Indiegogo, Crowd Funding and Credit Card Protection

CheshirePhil

Hi Moneysaving Experts,
In early October this year I contributed to an Indiegogo campaign for a Nintendo Switch dongle. The item had been reviewed in the gaming press, and was scheduled to ship on the 22nd of October (as per reviews and the information on the Indiegogo page).
On October 23rd, the vendor emailed all contributors to inform them that the item had not shipped on schedule and that they had made a decision to revise the design to give it a different function, which would mean further delay in shipping. They gave no option to withdraw nor did they give any estimate of the new shipping schedule. The email included icons to click if you wanted more information. I clicked this but have received no response. I've written to the vendor twice more asking for my money back and received no reply, nor acknowledgement of my email.
I contacted the credit card company (MBNA) to dispute the payment. Initially they refunded the money. However, they then recharged me and now tell me that I cannot recover my money from Indiegogo because they merely provide the platform, and it is the vendor that is responsible for the fulfilment of the contract. So, I asked why they (MBNA) cannot then recover the money from the vendor, and MBNA responded by saying because "you [me] didn't pay the vendor".
This seems outrageous to me, but MBNA will not budge and I am down £53.
Any advice?

[Deleted User]

They're correct. You didn't pay the vendor.

What do the Indiegogo terms say about withdrawing in the event of delays etc?

elleJay42

You're not buying a product from Indigogo you're backing a project with projected rewards, if the project fails they've still spent your money working out how to make the product but there'll be no 'reward' to send you at the end. It's the chance you take when you back projects, I don't have too much experience with Indigogo but my friend backs loads of things over on Kickstarter, he's had a couple of bad experiences where he's lost his money but only backs things where he's willing to potentially lose money. I don't think you've got any chance of getting your money back I'm afraid.

jonesMUFCforever

OP Just think yourself lucky you are only down by £53.

Write it off for now - you may get something down the line you may not.