PGS Windows 10 gaming handheld - GPD WIN competitor

[rygD]

Second link in the above quote didn't have anything for me.

 

[PowerGod]

lol, from the face seems like he is trying to sell himself more than the product

 

[MechaBouncer]

Huh. I just noticed the PGS mousepad in that picture of Kostas. Must be from the video shoot.

 

[Gr8one]

Second link in the above quote didn't have anything for me.

That's odd, It seems to be working for me. It's just his facebook timeline showing some of his modeling work.

Huh. I just noticed the PGS mousepad in that picture of Kostas. Must be from the video shoot.

It's definitely from the video shoot, you can see the shooting lights right in front of him. He looks to be an actor/model from his Facebook posts. PGS is breaking Kickstarter rules by misrepresenting themselves, as this guy is not Alan Williams, he isn't even a community manager. This needs to be shut down soon.

 

[MechaBouncer]

I dropped myself down to $10 to keep following it for now. But yeah it should be reported soon. It certainly has all the hallmarks of a scam now, albeit a very elaborate one.

 

[WizardStan]

Even with all this information I wouldn't call it a scam. Never attribute to malice that which can be blamed on ignorance and stupidity.

 

[MechaBouncer]

So then do you think that it's just Nadir trying to make himself look like a bigger company by hiring actors to stand in as employees? Even if he is trying to create the PGS, how many more Kickstarter rules is he going to violate?

 

[comradekingu]

@MechaBouncer If you get it from ED @ dragonbox, you will be supporting the one distributor that does the most in the way of disclosing details and being a good technical support for the GPD series of handhelds.

Alan Williams is either "community manager" or "product designer", though I wonder what his qualifications are. Managing a community around a gaming handheld requires knowledge.
In this satire that writes itself, it seems a fitting teaser for tomorrows episode.

 

[Løra (Lolla)]

Even with all this information I wouldn't call it a scam. Never attribute to malice that which can be blamed on ignorance and stupidity.

Usually I would agree with this, but they're definitely purposely misrepresenting themselves. Misrepresentation is fraudulent.

Call it a "scam", call it an "elaborate ruse", call it "misrepresentation", but fraud is fraud, and it all falls under the same umbrella of a scam.

At the end of the day, with all the evidence and facts (put together with great effort, into a summary, thanks to Mr Kingu himself), it's a bit beyond the point of being able to claim that ignorance is the base of this. It speaks for itself, and it's up to each individual if they want to open their eyes, look, and realise what's going on here.

In the nicest possible way: time to wake up and smell the coffee, people.

 

[MechaBouncer]

@MechaBouncer If you get it from ED @ dragonbox, you will be supporting the one distributor that does the most in the way of disclosing details and being a good technical support for the GPD series of handhelds.

I didn't know ED was a distributor. Thanks for the tip! I was originally going to go through the Indiegogo campaign. Does it make a difference if I'm in the United States? I imagine shipping will be more.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

I didn't know ED was a distributor. Thanks for the tip! I was originally going to go through the Indiegogo campaign. Does it make a difference if I'm in the United States? I imagine shipping will be more.

Then link at ithic.com will handle your order via ed, ithic is a USA based store.

 

[WizardStan]

Usually I would agree with this, but they're definitely purposely misrepresenting themselves. Misrepresentation is fraudulent.

The important difference is that with a scam, they collect the money and disappear, they never had any intention of making anything; I fully expect them to try and produce their thing, lead people on for as long as possible, and then utterly fail once every opportunity to recover any money has expired and the project is broke.
With a scam, the money still mostly exists, sitting in their bank accounts or in the form of stuff that they've bought, waiting for police to catch up with them. With a fraudulent not-a-scam, the money is gone, all gone, sunk into expensive prototypes and paid to other companies. Only one of these scenarios has any chance of ever getting any money back, or any satisfaction at all.

 

[Gr8one]

With them being Russian does it make it harder for backers to get their money back or for law enforcement to pursue them? International law is not my forte

edit: from my uneducated searching there does not appear to be any extradition treaty between the United States and Russia (not a big surprise).

