Kickstarter unplugs iFind miracle battery-free locator

Kickstarter has pulled the plug on the campaign to raise funds for the iFind - described as "The World's First Battery Free Item Locating Tag".

iFind's creators WeTag had raised a cool $546,852 from 9,771 backers when Kickstarter suspended funding yesterday.

Critics of the project raised serious doubts about its viability, focussing on its claimed EM harvesting capability and the lack of a working prototype.

In the end, those weren't the only issues which resulted in termination, according to an email received by one Reg reader last night:

Hello,

This is a message from Kickstarter's Trust & Safety team. We're writing to notify you that the iFind - The World's First Battery-Free Item Locating Tag project has been suspended, and your $40.00 USD pledge has been canceled. A review of the project uncovered evidence of one or more violations of Kickstarter's rules, which include:

* A related party posing as an independent, supportive party in project comments or elsewhere
* Misrepresenting support by pledging to your own project
* Misrepresenting or failing to disclose relevant facts about the project or its creator
* Providing inaccurate or incomplete user information to Kickstarter or one of our partners

Accordingly, all funding has been stopped and backers will not be charged for their pledges.

No further action is required on your part.

While you might imagine this is a serious blow to WeTag, that's not so, according to a post yesterday on Facebook:

To all of the "iFinders"

We thank you for your support of iFind and support Kickstarter’s decision to suspend the campaign. Not in any way because of the fact that we are a scam. WE ARE NOT!! The negative publicity surrounding the campaign by a select few was detrimental not only to Kickstarter’s reputation, but our company as well. Because of all the negative press that was generated by it, we had seriously considered canceling as well. But we believe in our product and wanted to be able to give all the genuine backers who supported us throughout all of this negativity, the product they wanted and believed in. We stand proud.

We will start selling the product when it is completely certified by independent laboratories. We welcome our supporters to continue to get updates at our website (www.wetaginc.com) and via social media and we look forward to a successful launch in the fall.

The "select few" who publicly questioned the iFind includes ourselves, Yahoo! News, Slashdot and ExtremeTech, which described the Kickstarter tin-rattling as "a slow-motion bank robbery".

When we spoke to Kickstarter ealier this week, it stressed that potential backers should pay close attention to the site's Trust & Safety notes before committing to a project. ®