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This comes less than a day after my editorial piece about how Areal is a scam and how Kickstarter needs to intervene and roughly a month since places like Forbes and VG247 began their investigations into the potential scam.
Those who backed the project prior to this suspension were sent an email from Kickstarter about what happened.
Hello,
This is a message from Kickstarter’s Trust & Safety team. We’re writing to notify you that the Areal (Suspended) project has been suspended, and your $x.00 USD pledge has been canceled. A review of the project uncovered evidence that it broke Kickstarter's rules. We may suspend projects when they demonstrate one or more of the following:
Accordingly, all funding has been stopped and backers will not be charged for their pledges. No further action is required on your part.
We take the integrity of the Kickstarter system very seriously. We only suspend projects when we find strong evidence that they are misrepresenting themselves or otherwise violating the letter or spirit of Kickstarter's rules. As a policy, we do not offer comment on project suspensions beyond what is stated in this message.
Regards,
Kickstarter Trust & Safety
This is a message from Kickstarter’s Trust & Safety team. We’re writing to notify you that the Areal (Suspended) project has been suspended, and your $x.00 USD pledge has been canceled. A review of the project uncovered evidence that it broke Kickstarter's rules. We may suspend projects when they demonstrate one or more of the following:
- 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.
We take the integrity of the Kickstarter system very seriously. We only suspend projects when we find strong evidence that they are misrepresenting themselves or otherwise violating the letter or spirit of Kickstarter's rules. As a policy, we do not offer comment on project suspensions beyond what is stated in this message.
Regards,
Kickstarter Trust & Safety
Interestingly enough, the same users that were thought to be fake accounts set up by West Games to combat the "trolls" on Kickstarter are still aggressively defending Areal and West Games. You can find them littering the comments section on the Areal Kickstarter page. They seriously won't be hard to miss.