So if you were to make a grand scam to swindle thousands of people out of half a million dollars, i'd say setting up a kickstarter under a Russian mobsters daughter living in the USA and then taking the money back home could be an effective plan.

 

[comradekingu]

@WizardStan

That too, will be indistinguishable from a scam.
If it's not real, it's a scam, plain and simple.

@Gr8one

Anyone backing are, at time of project completion, doing business with one
Lola Kochetkova, not Kickstarter, one said to have set up an existing limited liability company. Nobody pretends she is knowledgable in terms of what the project entails, so once money potentially leaves PayPal and goes into a bankaccount, from then on its anyone's guess. It is not easy transferring money to Russia, as they aren't part of the IBAN system. Chances of legal recourse, would be laws regarding trade in Michigan and the US.
Playing that game against someone you have no reason to doubt is actually the legal advisor of PGS, meaning she understands what she is getting herself into on some level. Not great.

 

[EvilDragon]

I wonder... they all seem to be actors.
Is there some huge company trying to find out whether there's a market for such a device by using Kickstarter?
Maybe they don't plan to finish it but cancel the Kickstarter one day before it's through and just want some cheap market analysis

 

[Løra (Lolla)]

The important difference is that with a scam, they collect the money and disappear, they never had any intention of making anything; I fully expect them to try and produce their thing, lead people on for as long as possible, and then utterly fail once every opportunity to recover any money has expired and the project is broke.
With a scam, the money still mostly exists, sitting in their bank accounts or in the form of stuff that they've bought, waiting for police to catch up with them. With a fraudulent not-a-scam, the money is gone, all gone, sunk into expensive prototypes and paid to other companies. Only one of these scenarios has any chance of ever getting any money back, or any satisfaction at all.

I was actually going to reply to this, but was beaten to it. So I'm not ignoring you, it's just that comradekingu ended up already summarising what I was about to say, so no point repeating myself.

I wonder... they all seem to be actors.
Is there some huge company trying to find out whether there's a market for such a device by using Kickstarter?
Maybe they don't plan to finish it but cancel the Kickstarter one day before it's through and just want some cheap market analysis

That's a very interesting theory right there. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Would that not also qualify as "scam"? Just saying..

 

[EvilDragon]

Would that not also qualify as "scam"? Just saying..

Hm, if they stop before someone receives any damage, it probably wouldn't be a scam. More an experiment.

 

[Løra (Lolla)]

Hm, if they stop before someone receives any damage, it probably wouldn't be a scam. More an experiment.

I guess time will tell. But still, I find that an unethical thing to do - for the sake of experiment or otherwise.

 

[WizardStan]

That too, will be indistinguishable from a scam.
If it's not real, it's a scam, plain and simple.

Well... no? That's the whole point, they aren't indistinguishable. In one case their backers get strung along while the money is bled away trying to produce an impossible device, in the other it's just gone, there never was any intention to even try and produce it. Whether you get your money back at the end or not is irrelevant, scam has a very important legal definition. The difference is whether they are clever or ignorant: if you call it a scam then you're giving them far more credit than I am.

 

[vcoleiro1]

It seems Nadir (or someone) filmed an ad for the PGS, not surprising since that's Nadir's background - ie being involved with creating ads like this - his profile had a demo real of ads he worked on as a 3D generalist. Remember , I said that from the beginning when Nadir's profile had been found. I said it was likely.an ad given his background

I don't have so much of an issue, if that is the case - and it looks to be. But to say Alan Williams is the Product designer in the KS video (he is the badly dubbed lead in the video), then to say he is the Community Manager in a recent PGS update which introduced their staff. Then when someone saw the discrepency, PGS then said he was both the Product designer and Community manager. Now we find out he is likely named Kostas Valov , and is likely a male model and actor. Remember - he is supposed to be the PGS designer ! - if he is an actor, who is designing the PGS?

Remember other hints, like there being 14 people in the PGS team in the PGS video, yet on reddit AMA they said 7 (ok, maybe staff had shrunk over time) , then in the KS update they said 6, then a day later , a PGS person started posting who wasn't even part of the six they introduced just 20 hours earlier.

Lets not get into everything else people said.