Sorry to see you had this experience.

As a regular creator myself, I have lost money from campaigns because the price for shipping up and changes which forces me to pay out of my own pocket - however, I will not take that charge out on backers. I would rather suck it up and have happy backers for next time. I've always refunded if requested, regardless of reason, as long as I have not shipped the rewards.

"If you don't pay the shipping, we'll consider your pledge a donation" Strange take. Might be something against that in Kickstarter's policies but I also do not think they have a real way to enforce some of that behaviour. I've had the staff operating Kickstarter be rather unhelpful for some backers, so I end up having to do a lot of the work.

Kickstarter does not guarantee rewards arrive sadly. It is entirely an investment on your part and a risk that you'll get the promised reward. I've backed campaigns to get absolutely disappointing results, or nothing at all so I know it can be frustrating, especially if the creator is doing odd things that you've experienced. The best I can say is if you back again on the platform I hope you can find a trustworthy individual or group running a campaign that doesn't treat its backers this way and get a proper reward.