Comments on the Announcement

[bolsoncerrado]

Yeah and dont forget the Rapid One, I've been surprised MANY Rapid Lite backers even didnt knew of Rapide One at all. Hell! When I started this forum there were even Rapid ONE subforums in it LOL and NO SINGLE RAPIDE ONE was delivered at all! Even one guy here is still owed $9k grand! But no! The bad guy is ONE guy hacking his email and shutting his factory by asking on FB where is Ethan! LOL

[bolsoncerrado]

Henk, I *REALLY* doubt IGG is doing ANYTHING against Ethan at all... I'd say Ethan has just teamed with "ethanlievers" and promised them whatever perks in exchange for some love/support on the campaing or whatever... Or just desperate people like Randy that chooses to ban freedom for speech rather than facing the truth as long as his RL350 is not put in danger of not arriving.... See to believe.

[bolsoncerrado]

And re: paypal payments.... if you paid with paypal FUNDS you're probably fucked up yes, but if funds were taken from your credit card even if thru pAypal, credit cards allow WAAAAY bigger margin of chargeback operation, even a year or in some cases up to TWO years. Just go to your bank and talk to them. Specially if in Europe.

[Skinny Kid]

I like how more than a few of the positive message about ethan and rapide are from people in Australia.....probably his relatives working to bolster his name and reputation.

The update is a crock of shit....everything that guy says is a lie. I am in it for the long run to try and get my funds back but at the very least do my part to keep as many people away from buying that machine or anything rapide makes.

[bolsoncerrado]

Btw there's a clear pattern of conduct in the link below, circa 2013:

https://pando.com/2013/06/30/thieves...-crowdfunding/

...
When I contacted Micro-Phone, it claimed it was the victim. Ethan Hunt said my tipster had been attempting to extort money from him by undermining his business – and was able to back up his claims with third parties, who corroborated his story.
...

Sounds/Looks familiar?!?

[casleth]

Oh yes, of course every backer in Australia is undoubtedly related to each other and conspiring together to protect the image of their great leader.
Come on guys, this shiz can't be serious. There's no need to start hating on other backers and slinging unfounded accusations their way as well, stuff is way out of control as is and we won't achieve anything productive by escalating it further and turning on each other.

[wormsman]

Ethan new update hasn't give us any new infomations about the production failure, status of repair, timeframe for the delivery.

The build quality from my Rapide Lite 200 Form the first campaign is very bad. I had to change the connections, board the bearings and so on.

Ethan told me in august that my Rapide Lite 200XL is currently at the distributor in France. He did not answer my question about the production problems or failure. At the end of august I toughed that I would never get my printer. I told Ethan then that I want to get my Rapide Lite 200XL regardless of the current status (damaged or what ever was wrong with the production). He answers me that it would be impossible because it would be fraud to deliver me a damaged printer.

After that I opened Paypal conflicts for my rapide lite 200 XL, Slider and Extruder V3 perks. That was Ethan answer:

Hi Nicolai,

As i said the parts are defective and it would be illegal for us to ship these parts as they have problems. I have told you that your disputes have closed our PayPal account and PayPal will not return any funds for 180 days from when you opened the dispute. If you close the dispute then we can still send you the machine once the parts are replaced or you can choose to purchase at retail a fully assembled machine from Dennis in Germany which he would be able to deliver in 2 days to you. The retail price for the 200XL in Germany is 3500EUR.


This is a crowd funded campaign and we did not have retail machines for sale you contributed to get a first version of the machine and we have some problems with suppliers and now we need to replace parts. Dennis ordered 10 fully assembled machines from the campaign and they were delivered to him and he will now resell them. Other people who ordered fully assembled machines have already received them.


Let me know what you would prefer to do as we want to assist you as best we can but until with have parts that are safe then we cannot ship the kits and the only alternative is to get a machine from Dennis for 3500EUR, upgrade to fully assembled machine from the factory for $499USD and close your dispute or leave your dispute open and when the kits are ready we will ship the kit minus the parts you have disputed.
best regards

Ethan Hunt
CEO
Rapide 3D
ethan@rapide-3d.com
Perth - +61861021177
Melbourne - + 61390057427
Hong Kong - +85269300744
Shenzhen - +8613006667092
Skype: rapide.3d

Because I had no more trust in the campaign I did not close the Paypal conflicts and thought that I have lost all my money. End of September/ beginning of October I got unexpected most of my money back from Paypal and Ethan must now only deliver the Rapide Lite 200 to 200XL Upgrade + LCD or refund 488$.

For me the campaign is now fraud and I don't think that more printers will be deliverd.

[Broome]

Henk and Bolsoncerrado,

I do not think you guys should take it as hard as you seem to do. It is clearly stated that Ethan suspects some kind of gang of contributors who want his distribution rights, money whatever. I actually think he has lost it completely now. Who would seriously trash a brand to take over the rights for distribution in EU, it is illogical and stupid. Why would you wanna trash a brand and then sell it's products? I know I state the obvious three times, but it baffles me in it's absurdity.

I have a company, my friends have companies some are successful and some are not! But no one not even the ones who went for it without a business plan would ever tell people how much they are spending from day one or accuse their customers when something goes wrong. As a CEO you should focus on bringing in money, delegate tasks and not ranting on some campaign page.

I have a 200Xl and it is a nice machine, the lcd is a perfect addon and the slider great. However the extruder is a problem and I will try to emigrate to e3d and v6hotend, maybe chimera. So I am sad too see the forum down!

Let's just try too pretend we are building and problem solving our own printers that came in a kit from china. I do hope you will get your kits soon so we can play again. It is no fun being the only kid on the block with the new toy.

[Racer]

I don't want to discuss who is wrong or who is right. But shutting down this forum and hiding all the valuable information a lot of people have put into this forums threads means punishing the wrong people, the ones who already spent a lot of money into their printers and as it looks probably will loose also a lot of it by not receiving parts.

[Henk]

@ Broome: We just want to protect other people from being taken advantage of. The issue is that this fraud should be stopped. I have my own company for the past 38 years, and I agree nobody who is serious in business ever will make the statements Ethan does. These statemenets are typical statements of a fraudster. In these 38 years of doing business I have seen some scams and this one fits into the generic mould.
@ Casleth; The wave of positive messages combined with the accusations is provoking a reaction. Also these mesasages are clearly intended to keep the scam going.

@Bolsoncerrado: Everyone should read the post you pointed to so I repeat the link:
https://pando.com/2013/06/30/thieves-and-scams-the-problem-with-crowdfunding/

For those who still think RapideLite is a regular campaign it is also interesting to read the comments on another campaign of Ethan:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/micro-phone-our-amazing-device-is-now-available-with-bluetooth-4-0-ble-tracking

The power of scams is that hope dies last.
Some people still seem to think their goods will be delivered, the issue is that his is not the case.
It is pointless to state that we should all accept to be scammed because some still need to realize that this is a scam.
Blaming people that want to stop this scam for not getting your goods is missing the point completely.

Iniegogo is making money on a few scams by Ethan while it is perfectly clear these are scams.
Indiegogo is cutting of critical people without any communication about it.
Indiegogo is running a frontstore for campaigns that having nothing to do with crowd funding but all with fraud.
Indiegogo is willingly complicit to fraud.
Indiegogo is yet another VolksWagen.