kickstarter abusers, beware!

He left me no recourse.

After hearing naught from "Nick" for two years concerning his "adventure documentary" in the wilds of Georgia, I decided I would do for his project as I had done for the musical by Accio Actors. Namely, I would snap photos from the video trailer and write my follow-up post using those shots. This is one of those photos I took.

Today, I discovered that "Nick" is actually
Nick McGregor,
an actor
who pulled a fast one
on the good folks at kickstarter.com,
as well as on all who supported his projects.
How do I know his identity?
This photo (on the right) is on his biography page at imdb.com.
It would be impossible for him to claim "mistaken identity" clad in that cap and those shorts.

Three of the five projects he posted on kickstarter are duplicates, even using the exact same dialogue for the introductory videos and the exact same "Update" messages! Twice, he claimed that a backer had ripped him off by pledging a large sum and then reneging.
When I made a cursory investigation of his pledges today, I realized the scam. No such backers had ever pledged those sums to his projects. He had fabricated the existence of those people so he could keep our pledged funds. I guess he simply wanted the money. Nick McGregor is the one who most disappointed me. I had trusted him, giving financial support for his documentary twice, after he had failed in his first attempt.
I've reported the abuse to kickstarter and will be curious to see what happens now. "Nick" has not returned to that website since fall of 2012, so I doubt they will be able to pursue him. Unless, like me, they track him down to his home in Nashville, Tennessee.
Perhaps he could be forced to repay his backers.
Perhaps.
What is that saying? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
Well, then I admit to being ashamed that I did not notice the pattern of his projects before now.
Moral of the story?
Don't support projects for people who don't even use their full names.
I know, in hindsight, that course of action is clearly the only sensible one...
...but, maybe, it's not so clear in these many years after Cher, Madonna, and other one-name stars in the entertainment world.
Crowd-sourcing sites should insist that creators who are not yet brand names use their real names and have some source to vouch for their credentials, such as they may be.
New creators can "thank" scammers like Nick McGregor for making their search for funds even more difficult.