Supporters of an innovative pet GPS tracking system backed by one of Canada’s best known singers are crying foul after the company announced it’s unable to deliver the product.
The Arden Collar, named after spokeswoman Jann Arden, links your pet’s collar to a smartphone app that can track your furry friend if it goes missing.
Arden, a longtime animal lover, helped pump an Indiegogo campaign last year to create the smart collar, dubbed “the halo to protect your loved ones.”
The campaign promised an Arden Collar in October 2015 to anyone who pledged $129 USD.
But now the company behind the device, Diffurence, says it can’t deliver because it didn’t reach the funding needed to produce the collars.
The Indiegogo campaign was striving to reach $400,000, but only made a fraction of that – clearing just $27,646 when the campaign closed on December 14, 2014.
Diffurence CEO Derek M. Sheldon told CTV Vancouver the company just doesn’t have the money to continue production.
“We are continuing to move forward but we’re not able to be delivering the Arden Collar as promised this year,” he said. “A lot of money has to go into research and development, patents, there’s a lot of things that need to be done behind the scenes to create technology of this nature.”
Arden also issued a statement assuring the project is still alive.
“We are acutely aware that this has caused much concern and disappointment in some of our valued investors,” the singer said. “We now find ourselves in a holding pattern inching our way forward to what will ultimately be our final goal of producing and manufacturing an amazing tool to keep animals safe from harm and loss.”
That’s little consolation to supporters like Shannon Hellyer Gibson of West Shore Pet Service & K9 Adventures. She said she was shocked when she learned the product wasn’t coming, especially since she purchased the distribution rights for the collars on Vancouver Island.
“I sat there for a few minutes with my jaw on the floor,” Gibson said. "If I had known the collars weren’t being produced, I would never have purchased them.”
She said if she doesn’t receive a refund in the hundreds of dollars, she plans to contact police.
Sheldon said people who signed up for the collar as a perk on Indiegogo aren’t actually entitled to getting the product.
“They are actually pledging support to an idea or a concept and in turn they receive an item to us, but in no way shape or form are we legally bound to delivering them a product,” he said.
Diffurence said anyone angry they’re not going to get their collars on time should contact PayPal for a refund, but promised that they would strive to still produce the items.
“We have not given up hope. I have not understood where people got the message that no one was getting their collar,” said Sheldon.
The company head says Jann Arden served as a mentor, advisor and major investor in the project, but in no way had control of funding, production or company finances.
“She didn’t have any control over the daily operations of the company or handling the funds… or any major decisions,” Sheldon said.
With a report from CTV Vancouver’s Bhinder Sajan
