Refunds for Pirate3D backers mistakenly ‘delayed’ by two years, sparking complaints

Last we heard, Pirate3D had raised US$1.43 million in crowdfunding, and seemed set for big things. Today, the team woke up to a rude shock on their Kickstarter campaign page, which was flooded with an influx of complaints with regards to the date of refunds to backers. Understandably so, since those backers had apparently been informed that they were only going to see their money returned in two years’ time.

In lieu of a delay in their shipments, the team had sent out a survey last month to offer backers the choice of getting their money refunded, or waiting for a longer period of time to get their Buccaneer 3D printer. Those who chose the former were previously promised that they would receive their money by the year’s end, according to a backer named Sally ‘Qwill’ Janin:

Depending on the volume of refunds requested, Pirate3D will disburse the refunds in stages between August 2014 to December 2014 to all backers who have filled in the refund form.

However, an autoresponder email sent out yesterday said otherwise:

This email serves as a confirmation that you have selected a REFUND for your order of the Buccaneer 3D Printer.
Refund Amount: $497.00
Paypal Address to Receive the Refund:
Your refund has been queued based on a First Come First Serve basis and will be processed in chronological order.
It is expected that you will receive your refund on September 2016
Fair winds,
Pirate3D

Naturally, this caused an uproar among their backers, some of whom were told that they would be getting their money as late as 2017 instead. The Pirate3D team was quick to respond first thing in the morning, attributing this to an error in the script they had used to calculate the refund dates:

However, it seems that the damage has been done, with certain backers stating that they had “lost the faith” and not expecting to receive their money at all. We’ve reached out to Pirate3D for comments, and will update this article as soon as we get a response.

Update on September 13: Pirate3D founder Roger Chang has confirmed that they had a mishap with the internal date calculation script, and sent the automated emails without double-checking what the algorithm had churned out. They have also issued a public apology via Twitter. Chang admits that he was startled, however, by the response from the ground: