Theses Guys scammed me out of $2,500 for crowdfunding marketing. These guys advertised to market by facebook ads and throught internal email list. Funded.today delivered nothing..... I was acceptng being scammed for the first $2,500 but now two months later they claim not to have received the funds even though they verified before so called starting the marketing service. They are a complete scam please stay away. Frauds and scam artist.
BUYER BEWARE – These guys leave their contract vague, they only take wire transfers up front, and they won’t begin anything until your wire has cleared.
Here are my kickstarter Results:
Results: I was successful on Kickstarter - I did $15,600 in 30 days – 45% from family, friends, and network and 55% from outside sources. I paid $5,000 upfront to Fundedtoday ($3,500 for FB Marketing “set up costs” and $1500 for PR) and they wanted 35% on the backend… I negotiated to 23%. They did not take 23% because stopped advertising after 2 weeks.
$1,700 came into the campaign from fundedtoday ads.
For PR - we got our one guaranteed write up in gadget flow and one person picked it up on Trend Hunter (no monetary results) So $5,000 investment – I lost $3,300. So basically I only raised $12,300 on kickstarter…
I put together this kickstarter campaign single handedly in 3 weeks. I did everything from video shooting, page design, GIF creation, photography, email marketing, PR strategy, etc. Needless to say I was swamped! I connected with FundedToday to help with digital marketing.
I SHOULD HAVE WAITED UNTIL I LAUNCHED and saw my momentum on my own. MY MISTAKE…
My issues with FundedToday:
Communication: All communication is in a Skype chat. They essentially force you into their communication system. This means that if anything important happens or needs to happen – YOU better see it in this Skype chat or it get’s lost. It also means that if you have a complaint or something important – it can get lost. I don’t use skype chat and this was not efficient for me. I complained about PR and no one responded to that – it just got lost…
PR: I requested a refund for PR because I believe it was vague and the product and performance were poor. They did not agree to refund ANYTHING.
When you begin - they say they guarantee one write up for $1,500 or two write ups for $2,500 – notice in the contract they do not tell you WHAT THE WRITE UPS WILL BE, EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW they’re only giving you three options. This felt disingenuous – like they’re withholding information. Why is this not transparent? I feel totally mislead because I had already ACH’d them the money when they dropped this on me.
Here are the three write up options (all of which you can get into by yourself – this is why they guarantee it):
Gadgetflow.com
thisiswhyimbroke.com
backerland newsletter (who will give you a 100% moneyback guarantee if you work with them directly – I did this)
My product is High-performance Luxury footwear – this doesn’t fit into any of the options provided – what was I to do at this point? They already had my money…
Here is the press release they put together – notice how many times they say Funded Today… It’s as many times as my brand is mentioned – WHY IS THIS? I feel this was lackluster and a cookie cutter Press release that they put together:
"MarketersMEDIA / Newsroom / High-Performance Footwear Launches On KickStarter High-Performance Footwear Launches On KickStarter
Paul Hardt Footwear has just launched a campaign on KickStarter. They have brought on Funded Today to help bring their shoes to a wider audience and increase pledges for the duration of the project. San Francisco, United States - May 17, 2018 /FundedToday/
— About The Footwear Paul Hardt footwear features a line of high performance dress shoes. Made with high quality technical fabrics and an athletic insole for maximum comfort, Paul Hardt shoes are water resistant and European crafted for the ultimate combination of professional and casual wear. The KickStarter campaign features multiple shoes including boots, oxfords and sneakers. Each shoe has its own unique design while still maintaining a professional and sleek look.
