The Worst Crowdfunding Scam Ever: The Story of the Dragonfly Futurefön

It’s not often a title like this isn’t hyperbole, but I will do my best to prove that The Dragonfly Futurefön, an Indiegogo project that collected over $700,000 USD is the worst scampaign in the history of crowdfunding.

The purported device was a dual touchscreen phablet/laptop hybrid with more features and more moving parts than you could count. Given the date of the campaign (October 2014), the specifications for the Futurefön were unbelievable:

• Two 7” Super AMOLED 2560 x 1440 touchscreens, one of which could detach from the base and be used as a mobile phone
• 2.0 GHz Intel Core i7 Processor in the base and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Processor in the detachable phone
• 8GB RAM (4GB in the base, 4GB in the detachable phone)
• 256GB SSD storage in the base and 16GB in the detachable phone
• Two Lithium-Ion batteries
• Four cameras (yes, four)
• Both Windows and Android operating systems
• Bluetooth, wifi, 3 x USB 3.1 jacks, and other connectivity
• Multi-user social computing (???)
• An Indiegogo backer price point of $799

The campaign video featured high production values and although there was no functional prototype, there were lots of attractive 3D renders of the device. Bridget Hogan, Idealfuture’s VP of Social Media, enthusiastically made her case for the project and promised that it would replace your laptop, tablet, and phone in one sleek package. After all,

“3 devices is 2… too many!” — Jeff Batio, CEO of Idealfuture

Try as it might the Futurefön isn’t the biggest crowdfunding failure of all time, as that award goes to The Coolest Cooler which is still struggling to fulfill its initial pre-orders despite raising $13 million in 2014. However, the Dragonfly Futurefön project is notable for more sinister reasons:

1. In all likelihood Jeff Batio (the “inventor” of the Dragonfly Futurefön) never intended on shipping a single device, while the Coolest Cooler team were simply ignorant of what their actual production and shipping costs would be.
2. Critics of Futurefön’s campaign revealed similar failed ventures in Batio’s past.
3. The average Futurefön backer lost more than three times as much as that of the Coolest Cooler, reaching an average of $800 per victim near the tail-end of the campaign.
4. Worst of all, Indiegogo actively promoted the campaign after growing evidence that it was nothing more than a vaporware scam.

Jeff Batio: Inventor & Dynamic Futurist

Mr. Batio’s idea for a twin-screen laptop thingy is not a new one. In the early 2000s, Jeff had the same idea albeit with less of a “mobile” focus. We can forgive him for this as mobile technology was still in its infancy back then, but in Mr. Batio’s previous role at Xentex Technologies the flagship product was eerily similar to the Futurefön. In 2001 Jeff Batio had already seen the future… Unsurprisingly, it had two screens.

Jeffrey thinks highly of himself, and this is evidenced by his frequent habit of referring to himself as a Dynamic Futurist. He provides a definition for the term on his personal website:

This is a term I coined to represent someone who doesn’t ‘see’ the future based on studying the trends being created by others, but instead is someone who helps to create the future by dynamically acting to create and make a better world for us all. Think of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to name but a few. -Jeff Batio, putting himself alongside his historical counterparts

Unfortunately the future never came to be and the Xentex Voyager didn’t see the light of day. In Jeff’s own words, the reason was due to subterfuge and betrayal amongst a few shareholders and the Voyager’s manufacturer. A quick search of FindACase.com, however, will show you that Jeff raised several million dollars from a few investors and royally screwed them over. According to the plaintiffs, Batio lied about Xentex’s ability to bring the Voyager to market and was dishonest about the company’s financial situation on numerous occasions. Further research shows that Jeff took repeated “loans” of company money to pay for his living expenses, car payments, and vacations.

“I WAS NOT A PARTY TO THIS LAWSUIT!”— Jeff Batio

Undeterred by failure, the Dynamic Futurist plowed ahead. Between the years of 2006 and 2010, Jeff grifted approximately 75 would-be investors to the tune of $500,000. He did this in the form of selling “memberships” [shares] in a company called Armada Systems LLC.

This is speculation, but presumably Batio was selling the same dual-screen dream as before, as he applied for a relevant patent in 2007 under the aforementioned company name. Predictably, nothing ever materialized from Armada Systems LLC and Jeff Batio was subsequently banned from selling securities in the State of Illinois.

