going to only produce the amount of copies needed to send to backers, and Is keeping the rest to pay off his personal credit card debt

For those of you who are unaware, most backers fund these project s it is implied at the news essential money is used to make additionally copies to sell, rpay for advertising or other costs, or perhaps towards the next project.

I feel it is wrong, akin to the PTA fundraising for playground equipment, raising £2500, spending £1000, and the head of the PTA us ingredients the leftover £1500 to pay off their credit card.

What is the verdict?

I don't think you understand kickstarter. It's a platform where people can help "kickstart" a project so it gets made.

So unlike the normal model where you have to fund it yourself and hope people will buy it in a kickstarter people have already promised to buy it and you use their money to fund the project. Any profits you make from that is yours to keep.

with kickstarter there is no automatic promise that the money will be used for wider distribution. Although many do what to use it for that. There are a lot of limited edition items on kickstarter that have no intention to make more then what the kickstarter payed for.

This is a business model and with it any sane person would calculate a profit margin otherwise what is the point?

@Namechangearoo

at all the people saying “that’s fraud” so confidently when it absolutely is not.

Yep!

You really need to ask?

@WatershipDown7

Of course it’s morally wrong! Fraud, pure and simple .

How is it fraud? Where is the deception?

I’m not sure if this is morally wrong, because he will need to invest further his own money, so paying his credi card off makes sense, it frees up his own money so ultimately the kick start money still gets spent on the business , it’s just a right pocket left pocket thing and is likely financially astute.

Is keeping the rest to pay off his personal credit card debt

Or 'to pay himself'.

Projects like this include creators being paid. It sounds like because the work's already been done (unpaid) you feel he should only factor in the production costs, but that's not how it works. It would be a bad business model if it were - he needs to be able to pay himself, too. If you're working a steady job it can be hard to wrap your head around it, but imagine that credit card debt as a kind of business loan - money spent on various living expenses (it's not up to anyone to judge what they are) that he knows he has to pay back once his current creative project starts making money.

I know some details have been changed but unless he's explicitly lied to backers (e.g. said that he will not take a fee for himself), it's not something to worry about.

Man in 'makes money from business idea' shocker!

The whole point of kickstarter is to kick-start businesses so they can make a profit.

Some go on to greater things. Some don't. Some don't get made at all. I've lost £60 on a kickstarter that I'll get nothing from.

Nothing fraudulent about it. He intends to supply what he promised. His obligation ends there.

@Namechangearoo

at all the people saying “that’s fraud” so confidently when it absolutely is not.

It's MN code for "I know fuck all about fraud" .

Fair enough, I stand corrected.

Kickstarter is essentially like a pre-sale. You pay the money first because the creator doesn't have enough funds to make the item and then sell later. Some KS projects can earn millions of pounds.

I've paid money to fund projects which have ended up in the tens of thousands, as long as I get whatever the incentive for whatever amount I've paid then I don't really care what the creator does with the rest of the money.

@PatriciaPerch

isnt it money laundering

No, it’s really not.

isnt it money laundering

No.

Its only fraud if you see your wages as fraud ie not at all

Its also not money laundering

@PatriciaPerch

isnt it money laundering

No, definitely not

@PatriciaPerch

isnt it money laundering

😂

@PatriciaPerch

isnt it money laundering

How on earth would it count as money laundering?

@PatriciaPerch Interesting. I suppose you could contribute to your own Kickstarter using a different card?

I agree totally with pp who point out that Kickstarter is a way for creatives to be paid for their time creating. I recently backed a photography book. I’d be appalled if the photographer didn’t earn some money from it - it’s a commercial operation and he has spent hours and hours shooting images, retouching and then laying out the book.

but if you raise money for one thing, pay some of it and use rest for another...what is is it? I suppose this is why people stop giving to charity

KS isn't a charity.

Imagine OPs friend puts the game on KS. He says for £20 you get a card set, for £30 you get a set and an expansion pack and for £40 you get a card set, an expansion pack and a fancy box.

As long as people who held fund it get what they pay for then it doesn't matter id the pack costs the creator £10, £15 or £20 to make as long as they get what they paid for.

@PatriciaPerch

but if you raise money for one thing, pay some of it and use rest for another...what is is it? I suppose this is why people stop giving to charity

But this has nothing to do with charity. This is a bloke selling boardgames he's made. Take away all the online bollocks and it's no different to a guy selling burgers at the side of the road, and charging a little more than the cost of ingredients and taking the profit to pay off his credit card.