&gt; They do not, and should not, go after people who fail to achieve the objective -- that would defeat the point of crowdfunding.<p>I agree. But they can somehow force the hands of Kickstarter and its competitors to have some mechanism in place to protect consumers from contributing to such bogus projects. I looked at the Kickstarter page and it seems any creature can post and request their projects be funded.  Some of the scam are poorly disguised while others are masterfully disguised such as the one for which the is thread is created.