Pricing and Availability: The Paul Hardt line is available to back now on KickStarter. They are hopeful to see an increase in pledges with the help of Funded Today and their team. Once the campaign ends, the shoes are set to produce and ship to all backers by October 2018. The starting price for one pair is $125 USD. To learn more about Paul Hardt or to back the campaign, visit their page here: kickstarter.com/projects/paulhardtshoes/high-performance-footwear-for-the-uncommon-profess
Advertising: They said that the advertising team would check and give updates on a daily basis. This was not what happened. Communication was every other or every third day. Here is what their update looked like:
“Hello! Just a quick update as we head into the weekend. I wanted to let you know I am still working on adjusting audiences and ads and will continue to search for ad sets that will generate a positive return. I will update you again on Monday. Thanks for your patience through this testing phase. Have an outstanding weekend and post any questions here as they come! :)”
This type of response is all I heard for two weeks during the testing phase, until they told me they were not going to continue ads because there was not a good enough ROI for them. Then it was over. They divested, shut down PR and had the nerve to call me and say – “If you want to continue PR let’s talk about a % of results we bring in”
What did I pay $1,500 up front for? No thank You.
All in all – I know its tough, but do it yourself. Don’t pay these companies up front unless you have loads of cash – it’s not responsible. I made a $3,300 mistake and I won’t do it again. Wait till you have leverage and you can negotiate with them saying – hey come on to my campaign if you want – I’ll give you 25% of what you bring in. That’s a fair deal.
I Paid Funded Today, $3000 and they did not get a single pledge for my company. I will attach screenshots below to prove that I am not simply an unhappy failed Kickstarter campaign owner. Jordan David, sales rep account manager, jumped for joy with excitement about my company, and requested a cashiers check for payment. Following payment, I did not hear back from them for 3 days, after contacting them repeatedly. I understand why they do not accept credit card, because I would have refunded immediately. On the day of launch I contacted a rep looking for an answer to a question at 8am, and did not receive a response until 3pm.
I requested a refund on the very first day of launch because it was very clear that no one was paying attention to my campaign. I felt like I had been had. I'm a single mom, trying to launch a small business. And they sell you with the moon and stars, and then ignore you
Following my complaints and refund request on first day of launch, Zach Smith, owner, jumped on the group texts, sending me pictures of his bank statements and bragging about how much his clients have paid him, screenshots attached.
Magically, the analytics of the first day of launch were not enabled but he promised to send me analytics from that moment forward. I realized he was not going to return my payment. I posted the campaign on social media and received 1000 hits from friends and family and received a small amount all from my own network, not 1$ from their effort. Zach Smith is scam artist, preying on small businesses, playing a numbers game, collecting down payments until he finds his next big company, worthy of their time and advertising dollars.
When my campaign failed, he sent me a message, screenshot attached, telling me how failing is like losing a loved one and he's glad he gets to be the one to explain this to me. Shame on you Zach Smith. You are a poor example of a business man. And a real Napoleon complex as well. Beware of their false promises, and Millennial mentality and work ethic. It's not the way to run a business, on a human level as well. Please see actual conversation screenshots below. #zachsmith #crowdfunding #crowdfundingnews #kickstarter #indiegogo #fundedtoday
Funded Today is a scam and has a negative impact on Kickstarter. FT prays on small business owners.
Here was our experience:
One of the low-points in our Kickstarter campaign was our experience with Funded Today.
We reached our goal (yay!) and we continued to be harrassed by FT, wanting us to sign on with them. We were sold hard on the potential upside and relied on FT – the experts – to advise us honestly. Once our campaign was fully funded, FT relentlessly pursued us after we repeatedly and definitively declined. They called us at 7am, at 9pm, and throughout the day. And while I commend this persistence, it's an irresponsible tactic for first-time entrepreneurs. Without exaggeration, we said "no" more than 10 times.
It's a bit like walking off a car lot to find the salesman has driven the car to your house. When we were ultimately bludgeoned to purchase, the car didn't run.
We've already been asked a handful of times if we'd recommend Funded Today's service. The fact is we can't, in good conscience, advise that anyone sign on with Funded Today.
