Kelowna-Based Kickstarter Goes up in Smoke

A local kickstarter campaign for a portable campfire has failed and backers of the product are not happy.

Campfire In A Can was a product that saw portable campfires that could burn wood, charcoal, or propane from three separate fuels.

A kickstarter campaign started about one year ago and Leo Knight, an investor of the product said in a previous interview with KelownaNow that he wanted to use crowdfunding to help source the product, so an online kickstarter page was created on January 6^th, 2015.

“If you love the great outdoors, you're going to love Campfire in a Can. Once you have one, I guarantee it'll be the first thing you pack whenever you go camping,” said Knight.

There were 816 backers for this product, which was based out of Kelowna and Henderson, Nevada, and $124,763 was pledged to bring this campfire in a can to life.

The kickstarter has however since failed and the money backers donated has been spent.

Updates on the campaign have been few and far between for the backers but there have been countless issues since the beginning stages. On August 17^th an update was published saying they had a setback with the original manufacturer they planned to use. The samples did not meet the level of satisfaction and the factory “refused to change them to suit their standards so they decided to end their relationship with them.”

“Although we hated the idea of disappointing you all, we'd rather wait longer to get something that matches the level of quality we expect rather than send you out camping with something we considered inferior. We want you to have a lifetime of happy camping memories with your Campfire In A Can and changing manufacturers is what we felt we had to do to make that happen,” the public update read.

On November 12, 2015 there was an another update from the investors but this time the update was only for the backers on the Kickstarter website.

It read that there were more problems with the samples.

KelownaNow contacted Leo Knight but Knight said he does not do phone interviews and that he’s been so busy with interviews from other media outlets that he would not do another one.

Backers for the product are furious that their money has been spent and will not be returned.

One commenter said that comments made on Facebook about the failed product have been deleted.

Another commenter said they felt like they had been scammed.

Knight did confirm that the kickstarter had failed and that KelownaNow could find information about the failing campaign online. On the campaign page there was an update on February 1^st, which was the 21^st update from the company.

The update however was only for the backers of the product and the general public is unable to see what was said.

In a closed Facebook group called “Campfire In A Can Fraud” backers have joined together to figure out what can happen next and how they can get their money back.

One backer said they had been posting daily reminders to Knight to post pictures of the bad samples they received back in November. The backer said he had been commenting for 75 days straight and from very early on he knew they were getting scammed.

Backers are now contacting the Nevada Attorney General’s office to try and have them investigate Leo Knight and his company.