You might have noticed a crowdfunding IndiegoGo campaign running lately, for CIGA Design X Series watches. Only the campaign is not run by CIGA Design, but by some unknown fraudsters. This is not the first, not the second, but the fourth IndieGoGo campaign run by the same gang. Total proceeds so far: over $3,000,000 from 11,700 backers!
How the scam works
First, the gang gets an original CIGA watch, and then finds a factory in China to manufacture the imitations. The first three crowdfunding campaigns were based on this model. The current campaign though is different. They got a watch and added the CIGA Design logo on it. In a variation of this, they actually got somehow the next generation of the X-Series watch, and sourced the production of cheap imitations to a Chinese factory (the new campaign has a $10,000 fixed goal, when all other campaigns had flexible goals - although the alleged third generation of the X-Series is entirely different to the first two generations designs).
Once they have secured production, they go and setup their IndieGoGo campaign along with pre-marketing to potential backers from the previous campaigns, using creative material from the real CIGA Design company and 3D modeling from the imitation watch design. At the time of writing, the campaign has already raised almost $250,000 from over 800 backers.
How you can tell it's a scam
First, the domain name they used is quite similar to the domain name registered by the original CIGA Design company. They have registered ciga-design.com, while the original is cigadesign.com. But even that domain name is now expired, and any e-mail messages sent to their alleged e-mail account will be going undeliverable. Would a legitimate business let their domain name to expire?
Second, they only list as a website a free Facebook group. Before their domain expiration they were running on that domain a Shopify store.
Third, their place of business is moved since their first campaign, from Hong Kong to the United States.
Fourth, there are significant discrepancies in the creative material. Packaging video is taken from CIGA Design Z-Series and edited in a way to make viewers believe it is a package for the X-Series. The corona in some videos has engraved a different logo than the logo displayed in still 3D models.
Finally, comments in previous campaigns post closing date, reveal that quite a few backers received watches that only worked for a day or two, and then broke or stopped working. After numerous attempts to contact the gang about their broken watch, they posted their complaints as comments in the campaign page - with most of these comments going unanswered.
Would CIGA Design ever run four crowdfunding campaigns in a year?
CIGA Design is a well reputed watch design company, won many awards in the past 8 years. They have their own branded store on AliExpress, where they sell their watches. Why would they risk their reputation running three crowdfunding campaigns for watches that have been already in the market for years? Yes, you read this right. All three previous campaigns were about allegedly brand new design watches, only in reality those watches were already available in the CIGA Design store on AliExpress for three years.
