Suspicious Kickstarter

Perhaps you have heard of this already, but check out this Kickstarter starring a cute little 9 year old girl trying to prove her big meanie brothers wrong and develop a game to spite them for saying she couldn't.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/9-year-old-building-an-rpg-to-prove-her-brothers-w

Seems innocent, right? But some details are a bit off. Like how the entire article sounds like it was written by an adult trying way too hard to sound like a kid. Or the fact that this girl's favorite RPG is Dragon Age 2, despite being 9 years old and that she stated that her future RPG will have it so that people don't die or get seriously injured. Or that she goes to D&D "tournaments". But that can just be written off by saying her mom wrote the whole thing and everyone knows old people don't know anything about video games or other nerd stuff. But then you look into the background of the mother, Susan Wilson, and things get a bit less legit.

For instance, Susan Wilson is already extremely loaded. She runs a million dollar business which finds where debtors are living and coerces them into paying. She also has made tons of money by snapping up urls of businesses, such as Kinkos, and selling them back to them for loads of money.

http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2009/fortune/0912/gallery.most_powerful_women_entrepreneurs.fortune/8.html

She has also tried another cutesy little Kickstarter like this before, in which a US Veteran wanted to make capes for some reason and therefore needed 20,000 dollars to do it.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susanwilson/the-cape-project

And not to mention that her Twitter page is filled with her spamming female-oriented pages such as Girls in Tech, Women 2.0, and such with the link to her Kickstarter.

https://twitter.com/FundHer

So, to be simple and concise, this looks very suspicious and I'm wondering how this all will develop.

edited 24th Mar '13 11:41:01 AM by Kev-O

Aren't there actually Dn D tournaments? I seem to remember hearing something about that.

Well, yeah, but why would a nine year old be going to them?

And why would a 9 year old girl be playing Borderlands 2 and Dragon Age 2? And why would they be paying for something that's free?

Kev, be careful. Unless you can prove that what the mother in your op is actually scamming, and provide chapter and verse, you could be opening yourself and this site to legal action. And since this site is available for perusal in the United Kingdom, that legal action could include us - and our libel laws are fucking shockingly in favour of the so-called wronged party in the majority of cases.

And even if you could prove it, I am not sure that this is the right forum, literally as well as figuratively, for saying so.

This is hilarious to hear, thanks for the info.

Dunno how a US citizen could try a site based in the US in the UK, but if there's any way I can rephrase the OP to be less, uh, legally provocative, I'm all ears.

edited 24th Mar '13 11:21:25 AM by Kev-O

I am not a lawyer so rewording it would be a bit hard to do. But yeah, if I made a post on a forum based in Britain referring to the one you made here, the complainant could and would bring us both to trial by tracking your comment trail through me. Our libel laws are, and there is no real other way to put it, fucking appalling.

Lawyers and other legal type people call the United Kingdom the "Libel Capital of the Western World" for a very good reason, I am afraid.

There's a particular legal theory that by putting something on the internet, you are intentionally publishing it to the entire world, and are therefore subject to the libel laws of every country in the world. Legally speaking, it's no different than if you were selling a book in the UK. Not all countries embrace this theory, but you only need the one relevant one to...

On the other hand, there's the entirely separate matter of enforcement, and if the US courts think the claim is particularly stupid (or rather, Unconstitutional) they may refuse to assist the UK courts in enforcing the judgment. Just... don't take a trip to the UK after such a ruling.

It seems like this info would have already been posted on another site if it's this obvious. If we're worried about libel, couldn't we just cut out the first post and add a link to another site that has the information?

As for whether it's a scam, sounds like one to me. I question why anyone would fund a game made by a nine-year old if it were true. It sends the wrong message when people use Kickstarter as a pity party.

That title would also probably work better, since we technically don't know if it's a scam.

edited 24th Mar '13 11:36:24 AM by Scardoll

I'll probably have to rephrase this to be my opinion, then.

Try Suspicious Kickstarter or something less inflammatory.

Yep. Would probably be a good thing to do. I hate to be a downer and undercut your consumer advice, which could be useful to folks but our laws over here are strange.

We'll need a mod to change the title, though.

edited 24th Mar '13 11:40:39 AM by Kev-O

As they say in teh Missy Elliot video for "Get Your Freak On", Holla!!

Even I balk at the thought of getting sued by a Harvard graduate.

..why? Most harvard grads are harvard grads because theyre rich, not because theyre one of the lucky few who got there on intellectual or artistic merit

Rich people can hire the best lawyers.

Could be legit, but it wouldn't stop her from being a bad person for doing it (namely if she's loaded, just give her the money yourself)

It's like my aunt, who's husband makes in the upper 6 figures a year, and yet she still solicits friends and family to fund her Susan G Komen walk. You've got the money to fund yourself, just do it. If we want to donate, we will, but don't act like you need us to.

Reminds me of a friend who has a husband who makes enough money they can afford nice houses, so she hates stuff like Obamacare and tax raises on upper class out of nothing but fear she'll be forced to pay slightly more of her husband's money.

You can be sued for calling a scam a scam?

Kickstarter does not even allow charity, cause, or "fund my life" projects!

She's breaking the Kickstarter Spamming rule...

Rule in question:◊ of Spam:

She's spamming celebrities like Lady Gaga & The Ellen De Generes show. Why is she spamming celebrities and popular media just to raise $829?

She also spent more money on a pair of shoes than it does to send her kid to the supposed camp.

Also the camp is a scam.

They created a place where they enroll Kids between 9-12 only for $829 for a week and Additional ~$500 for some overnight stay

All they do in that place is have a bunch of PC with RPG maker installed and let the 9-12 year old kids just dick around in.

Ingenious.

edited 24th Mar '13 12:15:37 PM by Thorn14

Truth is often a defense against a libel claim, but truth can be hard to prove in a situation like this.

edited 24th Mar '13 12:15:39 PM by Clarste

There is plenty of truth here.

Using a "fund my life" or "charity" is 100% against kickstarter's rules. I don't see the muddy ground here.

See here.◊

edited 24th Mar '13 12:17:04 PM by Thorn14

There's still a distinction between a charity case (which this seems to be going for) and a scam. The second is harder to prove with the info we have, the but the charity aspect seems clear.

No matter what you call it, she doesn't deserve a dime.

The use of Feminism as a smoke screen is quite clever might I add.

If Kickstarter doesn't cancel this. I will lose all respect for them.

edited 24th Mar '13 12:25:15 PM by Thorn14