The office of the Attorney General for San Francisco is taking the drone company, Lily to court for misleading customers and failing to make timely refunds. The suit which can be found here claims lured potential customers into pre-ordering the drone using a promotional video that was “purportedly” shot with the Lily drone but was in fact filmed by a professional camera crew using a DJI Inspire.
from the filing:
Further, the company used the money received from pre-orders to secure a $4 million dollar bank loan. In addition the Attorney General maintains that the firm violated the FTC’s Mail Order rule which requires a company to issue customres a refund if a firm fails to deliver the product/service in a timely manner.
The suit references the promotional video extensively as well as Lily’s product updates and other sources. Remarkably, Lily has not taken down the video, which can be viewed here, nor have they revised their home page to notify customers that they have shuttered their operation.
The Attorney General is out to protect the consumer. However, it comes a bit late. Unfortunately, the suit will place an additional strain on the company’s existing finances. There will be financial penalties and there is still some portion of a bank loan to be repaid. Hopefully the customers are refunded before those amounts go out.
Lily has not done any favors for start up firms looking to fund their efforts through crowd sourcing. If you are looking to get a great deal on a slick looking drone by pre-ordering on Kickstarter or Indiegogo, please remember the age old adage: Buyer Beware.
Frank Schroth is editor in chief of DroneLife, the authoritative source for news and analysis on the drone industry: it’s people, products, trends, and events.
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you cant trust kickstarter scams