I signed up with funded today to help get my kickstarter in front of the thousands of people they promise to. At first they seem very generous and eager to help out and set up a skype call to welcome you. Make you feel like you did something worth the money. They have quite the niche. They feed off hungry kickstarter campaigns. Figure the people, like myself, who spent a lot of time, money, and effort to make a product, want to find the best way to market it. They show up on top of most of theach crowdfunding searches. That's easy when you have plenty of money to do so. I'm sure they can do a good job with projects that have the money to make professional videos and campaigns, but for those of us who are not as lucky, they promise the world but fail to deliver. In secrecy no less. See, they take your information and choose to do what they want with it. For the due diligence "test period" they run for $3000 over 7 days, they run facebook and instagram ads with pictures that are supplied. I gave over 80 pics and videos to show different aspects of my product, and they chose some basic non descriptive pictures instead of one's i recommended and don't tell or show how it's working out until you beg and it's basically too late then. And they don't show the pictures until your test period is over. A simple conversation after maybe a day or 2 of "testing" could really help fix any problem areas. Pause the test, let us take your suggestions, and finish the final 5 days. Don't just keep running the same poor ads that are obviously not working and continue to waste money. It's called customer service. I figured it out afterwards. It seems like the company is run by a bunch of young Un)professionals who are good with social media. Who don't know how to deal with people on a face to face level and try to help them with issues. Just click through and collect the next $3k and keep moving on. I contacted another company while waiting for my funds to clear and they actually and honestly said "at this point of your campaign Was already 2 weeks in) i don't think we can help you out. We recommend you do xxxx and then re-launch and we would he happy to help." similar responses from agency 2.0 and backer club. I urge you to check them out and leave funded today off your list. They could have saved themselves from another outscam if they answered these questions off the "review" that i doubt they ever read...
Crooks scammed me out of $5,000 for crowdfunding kickstarter marketing. These low life crooks scammed me to market facebook ads and throught internal email lists. Funded.today delivered zero,nothing. I was accepting being scammed for the first $5,000 but now two months later they claim not to have received the money even though they verified before . They are a complete scam please stay away,dont let this happen to you!! just do a goodle search for "funded today scam fraud" and you will see it happening to alot of people they are frauds and scammers.
Funded Today, LLC. Reviews
Theses Guys scammed me out of $2,500 for crowdfunding marketing. These guys advertised to market by facebook ads and throught internal email list. Funded.today delivered nothing..... I was acceptng being scammed for the first $2,500 but now two months later they claim not to have received the funds even though they verified before so called starting the marketing service. They are a complete scam please stay away. Frauds and scam artist.
BUYER BEWARE – These guys leave their contract vague, they only take wire transfers up front, and they won’t begin anything until your wire has cleared.
Here are my kickstarter Results:
Results: I was successful on Kickstarter - I did $15,600 in 30 days – 45% from family, friends, and network and 55% from outside sources. I paid $5,000 upfront to Fundedtoday ($3,500 for FB Marketing “set up costs” and $1500 for PR) and they wanted 35% on the backend… I negotiated to 23%. They did not take 23% because stopped advertising after 2 weeks.
$1,700 came into the campaign from fundedtoday ads.
For PR - we got our one guaranteed write up in gadget flow and one person picked it up on Trend Hunter (no monetary results) So $5,000 investment – I lost $3,300. So basically I only raised $12,300 on kickstarter…
I put together this kickstarter campaign single handedly in 3 weeks. I did everything from video shooting, page design, GIF creation, photography, email marketing, PR strategy, etc. Needless to say I was swamped! I connected with FundedToday to help with digital marketing.
I SHOULD HAVE WAITED UNTIL I LAUNCHED and saw my momentum on my own. MY MISTAKE…
My issues with FundedToday:
Communication: All communication is in a Skype chat. They essentially force you into their communication system. This means that if anything important happens or needs to happen – YOU better see it in this Skype chat or it get’s lost. It also means that if you have a complaint or something important – it can get lost. I don’t use skype chat and this was not efficient for me. I complained about PR and no one responded to that – it just got lost…
PR: I requested a refund for PR because I believe it was vague and the product and performance were poor. They did not agree to refund ANYTHING.
