I just got an answer to my kickstarter message which I sent yesterday :
“Your shipping fees are less than 10% of your order, so we can offer no assistance in reducing this further.”

I still think it is excessive, but then under 10% is not bad … it’s not “local shipping” in my book, but then when this started I had already figured it wasn’t too bad compared to what @sundancer had. I still think that bit of detail could have been explained a bit better.

I could sit here and mope and be all sorts of depressing and negative about this, but it won’t help anyone.

I’m sure Catalyst will have realized by now that things should be handled better next time. At the same time they’re dealing with the same kind of “sunk cost fallacy” as they have to deal with a gigantic amount of orders while trying to find a solution that works for ‘everyone’. They will have their own (external) deadlines (like shipping things to retail) which further limits what options they have. And they also depend on 3rd parties to actually be able to do what they need them to do.

Crowdfunding never were, never are and never will be 100% safe and reliable.
That’s kind of why they’re crowdfunding and not direct to retail.
We get to see how the sausage is made, up to and including mistakes and issues like this.

As individuals we don’t have the same kind of power that a single investor would have had under these circumstances.
There isn’t a legal status that can help both parties in this equation achieve a more honest and secure result. And even if there was we’re dealing with low losses compared to whatever mediation or legal action would cost.

Unscrupulous companies will take advantage of this … but I’d argue that the true criminals are few and far between.
The vast majority are simply honest mistakes that get made because most crowdfunding companies don’t have their internal processes under control.