Plastc Bankruptcy & Shutdown
I first covered Plastc back in October, 2014. At the time of its announcement, Plastc seemed like a credit card replacement product that could work. Other products such as Coin had been announced as well, but Plastc promised both NFC along with Chip & PIN. I wasn’t sure if they could pull it off given the emergence of Smart Wallet programs, but I was hopeful.
In August, 2015 it seemed like they might have done it. They announced a “firm” launch date of April 29, 2016. During that announcement in August, they also offered a 2-4-1 sale and I bit. Yes, I spent $135 to purchase two Plastc cards. After all, it was a business expense since I planned to review the unit on this blog.
Of course April, 2016 came and went and the company had excuses for every delay. At one point they said a supplier backed out to do damage at an overseas factory. This year they continued to update their blog with promises of a late 2017 launch. That of course will never happen.
Plastc Is No More
Today Plastc announced their intentions to file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. In a letter to “backers” (people who preordered) they explained that their latest round of funding fell through leaving them out of cash. Their entire staff has been laid off.
As you can see from the text below, it looks like they blew through all of their preorder cash and were relying on investors to actually fund all of the units they had “sold”. I had hoped this product would actually make it to market, but am not surprised in the least about these developments given the many delays.
Did you preorder Plastc? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
We Regret to Inform You…
For the past 3 years, our mission here at Plastc was to build and deliver the most technically ambitious smart card on the planet. After making enormous leaps in development, product innovation and progress towards our goal, Plastc has exhausted all of its options to raise the money it needs to continue.
Plastc, Inc. is exploring options to file Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and will cease operations on April 20, 2017.
While we have fallen short of our goal, we are proud of our team and the effort that went into developing a working Plastc Card. However, without the necessary capital to continue, all employees have been let go, which means that Customer Care and Social Media channels are unmanned or have been shut down.
How We Got Here:
We were expecting to close a $3.5 million Series A funding round on February 28, 2017. There are functioning Plastc Cards, which were demonstrated to our investors and our backers, and the capital was to be allocated for the mass production and shipping of Plastc Cards to pre-order customers. At first, the principal investment group postponed their investment and a couple of weeks later the round fell apart.
After the initial funding was unavailable, Plastc made progress with another investor who offered $6.75 million. This deal was scheduled to close last week and would propel development across the finish line, as well as allow for Plastc Card pre-orders to be shipped and for production to continue into a retail phase.
However, once again at the very last minute, our investor gave us notice that they have decided rescind their investment offer. The round was a signature away from closing and we were extremely caught off guard when they notified us yesterday they were backing out. Our existing investors kept us alive and functioning as long as they could during this fundraising process, but in the end, we needed new outside capital to get into production.
What This Means For Backers:
It’s been a long road with a lot of obstacles. The support of our amazing backers has been incredible, which makes this announcement even harder. We were so incredibly ready for production in order to hit our deadlines but without capital it is impossible for us to move forward and we will not be able to fulfill any pre-orders.
We are disappointed and emotionally distraught, and while we know this is extremely disappointing for you, we want our backers to know that we did everything we could to make Plastc Card a reality.
– Plastc Inc.
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Update: I disputed the charge and received a refund. I purchased last May. All I did was fill in my bank’s online form for billing disputes for non-receipt of goods.
Honestly, it sounds like a bit of a scam. I mean how do you go through that kind of money and produce absolutely nothing for all the people who gave them money? And then keep trying to get more people to back you? I’m not surprised they couldn’t find anyone else to invest. You’d have to be crazy to kick in a few million dollars to this shady outfit.
It’s sad that more and more people seem to be doing this too, and then walking away leaving their ‘backers’ high and dry with little recourse.
But no, hearing they’ve just walked away from it all does not surprise me at all.
What a bummer. I have been looking forward to this for years as a way to handle carrying many different cards around and have the right card always available for max benefits. I was one of the first backers and have followed them closely. Including sending a Tweet earlier this week asking why they hadn’t sent an update in a month. The response was that one would be coming soon. Well we got it alright. It’s just hard to understand how they could be “so close” to shipping so many times and yet have it completely collapse. I feel like the entire operation was smoke and mirrors. Dare I say, a Ponzi scheme. Keeping a bunch of people employed, traveling the world (visiting manufacturing plants, etc) with no expectation of ever delivering. I was always disappointed that they kept delaying release in the name of adding new features. It started as mag strip only. Then they added chip, which made a lot of sense but complicated the product dramatically. And then adding NFC / contactless payments… that always seemed fishy to me. And a mistake. Why would someone have a credit card with them but not a phone? We have a perfectly valid solution for contactless payments with Apple and Android pay. This was a totally unnecessary addition to the card and clearly complicated the product many times over. Very poor decisions and again, can’t help wondering if there really was a product slated for release or just a big shell game.
Is this Plastiq or this other company? I have used Plastiq for recent payments.
This is Plastc, not Plastiq so don’t worry.
Just out of curiosity, how many “referrals” did you get people to buy this through your link?
I had a personal referral link just like every other person who preordered. I never had an affiliate link nor was I affiliated with this company in any way. A few people did use my link but I never received anything. So in total I am out $135 just like everyone else.
Haha EXACTLY!
I was one of the first preorders when this showed up and canceled my COIN card since this had a chip and COIN was only mag strip. I churned the card this was purchased with years ago so no chance of even trying to do a dispute. I kinda planed on never seeing a thing a year ago but every so often an email would show up and hope would be renewed. If the tech is as far as they say it is one of the mobile wallet companies should really pick this up but they won’t.
Glad I didn’t jump on this.
I’m sure you could dispute the charge with your credit card company as product purchase was never received.
Dispute a charge from 1+ years ago?
Yes, you can dispute a charge if the order was never fulfilled
No. You must dispute within 60 days of the statement that has the charge you are contesting.
The 60 days applies to a billing statement error. There’s a different provision for inferior quality goods or failure to deliver. Also the purchase must generally be made in home state or within 100 miles of location. Some noise I’ve heard is anywhere from 6 months to 560 days, but nothing clear for now.
I ordered five of them. Super disappointed and hope that eventually after all the law suits I can get my money back. Tragic.