When you begin - they say they guarantee one write up for $1,500 or two write ups for $2,500 – notice in the contract they do not tell you WHAT THE WRITE UPS WILL BE, EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW they’re only giving you three options. This felt disingenuous – like they’re withholding information. Why is this not transparent? I feel totally mislead because I had already ACH’d them the money when they dropped this on me.
Here are the three write up options (all of which you can get into by yourself – this is why they guarantee it):
Gadgetflow.com
thisiswhyimbroke.com
backerland newsletter (who will give you a 100% moneyback guarantee if you work with them directly – I did this)
My product is High-performance Luxury footwear – this doesn’t fit into any of the options provided – what was I to do at this point? They already had my money…
Here is the press release they put together – notice how many times they say Funded Today… It’s as many times as my brand is mentioned – WHY IS THIS? I feel this was lackluster and a cookie cutter Press release that they put together:
"MarketersMEDIA / Newsroom / High-Performance Footwear Launches On KickStarter High-Performance Footwear Launches On KickStarter
Paul Hardt Footwear has just launched a campaign on KickStarter. They have brought on Funded Today to help bring their shoes to a wider audience and increase pledges for the duration of the project. San Francisco, United States - May 17, 2018 /FundedToday/
— About The Footwear Paul Hardt footwear features a line of high performance dress shoes. Made with high quality technical fabrics and an athletic insole for maximum comfort, Paul Hardt shoes are water resistant and European crafted for the ultimate combination of professional and casual wear. The KickStarter campaign features multiple shoes including boots, oxfords and sneakers. Each shoe has its own unique design while still maintaining a professional and sleek look.
Pricing and Availability: The Paul Hardt line is available to back now on KickStarter. They are hopeful to see an increase in pledges with the help of Funded Today and their team. Once the campaign ends, the shoes are set to produce and ship to all backers by October 2018. The starting price for one pair is $125 USD. To learn more about Paul Hardt or to back the campaign, visit their page here: kickstarter.com/projects/paulhardtshoes/high-performance-footwear-for-the-uncommon-profess
Contact Info:Name: Samantha Adams
Organization: Funded Today
Source URL: marketersmedia.com/high-performance-footwear-launches-on-kickstarter/346800
For more information, please visit funded.today
Source: FundedToday"
Advertising: They said that the advertising team would check and give updates on a daily basis. This was not what happened. Communication was every other or every third day. Here is what their update looked like:
“Hello! Just a quick update as we head into the weekend. I wanted to let you know I am still working on adjusting audiences and ads and will continue to search for ad sets that will generate a positive return. I will update you again on Monday. Thanks for your patience through this testing phase. Have an outstanding weekend and post any questions here as they come! :)”
This type of response is all I heard for two weeks during the testing phase, until they told me they were not going to continue ads because there was not a good enough ROI for them. Then it was over. They divested, shut down PR and had the nerve to call me and say – “If you want to continue PR let’s talk about a % of results we bring in”
What did I pay $1,500 up front for? No thank You.
All in all – I know its tough, but do it yourself. Don’t pay these companies up front unless you have loads of cash – it’s not responsible. I made a $3,300 mistake and I won’t do it again. Wait till you have leverage and you can negotiate with them saying – hey come on to my campaign if you want – I’ll give you 25% of what you bring in. That’s a fair deal.
I Paid Funded Today, $3000 and they did not get a single pledge for my company. I will attach screenshots below to prove that I am not simply an unhappy failed Kickstarter campaign owner. Jordan David, sales rep account manager, jumped for joy with excitement about my company, and requested a cashiers check for payment. Following payment, I did not hear back from them for 3 days, after contacting them repeatedly. I understand why they do not accept credit card, because I would have refunded immediately. On the day of launch I contacted a rep looking for an answer to a question at 8am, and did not receive a response until 3pm.
I requested a refund on the very first day of launch because it was very clear that no one was paying attention to my campaign. I felt like I had been had. I'm a single mom, trying to launch a small business. And they sell you with the moon and stars, and then ignore you
Following my complaints and refund request on first day of launch, Zach Smith, owner, jumped on the group texts, sending me pictures of his bank statements and bragging about how much his clients have paid him, screenshots attached.