Following the crashing and burning of both Xentex and Armada Systems, Jeff took a few years off. At this point he had likely blackballed himself from both serious venture capitalists and penny stock investors, so where is a vaporware scammer to turn at that point? Enter the world of crowdfunding; Jeff could finally line his pockets with money from the end-consumer without ever shipping a product. With Idealfuture and the Dragonfly Futurefön, this is exactly what he did.

“This is what it takes to succeed…perseverance.” -Jeff Batio

A Perfect Storm

Back in 2014, the crowdfunding world was on fire. Projects were seeing incredible support, and the atmosphere was one of an overwhelming optimism. While there were certainly a few projects that went south, there weren’t any campaigns that had become the colossal failures we are seeing today. (I’m looking at you Coolest, Zano, Skully, & Coin).

Indeed, crowdfunding campaigns becoming drastically over-funded and overwhelming the creators is actually a thing, but very few well-funded crowdfunding projects are outright scams. A great example of one would have been the WeTag iFind, a bluetooth tracker that supposedly required no internal battery, operating completely on magic. The iFind quickly amassed over $500,000 and was on its way to becoming one of the most well-funded crowdfunding campaigns ever, until it disappeared thanks to Kickstarter’s fraud prevention team.

In comparison to the WeTag iFind, the Dragonfly Futurefön was more believable, but only by the thinnest margin. Even as the campaign was live, many people pointed out the impracticality of the device’s specs and price point; From blog posts to news articles to a highly-upvoted reddit thread, the writing was on the wall before the campaign had ended. Worst of all, it has come to light that at least one person reported the campaign as a likely scam to Indiegogo staff as far back as October 2014.

If you don’t feel like going through the detailed breakdowns about why the Futurefön was impractical (and likely a scam), here are two simple formulas that summarize some of the concerns:

Higher Product Complexity = Higher Product Development Costs

More Product Features = More Things That Can Go Wrong

∴ Complex and Feature-Rich Products Are Very, Very Expensive To Make

Consider the fact that The Ubuntu Edge, a failed crowdfunding project to create a Linux-powered smartphone, had a campaign goal of $32 million for what was arguably a much simpler product. In comparison, the funding goal for the Dragonfly Futurefön was only $10,000. Ten thousand god damn dollars for a revolutionary device with engineering requirements that would make NASA queasy.

One thing worth exploring in more detail is that the Futurefön campaign wasn’t even Idealfuture’s first crowdfunding attempt. Jeff and Bridget actually collected $18,000 for the first version of the “Futurefön,” in an Indiegogo project titled “The if Convertible by Idealfuture.” Remarkably, even though the dynamicᶠᵘᵗᵘʳᶦˢᵗ duo never fulfilled any of the rewards from their first crowdfunded outing, it did not stop them from hitting their follow-up campaign out of the park.

In addition to raising over $700,000, the Futurefön was featured on BGR, Gizmodo UK, Trusted Reviews, and many other major tech sites. What a difference a little re-branding and a new name can make, eh? Ironically enough, the Dragonfly name and design were probably just another thing Jeff Batio ripped off from someone else.

“I find that in order to create the future you must also name it.” — J. Batio

The Internet Fights Back

After the immense success of Idealfuture’s second Indiegogo campaign, Jeff and Bridget began working very hard to give the impression that they were working very hard. Between November 2014 and July 2016 there were a total of 83 official campaign updates. After the first year or so of these, a few readers quickly noticed that any actual progress on the device was more or less nonexistent. It was the same song and dance over and over: A plethora of different 3D renders, a few non-functional 3D-printed prototypes, excuses about delays, and a relentless optimism in every post.

Furthermore, both Jeff and Bridget were tenacious in monitoring their campaign’s comment section on Indiegogo and responding to backers’ concerns. They had an excuse for everything. In one particularly dramatic moment, Jeff claimed to leave a meeting just so he could respond to one backer’s accusation. Another time, Bridget Hogan exasperatedly shouted in all caps in response to one backer enquiring about where his Futurefön was.

“YOU CONTRIBUTED TO A DREAM… YOU DID NOT BUY A PRODUCT!” — Bridget Hogan, speaking frankly

Much like the updates, these comment replies were simply more smoke and mirrors, designed to deflect reasonable criticisms and shut-down any backer concerns. To a few onlookers, however, the perceived deception was too much to ignore. In early 2016, the small-but-dedicated online community of r/futurefon was formed. The internet forum faced an uphill battle, however, as Indiegogo was allowing Idealfuture to continue to raise funds as an InDemand campaign.

