i understand the idea of a escrowed crowd funding platform... i just hope you fully understand the implications of 'bringing them to justice'
this is where you will spend most of your money.
labour costs to vet businesses.
legal fee's to take scammers to court.
travel costs
just remember that although you appear to be slavic based. when it comes to international platforms(internet based) you can end up having alot of expenses involved in serving justice. just in the prep/travel/admin part before you even see a court room
especially if you are refunding investors, once people get paid. they lose interest in being involved in law suits. they no longer become claimants of class lawsuits because they have been made whole by you and you then have to recoup your losses from the scammer.
if you then intend to only offer refunds after lawsuit to sway investors to be class lawsuit claimants. well they wont like that and it kind of goes against the initial idea of investors getting full refunds you offered before.
the issues then become the scammer themselves dont have the funds to recoup you. so yo end up in some bankruptcy list of creditors being written off. dont expect to ever get recouped for losses
i can understand your thoughts that you only release X% at set milestones. but what you dont realise is if a scammer only wants to scam say $5k. they present a fake project of $50k knowing they only get 10%(their scam target $5k). they know that for $5k its not worth you 'seeking justice' as your costs to try recouping $5k end up being higher than the $5k.
this means you end up just taking it as a unrecoverable loss.
then the next day the scammer returns with new project and repeats
true scammers dont try one project of $500k as they know a fraud of $500k is a life sentance or alot of chasing around.
they instead do 100 crimes of $5k or less because the chance of getting in legal trouble is less of a concern
this is where you will spend most of your money.
labour costs to vet businesses.
legal fee's to take scammers to court.
travel costs
just remember that although you appear to be slavic based. when it comes to international platforms(internet based) you can end up having alot of expenses involved in serving justice. just in the prep/travel/admin part before you even see a court room
especially if you are refunding investors, once people get paid. they lose interest in being involved in law suits. they no longer become claimants of class lawsuits because they have been made whole by you and you then have to recoup your losses from the scammer.
if you then intend to only offer refunds after lawsuit to sway investors to be class lawsuit claimants. well they wont like that and it kind of goes against the initial idea of investors getting full refunds you offered before.
the issues then become the scammer themselves dont have the funds to recoup you. so yo end up in some bankruptcy list of creditors being written off. dont expect to ever get recouped for losses
i can understand your thoughts that you only release X% at set milestones. but what you dont realise is if a scammer only wants to scam say $5k. they present a fake project of $50k knowing they only get 10%(their scam target $5k). they know that for $5k its not worth you 'seeking justice' as your costs to try recouping $5k end up being higher than the $5k.
this means you end up just taking it as a unrecoverable loss.
then the next day the scammer returns with new project and repeats
true scammers dont try one project of $500k as they know a fraud of $500k is a life sentance or alot of chasing around.
they instead do 100 crimes of $5k or less because the chance of getting in legal trouble is less of a concern
Thanks so much for your feedback!
I spent a lot of time, because I thought about it just like you did. But in the end, I came to the conclusion that we all need to change the side with which we are considering this issue.
To begin with, return on investment is offered only to project investors who use ICO / IEO to receive investments. In addition, the platform offers fundraising formats in fiat currencies (cooperation models: without remuneration, non-commercial remuneration or crowdinvesting), or in cryptocurrencies but for individuals -users (piggy banks for donations inside the platform).
In addition, each cooperation format carries a model according to which attracted financing will be paid. For some project models, receiving investments will be carried out only if the declared amount of fees is reached during the crowdfunding campaign. For others, it is possible to receive investments, even if the announced amount has not been reached. This all applies to projects with use fiat currencies and a non-profit (charitable) organization raising funds through cryptocurrencies.
Thus, the return on investment is made only for IEO/ICO investors, which reduces the burden on the insurance fund. And ICO / IEO is not the format of events that are held for the sake of 5 thousand dollars. I know this because I work in a marketing agency that helps in promoting cryptocurrency projects.
We do not attract platform users to lawsuits. If it comes to fiat currencies, then we behave like other crowdfunding platforms. Users themselves sue fraudsters, and we only assist these users by providing all the necessary information on the fraudster. But when it comes to fraud with traditional currencies, the judicial practice becomes completely different than in relation to cryptocurrency scammers.
If we are talking about fraud in cryptocurrencies, then we ourselves file a lawsuit, but we do this not on the basis of fraud, but on the basis that the project violated the provisions of the contract concluded with us, on the basis of which we offer our services to cryptocurrency projects. It is precisely the discrepancy with these provisions that will be the main aspect in which we and our users will divide projects into conscientious and fraudulent ones.
We will conduct a return on investment after the project has been recognized as fraudulent if the authors of the project themselves do not want to make this return. If they return the money themselves, then this is not a fraudulent, but a "failed project." Such projects will not receive legal action on our part, and its authors will be able to close their project without reputational losses.
The practice of litigation on the basis of a violation between the companies of the concluded contract and payment of the specified forfeits has a rather extensive history and shows itself perfectly regardless of the jurisdiction of the projects between which an agreement was concluded. In addition, we have some requirements for listing projects. Such as KYC verification of a significant part of the team (mandatory for the CEO), a personal meeting or Skype interview with representatives of the project. Periodic AMAs conducted by project authors for their investors.
Also, depending on the format of cooperation, according to which the crowdfunding campaign is carried out, projects will have to fill out questionnaires of different contents, which would mean providing more information and taking on a certain amount of responsibility. So, small fiat projects that raise funds for the promotion of their books, music, films and much more will not bear the responsibility that is required for startups and large companies.
