In a lengthy email to backers on Saturday, Coolest Cooler creator Ryan Grepper assured them a state investigation would find no foul play, and attributed further delivery delays to Amazon pricing and costly consumer complaints.

The Kickstarter project, a one-time darling of the crowdfunding world, has run into trouble as it has struggled to deliver coolers to its tens of thousands of backers.

Two specific points of contention among backers still waiting for their tricked-out cooler? That the Portland company is selling them on Amazon for $225, and that Coolest won't immediately give them a refund for the money they pledged back in 2014.

Grepper addressed the first point in detail in his email to backers. He called Amazon's price cut "disastrous," and said the e-commerce giant broke a verbal promise to Coolest not to sell the coolers below the retail price of $399.

(We've reached out to Amazon for comment and will update this story if we hear back.)

Grepper went on to address the investigation into his company by the Oregon Department of Justice's consumer protection division.

He said the consumer complaints filed with the department have cost the company legal fees and employee hours that could have been spent shipping coolers.

As of Friday, the state had received 315 complaints about Coolest Cooler in the last year.

Grepper was confident the investigation would find no wrongdoing.

"We've cooperated fully with the DOJ and they will see we've done nothing wrong," he wrote.

He and his fellow Coolest employees have been clear about their efforts to get coolers to remaining backers and are following Kickstarter's terms of service, he said.

But that's where things get murky.

Kickstarter has two sets of terms of service: one set in place in July 2014, when Coolest Cooler launched, and one set that took effect in October 2014.

According to Kickstarter, Grepper's company is still beholden to the first set of terms. And when it comes to refunds, these terms - while still pretty vague - aren't so forgiving to creators.

"Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill," the terms say.

However, the terms don't specify a timeline for this refund.

In each of his dozens of updates to backers over the last two years, Grepper has remained steadfast in his commitment to deliver a cooler to each backer who pledged money (most often $185) for one.

A week ago, Grepper told The Oregonian/OregonLive that nearly 40,000 backers had received coolers. (The project had a total of 62,642 backers. The vast majority - though not all - pledged enough for a cooler.)

Because of the vague language in Kickstarter's terms of use, if Grepper is still working to deliver coolers to backers, he may not be violating any rules.

Meanwhile, backers continue to wait for a cooler while the state investigation examines the company's operations.

-- Anna Marum

amarum@oregonian.com

503-294-5911

@annamarum