many initial group buys and preorders are done on the same premises, THAT'S WHY THEY GIVE YOU ******* DISCOUNT, a group of people pays to develop a product in exchange they get a one time only price at a low margin for participating in it. IT's the same concept as offering your car for development in exchange for a reduced price on the final product.
Even if they fail unless you can prove in court that they had no intention of making good on the product you are not likely to win a case for fraud and the best you could hope for is getting your money back with no compensation for time or interest
Berk did the same thing with the initial exhaust group buy, they had one developed, started a group buy to cover manufacture and tooling costs, it ended up taking longer than expected, the units had problems which took even longer to resolve, went something like 6 months past the initial 3-4weeks, they had to refund several guys, in the end they shipped, everyone got their exhaust and was happy and now they can offer it for normal sale. Are you telling me I should go hit up Berk for my stock options and dividends?
If I sent my car as a test car to you so you could come up with a new product are you going to give me a percentage of all future sales? hell no but you might give me a discount.
Also like I said that is just one case of what could have happened, maybe the group buy was never intended to fund the r&d at all, and other complications came up that slowed it down and funding was never the issue. My point is there a lots of ways for this to have happened without involving deliberate fraud,
Edit:If you are saying you would do this "If I sent my car as a test car to you so you could come up with a new product are you going to give me a percentage of all future sales?" let me know if you ever need a test car partner