Worse yet, Indiegogo actively advertised for the Futurefön on numerous occasions. The most recent example took place mere months ago in March of 2016. At a time when the Futurefön campaign was a year late in their initial shipping estimates, and despite numerous warnings of it being a scam, Indiegogo was still promoting it on their official social media channels.

Why on earth would Indiegogo do such a thing? Well, it probably has something to do with the sweet stank of cold hard cash. 5% on an average $800 transaction is nothing to sneeze at. Besides, history has proven time and time again that Indiegogo has no liability when funded projects go awry.

Had Indiegogo’s fraud prevention team been a bit more proactive in heeding warnings from around the internet, many people wouldn’t have lost their money. Even on the official campaign comments page, a few members of the r/futurefon community were warning backers about the potential scam. Many comments were immediately deleted due to Jeff and Bridget’s vigilant moderation, but at least it was something.

Things really came to a head on May 21st with Futurefön Update #82, a video update which claimed to showcase a new mechanical prototype. Oddly enough, the new mechanical prototype looked exactly like the old one. Furthermore, one observer noticed that the Android screenshot used in the video displayed a date of 2014, raising questions as to when the video was actually filmed. Jeff explained this away as mere happenstance, an incidental detail due to his filmmaker using an easily googled screenshot.

“If we had this marketing piece done 18 months ago, we would have used it during the campaign.” -Jeff B., before eating his words

This became Batio’s crucial mistake; He underestimated the internet’s ability for calling out bullshit. After Jeff had “debunked” the dated screenshot, users of r/futurefon combed through every minor detail of the video to find something else. They struck gold not once, but twice. Thanks to many modern businesses having social media presences, the internet detectives cross-referenced two visible chalkboard signs with their corresponding facebook posts dated September and December 2014, respectively.

The last nail in the coffin of the Dragonfly (and Jeff Batio’s career as a dynamic futurist) came thanks to public business records. Like Xentex and Armada Systems before it, Idealfuture’s business license had been allowed to expire without a single product shipped.

The cost of renewing Idealfuture’s business license was most likely a paltry sum, but at this stage it was fairly obvious that the jig was up. Immediately following the aforementioned discovery, the Futurefön campaign was finally removed from Indiegogo’s InDemand program. At long last, there would be no more victims to one of the worst campaigns in the history of crowdfunding.

The Dragonfly Loses Its Wings

As of one month ago (July 30th, 2016) both Jeff Batio and Bridget Hogan went silent. The constant moderation and deletion of comments on their Indiegogo page had ceased, and a steady stream of complaints began to flow. Although many believe another update is incoming, one where Jeff makes some sort of excuse to defer blame, it is obvious at this point that the charade is over. Understandably, backers are pissed.

“People don’t fail, they quit.” — Jeff Batio

While I feel horribly for the Futurefön’s backers, I would hope that this post is the start of a much deeper look into the campaign. Many questions are still unanswered. Perhaps a few more in-the-know parties will come forward and a more serious investigation into Jeff Batio’s misuse of backer’s funds can be taken up. It may be wishful thinking, but hopefully Mr. Batio has swindled his last dollar.

Bottom line: This is an existential threat to the crowdfunding industry. If Indiegogo sweeps this under the rug they are sending a signal to the market that fraudulent campaigns will have never have any consequences. There has to be consequences to fraud or else it will flourish and destroy the crowdfunding market for good. If that happens it is the true entrepreneurs who will suffer, while people like Mr. Batio are allowed to walk off into the sunset no worse for wear.

“In the end, my advice to all is to work hard, work smart, believe with all your heart, never surrender, never give up and never stop asking…What if?” — Jeff Batio

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If you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it. Most of the hard work and fact finding was done by the good people at r/futurefon. Namely users Jinglesbobingles, HuTheFinnMan, otidder, SabbathMode, superserious1112, exclamationmarek, scam_detector, theecigarman, Private_Pi and many others.

Quick Disclaimer: This is probably the worst example of crowdfunding gone wrong and I don’t want to make it seem like Indiegogo is a morally bankrupt company. There have been numerous successful campaigns and businesses that got their start thanks to Indiegogo. I even have a few friends who successfully funded their idea thanks to their platform, and by all accounts the majority of crowdfunding campaigns are created by well-intentioned individuals.