Phantomchessboard Reviews 

This a scam, promising a product they won't ever deliver. Mine was ordered years ago and they replied to be patient, that I was scheduled in the next 6 months. Now they even did not answer to mails. Even worse, they still adverstise their products to lure more people

Backer here.
THEY ARE SCAMMERS

date of experience: FOREVER

Contribution ID 949. Backed this Kickstarter chessboard years ago, this isn't a recent order. Since mid-2025 alone I've been given seven different shipping or tracking dates, each one passed with no delivery and no proactive update, I had to chase every single time. I paid a separate shipping fee in Dec 2025, already knowing at that point the boards weren't ready. I've asked for a full refund twice, May 2026 and Aug 2026, both times the reply ignored the refund request entirely and just gave another vague update. As of Aug 2026, years in, still no product, no refund, no real ETA.

I am Backer #1189 in the United States.

What makes this situation especially unacceptable is not simply that the project has been delayed. Kickstarter projects can run into manufacturing problems, supply-chain issues, financing problems, and unexpected technical challenges. Backers understand risk.

What is much harder to accept is years of repeated promises, vague explanations, emails saying orders are being prepared or placed into the “next batch,” and then nothing happening.

Meanwhile, Wonder Substance continues actively marketing and selling Phantom chess boards to new customers. If boards are being produced and shipped to customers ordering today, the company needs to clearly explain why people who provided the original funding are still waiting years later.

That is the issue.

The people who took the earliest risk should not become the lowest priority.

Looking through the Kickstarter comments, I am clearly not the only backer reporting this experience. Other backers describe years of similar communications: promises of upcoming shipments, requests to resubmit information, statements that tracking will follow, and then months or years without delivery.

The company's standard response continues to be some variation of:

“We apologize for the delay. We are still delivering remaining orders. Please check your email.”

After five years, that is no longer an adequate explanation.

At this point, Wonder Substance should publicly provide:

The exact number of Kickstarter orders still unfulfilled.
A clear fulfillment schedule by backer number or region.
An explanation of why newer retail orders are being accepted while original backers remain unfulfilled.
Actual shipment and tracking information instead of another promise about a future batch.
A refund process for backers who no longer wish to wait.

I stopped supporting Kickstarter projects largely because of experiences like this.

I wanted the Phantom project to succeed. I still want the product I backed. But five years of waiting while watching the product continue to be marketed to new buyers has destroyed my confidence in the company.

This review reflects my experience as Backer #1189 and the communications I have received. I am not calling the company fraudulent as a legal conclusion. I am saying that, from a customer's perspective, years of unfulfilled promises and continued sales to new customers create an unacceptable level of distrust.

Wonder Substance: stop asking your original supporters for more patience. Deliver the boards, provide verifiable shipping dates, or refund the backers who helped make this product possible.

5 years and waiting. If it isn't totally a scam it is vaporware. Customer service is non-existent.

Complete fraud. Have been waiting since the beginning for my board. At various times they have asked for more money for express shipping or similar (which I refused). A year ago it was supposed to be delivered early 2026. Just today they now say they are short of parts and invite me to send them more money for a different set! Utter SCAM

5 years and still nothing, a scam
run away
After 5 year they have the audacity to ask me 199 USD to upgrade my board because the shippement will be faster ?!
Please don't order this.

It's a scam company, they sell vaporware. They may have shipped a handful of boards by now, but thousands of people on kickstarter are still waiting for theirs since 2021. It has been years of broken promises and shifting deadlines. They also charge backers $163 for standard shipping while their retail website lists $69 shipping to the same address — their excuse is that backers got a cheaper board price so they can't absorb the shipping cost. They claimed my total cost (board + shipping) was still lower than retail — but it still felt like backers were being penalized for supporting them early. As of today, I still have no board and no tracking number.

The whole thing is fraud. Supported on kickstarter

5 YEARS AGO

They just took the money and never delivered.

I ordered from kickstarter 5 years ago. Still haven’t received the board. Been requesting a refund 2 years ago. Still no refund. It’s a complete scam.

you will not receive your order. Was an original backer 5 years ago and they took us on a long road of keep promising to deliver and has the audacity to ask for more money to get it shipped out faster but I didn't give in so i guess i'll never see my board. they've stopped replying to my emails

I ordered the chess board as one of the very first backers in 2021 (FIVE YEARS AGO).
The company has NEVER delivered the product to me (an to hundreds and hundreds of other backers) even though I/we paid the full amount.

I backed Phantom on Kickstarter and received my board in August 2025. It has never worked — no chess moves are detected at all, despite following every troubleshooting step (firmware update, factory reset, calibration) with their support team for months.
In March 2026, the team agreed in writing to send me a replacement board. Since then I've been stuck on a shipping/packaging issue they were supposed to solve, and since May 21, 2026 they have stopped responding entirely — including to a formal written request with a clear deadline.
I paid approximately €400-500 for a product I have never been able to use. I would not recommend backing this campaign or trusting their post-sale support.

I ordered the product by being an original backer in December 2021 (Not a typo). The company has NEVER delivered the product to me even though I had paid the full amount and the delivery fee. Over 4 years of excuses. Perfect definition of a Scam very well executed. I am happy to be proven wrong and will comment here again if the product ever arrives. Over to you Phantom(?) Chess !!