LH LABS: Never received your crowd funded product?

Discussion in 'General Audio Discussion' started by Blake, Feb 12, 2019.

  1. captkirk

    captkirk Khan's BFF

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    Well isn’t that special.

    Rocklin address looks more like a corporate building.

    If I have nothing else going on, I’ll swing by and go full Burn Notice.
     
  2. monacelli

    monacelli Friend

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    I wonder if Darko would be willing to write a story about LH Labs and help shine a light on all of Larry's misdeeds. It's insane to me that after all of the people this guy has fucked over, he's still brazenly trying to fleece people out of their hard-earned money, albeit in a different country. It's such a thinly veiled scam. He barely even pretends to be running a real business. We like to give the audiophile press a hard time, but this is an instance where I think they could actually do some good.
     
  3. zonto

    zonto Friend

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    I have no skin in this game and luckily avoided the company/products, but don't think this will work. Both the current and former Indiegogo TOU contain class action waivers:
    However, the effective date of the former TOU is only January 23, 2017, so one would need to dig up the TOU in effect at the time of all this nonsense. At the end of the "legacy" link, there is only a one sentence summary description of changes made to the TOU over the prior years, many of them including "major revisions to the document in its entirety."

    The above does not constitute legal advice.
     
  4. yotacowboy

    yotacowboy McRibs Kind of Guy

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    I'm not a lawyer either, but from a product developer's perspective, the TOU or TOS for IGG has always been seen as a "Get out of jail free" card. Free money with little strings attached, imho. Backers/funders are kinda fucked.
     
  5. ergopower

    ergopower Friend

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    Dang son, Franklin PA isn't at the end of the earth, but from there you can see it. Population 6,500, between Oil City and Meadville. Yeah, if y'inz aren't from there or have a hunting cabin up there, you'd never have heard of it.

    Note that on his LinkedIn profile, he lists Geek Wave as one of his 4 project accomplishments.
     
  6. marflao

    marflao Acquaintance

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  7. mscott58

    mscott58 Friend

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    Looks like suite 120
    Actually he lists the Geek Wave as TWO of his four accomplishments! Doh...

    Accomplishments
    4 Projects
    • Geek Wave: It's Not a Next-gen iPod. It's a No-compromise Portable Music Player
    • Geek Wave: A No-compromise Portable Music Player
    • Geek Pulse: A Digital Audio Awesomifier for Your Desktop
    • GEEK: A New USB Amp/DAC for Headphones

    Also as way of an update, the "Defrauded by LHL" spreadsheet is now up to ~$110K of listed contributions that have never been delivered.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vE7_LByDDY6w8J-E-l4njfkvXcggTasrG90z11swJww/edit#gid=0
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2019
  8. mitochondrium

    mitochondrium Friend

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    Lol you wish
    He belonged to the MQA hype train (in the beginning) the audiophool press is too busy brown-nosing
    For consolation one could start believing in karma then some people in their next life ended up as @Hands trophies for reference DACs
     
  9. Case

    Case Anxious Head (Formerly Wilson)

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    A soul without a conscience is a hideous thing. At least it's audio and not healthcare.
     
  10. Thad E Ginathom

    Thad E Ginathom Friend

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    Yes, I don't dispute that at all. I have a GO v1, which was given to me, and I like it.
     
  11. ColtMrFire

    ColtMrFire Writes better fan fics than you

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    You can't be a good scam artist if you can't hook people in the first place.
     
  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I don't like to be too hard on people: sometimes it's too just too easy to get caught up in it all, especially if the money is easy.

    Larry should have done the right thing a long time ago and return the money rather than double down and continue the scam.

    I also wished that the backers had a clue, i.e., did some research of their own rather than be strung along by the hope of Femto clocks and whatever other buzzwords that Gavin could conjure up. In the end, everybody lost. The backers, Larry, Gavin for being the face of LHLabs, SBAF for supporting LHLabs, and even myself for playing a role in introducing Ken to Larry.

    If indeed Larry is hanging out in China or Taiwan, you guys will never get the money back. There is nothing to investigate from the DAs in the USA. Now if this were Taiwan or China, justice might have been achieved by victims pooling their money to hire goons to break his legs during a "home invasion". I'm just being a realist here, none of the backers will ever receive satisfaction taking a legal route. The only satisfaction will be further ruining his already ruined reputation.

    I pity the guy and I feel no need to be the cosmic enforcer of justice. Karma is a bitch and guaranteed. It might be painful pancreatic cancer in the future for all we know. Think about it. Millions and millions of dollars of transgressions against thousands of people without any attempt to make things right.

    You guys can feel free to offer other suggestions to Lady Karma - knowing that you are not the enforcer.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2019
  13. netforce

    netforce MOT: Headphones.com

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    Crowd funding helps to turn one investor into a large party of investors. Investing is always a risk and a lot of people got screwed with LHL.