Magically, the analytics of the first day of launch were not enabled but he promised to send me analytics from that moment forward. I realized he was not going to return my payment. I posted the campaign on social media and received 1000 hits from friends and family and received a small amount all from my own network, not 1$ from their effort. Zach Smith is scam artist, preying on small businesses, playing a numbers game, collecting down payments until he finds his next big company, worthy of their time and advertising dollars.
When my campaign failed, he sent me a message, screenshot attached, telling me how failing is like losing a loved one and he's glad he gets to be the one to explain this to me. Shame on you Zach Smith. You are a poor example of a business man. And a real Napoleon complex as well. Beware of their false promises, and Millennial mentality and work ethic. It's not the way to run a business, on a human level as well. Please see actual conversation screenshots below. #zachsmith #crowdfunding #crowdfundingnews #kickstarter #indiegogo #fundedtoday
Funded Today is a scam and has a negative impact on Kickstarter. FT prays on small business owners.
Here was our experience:
One of the low-points in our Kickstarter campaign was our experience with Funded Today.
We reached our goal (yay!) and we continued to be harrassed by FT, wanting us to sign on with them. We were sold hard on the potential upside and relied on FT – the experts – to advise us honestly. Once our campaign was fully funded, FT relentlessly pursued us after we repeatedly and definitively declined. They called us at 7am, at 9pm, and throughout the day. And while I commend this persistence, it's an irresponsible tactic for first-time entrepreneurs. Without exaggeration, we said "no" more than 10 times.
It's a bit like walking off a car lot to find the salesman has driven the car to your house. When we were ultimately bludgeoned to purchase, the car didn't run.
We've already been asked a handful of times if we'd recommend Funded Today's service. The fact is we can't, in good conscience, advise that anyone sign on with Funded Today.
I signed up with funded today to help get my kickstarter in front of the thousands of people they promise to. At first they seem very generous and eager to help out and set up a skype call to welcome you. Make you feel like you did something worth the money. They have quite the niche. They feed off hungry kickstarter campaigns. Figure the people, like myself, who spent a lot of time, money, and effort to make a product, want to find the best way to market it. They show up on top of most of theach crowdfunding searches. That's easy when you have plenty of money to do so. I'm sure they can do a good job with projects that have the money to make professional videos and campaigns, but for those of us who are not as lucky, they promise the world but fail to deliver. In secrecy no less. See, they take your information and choose to do what they want with it. For the due diligence "test period" they run for $3000 over 7 days, they run facebook and instagram ads with pictures that are supplied. I gave over 80 pics and videos to show different aspects of my product, and they chose some basic non descriptive pictures instead of one's i recommended and don't tell or show how it's working out until you beg and it's basically too late then. And they don't show the pictures until your test period is over. A simple conversation after maybe a day or 2 of "testing" could really help fix any problem areas. Pause the test, let us take your suggestions, and finish the final 5 days. Don't just keep running the same poor ads that are obviously not working and continue to waste money. It's called customer service. I figured it out afterwards. It seems like the company is run by a bunch of young Un)professionals who are good with social media. Who don't know how to deal with people on a face to face level and try to help them with issues. Just click through and collect the next $3k and keep moving on. I contacted another company while waiting for my funds to clear and they actually and honestly said "at this point of your campaign Was already 2 weeks in) i don't think we can help you out. We recommend you do xxxx and then re-launch and we would he happy to help." similar responses from agency 2.0 and backer club. I urge you to check them out and leave funded today off your list. They could have saved themselves from another outscam if they answered these questions off the "review" that i doubt they ever read...
Crooks scammed me out of $5,000 for crowdfunding kickstarter marketing. These low life crooks scammed me to market facebook ads and throught internal email lists. Funded.today delivered zero,nothing. I was accepting being scammed for the first $5,000 but now two months later they claim not to have received the money even though they verified before . They are a complete scam please stay away,dont let this happen to you!! just do a goodle search for "funded today scam fraud" and you will see it happening to alot of people they are frauds and scammers.