Controversy at Cults

By on December 21st, 2021 in Event, news

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There’s some trouble brewing at Cults, one of the larger repositories of printable 3D models.

The site, based in France, has been around since 2013, and today boasts thousands of interesting 3D models. Along the way they monetized their site by allowing designers to charge for their designs, a common practice among independent repositories that are not subsidized by larger entities.

The way this works is that Cults accepts the payment, and clips off 20% — five percent for their payment processor, a typical amount, and 15% for themselves to operate the site. This leaves a commission of 80% of the original payment for the designers. Commission payments of this type are accumulated until a threshold amount is reached, whereupon payout occurs. That’s a very common practice because smaller amounts would not be worth handling due to the costs of processing.

This approach has worked well, but recently one Cults user encountered a problem that seems to have resulted in a major controversy among some Cults users.

In a massive Reddit thread, contributor Bigbore_279, Richard Ferran, claims he did not receive payment from Cults. They explain:

“I have been selling on Cults 3d for a little over a year. In that time I have had zero issues. Every month, I request a payout that is usually around $60-$70 USD. A few weeks ago, I put in a payout request and realized it didn’t hit my PayPal account. I then went to my profile to check my payout status and saw the message in the first picture. I then checked my email and spam and didn’t see any messages. I then sent them an email at the address provided.”

Ferran continued to reach out to Cults through quite a number of means, but apparently received no reply from Cults. Ferran resorted to public tweets, which resulted in Cults blocking them.

Cults posted they had responded to Ferran, but Ferran insists no messages were received on any platform, even after checking spam and trash folders.

Somewhere along the line Cults posted evidence of their communications with Ferran in an attempt to clarify things, but accidentally included some of Ferran’s personal information. While this information was subsequently retracted, it set Cults users on Reddit users on fire. While much of the speculation being posted is clearly wrong, it has nevertheless made a large number of people very upset with Cults.

Reading through the thread lists many responders saying they intend on pulling their 3D content from the site and moving elsewhere, and the anger is tangible. There are even reports that Cults has removed the “Delete Account” feature, but this is certainly not true, as I saw it myself during the preparation for this story:

The “delete account” feature visible in Cults [Source: Fabbaloo]

Regardless, it seems a chunk of their community is quite agitated over the issue. Even today, as I write this, there are still questions related to this matter being publicly directed to Cults via their online platforms.

What’s really going on here? In spite of the tremendous anger of the users, I suspect this is a case of a pathologically bad combination of miscommunication and poor customer service.

Unfortunately for Cults, it seems to have resulted in an exodus of some designers from their platform. The site is quite large, however, and it’s entirely unclear whether the users incited by this affair are substantial to Cults’ business operations.

On the other hand, if the controversy grows, Cults may have a bigger problem on its hands.

Via Reddit and Cults

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!

2 comments

  1. I’ve purchased several designs through Cults3D over the past few months, using my PayPal account, and have had no problems whatsoever. Very satisfied with everything about the site.

  2. I just found Cults and thought it was a cool site with some really great designs, so I set up an account and went to purchase a download.
    SPOILER ALERT: BANK REFUSED TRANSACTION AND NOTIFIED ME WITHIN MINUTES THAT I HAD BEEN CHARGED THROUGH A BILLING SERVICE THAT HANDLES INTERNET PORN MATERIALS AND IS A KNOWN SCAMMER!

    Needless to say that put the brakes on ordering anything from their site or going any further. Fortunately to this time I have not had any malicious charges to my account and hopefully this is the end of the issue with them. Buyer beware!

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