    I to this day looking back don't think there was harmful intention from the outset, just lots of people got in over their heads.

    Gavin made a lot promises he couldn't keep and split when times got tough. Larry treated LHL like his baby and didn't want to let it go and instead dragged it out.

    And then in the end with all these other horror stories with other crowd funding projects, no surprise when people get weary of kickstarters and indiegogos.
     
  14. Zhanming057

    Zhanming057 Friend

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    You're being too pessimistic.

    - If he has company assets in the US - which if he has a dev crew in CA as the posts above suggest then he most definitely does - some of it could potentially be seized, auctioned and used for compensation. This is a process that's likely going to take years, though, if it even happens.
    - Even if he doesn't, he could be further dissuaded from traveling to/through the US and Canada. An open lawsuit will mean that as soon as he leaves the airport he's going to have to answer some really uncomfortable questions.
    - Even if he stays in Taiwan/China, 6 million is a pretty big number and if he could be linked to some bigger fraud charges (not likely but possible), Taiwanese authorities will be more than happy to work with US federal agencies. China might too (although much less likely), since Larry isn't crucial to any major Chinese firm, and it makes them look like the good guys. It's happened to fraudsters in the past.
    - Finally, I'm assuming that some of his backers live in Asia. Might be a lot harder to prove damages there but maybe there are people who funded him personally and have it written down somewhere.

    The important thing is to keep collecting information, and make the issue as public as possible.
     
  15. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Yeah. His assets are at the rented facility in Roseville, a few chairs, desks, some computers, and a bank account with only enough funds to cover the salary of few US employees for the next 90 days. Probably comes out to $31,000. Shit, Eddie Current which had 100 times less revenue, but builds stuff in the USA, probably has more USA assets.

    I've never said to stop the process of documentation. This is important to build a case and at least make him think twice about setting foot in certain airports. I just said to not expect much back. The money is gone. If you want Federal or State authorities to take up the case, it's better to have friends in government. I hope some of you donated to the Gavin Newsome or Xavier Becerra campaigns.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2019
  16. Walderstorn

    Walderstorn Friend

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    To be honest, and i know it may offend some people here, i think the breaking legs thing would be something i would get into if he had scammed me and i lived in the same country as he does. The only reason is because it has been too damn long and we all know that justice sometimes is as doubtful as his promises.
     
  17. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Just like Theranos.
     
  18. mscott58

    mscott58 Friend

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    100% probability that our "LHCommSquad" friend posts over on AudiophileStyle (where he apparently still communicates) something like "the goons over on SBAF are now threatening people with bodily harm" or such.

    Yesterday after @captkirk shared the picture of the old LHL HQ he posted "The SBAF community did absolutely NO researching into literally anything revolving around the current address (much like other things they choose not to research when it comes to LH Labs or Light Harmonic). Instead, they focused on name-calling and conspiracy theories."

    Umm, sure...

    And then "They specifically chose and discussed the old address (Roseville), absolutely no one bothered to check or correct the address, even people on this forum who frequent that forum, and we had even DISCUSSED on this very thread the exact new address."

    Umm, one of the first posts after Capt's picture was one of us conspiracy-theory-types asking what the address was and then pointing out it was the old one, and then Capt admitted the mistake and said he'd try to run by the other place when he had time.

    Why the heck am I even talking about this anymore? Sorry...
     
  19. lm4der

    lm4der A very good sport - Friend

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    Because it's good to point out that kind of totally disingenuous behavior. Fight the good fight!
     
  20. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    I would suggest to whoever wants to lead this effort to create a dedicated website that tells the story, dox the heck out of Larry (not for mean-spiritedness, but for proper identification of the culprit), cites the failed projects (or scams), and provide links to the appropriate discussion forums. You have a tell a story and it can't be in a bunch of different forums to get appropriate attention. Name this website "www.scammedbylhlabs.org" or something like that.

    LOL, usually the scams work the other way around. A Chinese shithead scams people in China and moves to the USA, resolving to live an honest life going forward (and hoping to never be sent back to China). Larry is lucky because in Western countries, what he did wouldn't result in bodily harm as the people actually respect rule of law. People may wish it (the Force tells me 95% of people here would like to see a proper pummeling for him), but no one in the USA is going to call the Triad next door to the Chinese benevolent society in SF Chinatown to make certain "arrangements". People will do it the lawful and proper way, collecting information, and hoping a government prosecutor will take on the case.

    That's a shitload of money he ran off with. He needs to feel uneasy if he doesn't already. Again, I had no idea of the extent of money taken and non-deliveries until I did a search on Indiegogo yesterday. It's like holy shit, why didn't think of a scam like that and move to Belize. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. Good thing I crowdsourced zero dollars because I would have cut off LHCommSquad's balls for being a tool of Larry's.
     
    Last edited: Feb 14, 2019

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