NOTE – As of July 17, 2015, Drew Strictland & ColorRight have NOT honored their Indiegogo supporters. Over a year after the original shipping deadline, we still have NOT received these items.
There is a dark side to Kickstart campaigns – you are investing in some else’s pipe dream that may never see the light of day.
Drew Strickland & ColorRight have been around for a number of years. I have seen his products at trade shows and watched his videos. They seem like good products that fill a lighting niche.
He sent me an email about this brand new idea. An LED light box with a built-in diffuser that was about the size of a tablet. Innovative, cutting edge and pretty cool. That product was called Power Panels. He was using a Kickstart-like campaign through Indiegogo to develop it. I was so intrigued that I joined the campaign and purchase 3 Power Panels which were supposed to ship in May 2014.
A few weeks later, he announced a “Pro” upgrade which would require an additional investment. After a few more weeks, he announced an expanded product called the Lumenaire. Bigger and more powerful and an even better idea. A few weeks later, there was the Lunenaire Duo which would require another investment. Then, there were additional enhancements and upgrades. Drew introduced each enhancement and improvement with great glee, but never shipping a thing.
May came and left and still nothing but more promises of just another 3 weeks. In the meanwhile, Drew launched new campaigns for a mini panel, the giant panel, the mini mini panel. To date, Drew has had 14 Indiegogo campaigns with lots of promises to raise over $200,000!
I sent Drew emails and posted comments on his Indiegogo campaign asking for a “real” shipping date but never received a response. Instead, my posts were just deleted. In fact, any negative comments were deleted. Occasionally, he would issue another update saying another 3 weeks while using his investor list to announce yet another new product.
Drew claims to have started shipping the Power Panels but since most people upgraded to the Lumenaire, I wonder how many Power Panels he really needs to manufacture. It is interesting that ColorRight has not added ANY of these new products to their official company website.
It’s now August and there is still no Lumenaire. Drew has several new pipe dream Indiegogo campaigns for you to invest in. All I can say is BEWARE.
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Beware of ColorRight’s Drew Strickland and his Indiegogo Campaigns – Part 1 Beware of ColorRight’s Drew Strickland and his Indiegogo Campaigns – Part 2 |
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I am contacting the Attorney General and a lawyer I am tired of the BS!
I just thought I’d let everyone know that I returned my Power Panels (they worked OK, I just decided I needed something different for the type of work I’ll be doing) within the 30-day time limit and my money was quickly refunded in full from Drew without any hitches. I am glad he refunded it so quickly and hope that everyone else has good luck with their situations.
Thanks,
Preston Ward
I wish I had googled before purchase. On November 24th I responded to a FaceBook ad stating something to the effect of, “last day to order the Lumenator to receive in time for Christmas.” My son is a photographer and it looked like a great Christmas gift even though it cost twice what I really had budgeted. I bit and went to the website.
As I placed my order, their website crashed. I had to start my order again. I swear I only saw one item in the cart when I completed the form for the second time. But their website “glitch” apparently caused me to purchase two. I emailed their customer support and they responded and promised to have someone contact me to refund the second unit… Christmas came and went. No delivery and no refund of the second unit. The New Year came and still no further responses from ColorRite. My son received a late replacement gift and my whole Christmas budget was completely blown at 5X my budgeted amount for my son tied up!
Finally, in January I filed a dispute with PayPal asking for a full refund because of the unauthorized second charge. The PayPal system could only see one charge for one purchase (even though it was the cumulative price for two) and Drew was able to get them to close the case. I still did not get my Lumenators delivered and I still did not get a refund for even one unit!
With the dispute closed, the PayPal website would not let me open a new dispute. So I called PayPal. They were GREAT. PayPal opened a new dispute covering both the double charge and the lack of delivery by the date as promised. But Drew seems to know how to “game” the PayPal system. As soon as the new dispute was filed, he immediately shipped me “two” Lumenators despite our communications about only wanting one and wanting a refund for the second, and now wanting zero and a full refund, because I did not get for Christmas and had to replace with a different purchase!!!
