edit please note @tsouvli @kai and anyone thinking of requesting for a refund - you can’t actually ask for a refund until you’ve actually received the product and as far as the campaign is concerned you’re still on the hook until they deliver the product to you.
@tsouvli There is a gap in current regulations as it relates to consumer protection in crowdfunding. However the possible perspective for this particular situation may be that the “perk” is the ability to own the product first and give exclusive feedback in the development. Whilst a legal challenge of the failure to deliver this perk may be difficult to challenge under European consumer protection laws, the fact that they have described the benefit of being able to “own” the product first and that Philips is also making this commercially available will certainly be a factor in favour of classifying us as customers and therefore receive EU consumer law protection
(Consumer guarantees, warranties, claims and returns - Your Europe)
In other words,
- because this has been marketed the way it has been,
- combined with the fact that Philips is pushing this out through their own sales channels and not exclusively to the crowdfunding platform,
weakens the often repeated assertion on this forum that we should be patient and accept that this is crowdfunding and not a regular product purchase.
As such, this would potentially provide you with all the legal protections under EU consumer protection laws.
Naturally you should seek your own legal advice for this and as this is a small quantum on an individual basis and not a class action law suit you should familiarise yourself with the small claims process.