Dan Koster Kickstarter Disaster

ncrockclimb

ncrockclimb

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2135290208/bushcraft-folder/comments

Almost 2 years ago Dan got a Kickstarter campaign funded. Despite many broken promises and a host of excuses, he has yet to produce a single knife.

Before this campaign, Dan already had a backlog of orders and customers that claimed he took their money and would no longer communicate with them. Some people reported wait times in excess of four years. It appears he’s doing the same thing with his Kickstarter backers.

I hope everyone that gave Dan money either gets it back or gets what they paid for. However, given Dan’s track record, I doubt this will happen.
 
Wow, I just read thru all the comments on the campaign, now just shaking my head...
Just wow...
I dont think my patience runs that deep...

I hope all of you get either 1 amazing knife or all of your monies returned.
 
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Neko2 said:
Doesn't kickstarter have a refund policy for this?
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Kickstarter does not provide refunds. The transaction is between Dan and the people who “backed” him.

Apparently, Dan is only providing refunds if a backer threatens legal action. He he did the same thing while he was a member here; he refused to provide people refunds unless customers became very vocal and threatened legal action.

Publicly, Dan says he answers all correspondence promptly. However, numerous people claim to have written him for (literally) years without a reply.

Dan’s Behavior was problematic when he was an active member here. He’s gotten a lot worse
 
At one time Dan supposedly produced some very good knives. However, I have read Reviews from a number of people stating that his more recent work (what little of it there is) is not very impressive. If you look through his forum archive on this site, you will find more than a few posts from people who were disappointed with the quality of his work.
 
Dan Koster's problems goes back a longtime. A quick search here shows all good until Dec 14, 2008 then Negatives start showing up here in the GB+U.

The only surprise is people are still giving him money. With the ease of "Google it" there's almost no excuse especially when his bad track record goes back a decade.
 
braillediver said:
Dan Koster's problems goes back a longtime. A quick search here shows all good until Dec 14, 2008 then Negatives start showing up here in the GB+U.

The only surprise is people are still giving him money. With the ease of "Google it" there's almost no excuse especially when his bad track record goes back a decade.
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He used to make great knives with excellent feedback, then wanted to grow without considering the time frame needed and started getting behind and communicated excuses. It snowballed on him and he went to kickstarter to find a new group of suckers, it does net surprise me, his actions have not changed but his audience has, I wish them well.
 
Seems crazy anyone would give money to him two years ago, when his issues started just shy of a decade ago. Good luck ever getting your knife.
 
I agree. I don’t understand how people like Dan ( or the other prolific scammers like Balzano or Survive! ) continue to get people to give them money. Dan was taking peoples money under false pretenses for years before the Kickstarter campaign, and yet he still got fully funded and a very short time.
 
People are waiting forever and being lied to with excuses yet DLT Trading magically keeps restocking his knives for years - Koster and DLT have quite a cozy little arrangement.

The knives themselves have gone downhill as well. I wouldn't trust him to deliver a decent knife or one that was properly heat treated. Given his pattern of lying, I wouldn't take his word for anything.

Here is a review of some of his more recent work: https://www.alloutdoor.com/2016/04/22/review-dan-kosters-muck-initial-impressions/
 
It really makes me sad to see how far he's fallen as I have known Dan in passing from way, way back on the HI board over 15 years ago. Here's the thing...he has never been good at follow through. Back in the late spring of 2005 when he was just getting started I commissioned him to polish and put nice convex edges on 4 or 5 knives that were going to be groomsman gifts and the khukuri I was going to cut my wedding cake with...in October. I figured 4 or 5 months for a sharpening job would be plenty of lead time. Now, Dan did follow through by late september, but I think a lot of that had to do with our HI relationship. It took me several pleading emails to have him at least ship the knives back if he couldn't do the work, because I needed the khukuri for my cake.

I also ordered an Ulu while I was at it. The handle is glued on crooked and blade came with a crack in the edge. I was never impressed with the quality and never used it as it had the ergonomics of a 2x4. It sits rusting in some drawer, I guess.

I have always liked Dan as a person. Or at least he came across as a good guy all those years ago. However, requiring such a large chunk of money up front for such basic work is poor form.
 
If every one of his fraud victims emailed DLT Trading and said they will never buy a thing from there as long as they support Koster, that's the only thing that would matter to Dan. That's all Dan would care about, is possibly losing money.
 
TC7 said:
If every one of his fraud victims emailed DLT Trading and said they will never buy a thing from there as long as they support Koster, that's the only thing that would matter to Dan. That's all Dan would care about, is possibly losing money.
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DLT has had the same two models for over two years now, they're not getting new inventory but I'm sure they're rotating through stock considering the woods are individually pictured.

You're jumping to conclusions and I'm sure if you called DLT they'd tell you they haven't bought new inventory from Dan in years. If some of those folders showed up there then I could understand the frustration.
 
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TC7 said:
If every one of his fraud victims emailed DLT Trading and said they will never buy a thing from there as long as they support Koster, that's the only thing that would matter to Dan. That's all Dan would care about, is possibly losing money.
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We have not received inventory from Koster in quite some time, none of what you see is anything close to a recent restock. it took 2 years to get our last order made.

DLT does not have a convenient cozy relationship with Koster, we just eventually received our order after years of waiting and need to sell it, new listings have popped up because we individually photographed a bunch of the wood handles to better represent them and try and generate more sales.
 
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