So now that they have shipped, I had to call PayPal again. (The PayPal website crashed 6 times with me filling out and trying to submit their dispute response form… Argh!) But when I got PayPal on the phone today, they were professional and great about handling it. But… Drew’s “games” force them to close the second dispute and open a third dispute, giving him at least 11 more days of holding my money and even more hoops to continue to jump through to get a refund!!! I swear, if this was just $50 instead of over $200, I would have already given up and eaten my losses.
Drew knows I only ordered one and got double charged. He promised to refund the second (even forgetting the promised Christmas delivery), but shipped two and is holding on to my money!!!
I want nothing to do with this unethical man and his company. I could care less if the product is decent or not; I don’t intend to ever unpackaged them. I just want a full refund for both units. He can have them back to ship to someone else who is still waiting for delivery!!!
Has anyone done something legal about this as I am out $800.00.
Everyone is out of money including me this so called man is one piece of shit. I hope he rots in hell.
Man up ass hole Drew Strickland, your worthless.
I’m in the same boat! I just received and update for the Mighty Mini but yet it is actually for another product. I just want what I paid for over two years ago.
I’m out about $2000au which is probably around us$1500.
I am glad to see people are still talking about this scam. Let’s not let him get away with this. He has continued to sell and make money of off products that preceded the Luminaire. If he was a honorable guy with integrity he would have at least offer the Lumenator. He has no intention of being fair. Please don’t let him get away with this. I am in if we decide to sue!
its funny. i bought my power panel from their web site. got it in the 8-10 weeks they advertised.
it arrived without knobs on the dimmers. i sent an email–not a complaint–just asking if that was the “new normal”. without question, they apologized and sent me a second power panel (this time the plus model with barn doors) and told me to keep both. i followed up with a thank you message and a suggestion about making the “light box” area solid (like the ikan piattos) instead of hollow. drew said they had been investigating the idea and had one on hand. and he sent that to me a week or so later.
so i got THREE power panels in like 13 weeks.
not really sure what was going on over there. the build quality is a little strange. but the lights work fine.
Be thankful you received anything. The group on Indiegogo is now trying to form a Class Action against him. He ran several campaigns to raise money and never fulfilled. But, Indiegogo should also be held accountable. They allowed him to create new campaigns even when investors were complaining about him swindling them on older campaigns.
Any updates on this scumbag or the class action lawsuit. I’m out over 1800.
mitchell No he is currently director at eCommerce Marketing at The Commerce Shop and is bragging that he raised over $300K in revenue on Idiegogo and kickstarter
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenneth-drew?-strickland-39787829
This is from his linkedin page:
President
Company Name ColorRight Tools, LLC.
Dates Employed Jan 2009 – Sep 2016
Employment Duration 7 yrs 9 mos
Location Alpharetta, GA
* President of successful US based photo and video accessory company
* Grew company from $0 at inception to gross revenues of $800K fiscal year ending
2015
* Managed a three person management team and 11 employees
* Implemented strategic marketing for company including many large digital marketing initiatives with high ROI and a budget of approximately $40K monthly (Facebook Power Editor, Twitter Ads, Google Ads, Google Analytics etc.)
* Established all crowdfunding initiatives (Indiegogo, Kickstarter) producing over $300K in revenue in calendar years 2013 and 2014
* Trained all employees regarding product assembly, laser cutting machinery, production and all aspects of customer support and fulfillment at our US based fulfillment and assembly location in Alpharetta, GA
* Responsible for all e-commerce web design, development, and server environments (LAMP stack and Magento)
* Responsible for all e-mail marketing on different ESPs (email service providers)
Invented, Designed and Manufactured high-end innovative photo and video accessories
* Filed five US provisional patents for photo and video products
Hi everyone 🙂
Any news concerning colorright..?
I purchased a set of three lights in September 2015, but time went on and nothing happened. I last contacted the company in May 2016, but no answer, no products received and no money refunded… Has there been any legal action against this company, because this is clearly a scam!!!
Regards
Arnstein Jeppestøl, Norway
Nothing! Unfortunately, there was never a class action against him nor his company. One of the other contributors claimed that he has a new job as director at eCommerce Marketing at The Commerce.Shop
Was there ever any legal action take against him? Or what was done to try and stop him? Can someone give me this information
Just thought I would add as this came across a google search, he was just fired (April 2021) from the Commerce Shop for some very unethical reasons as I have been informed by a colleague . I encourage all of you to take action soon.