Fantasy Jungle STILL HAS NOT PAID?

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:20 am

Originally posted by Just Russ:
I have a $500 team owed to me. That will obviously never come about now.

Why can't the FSA or FSTA require that entry fees be escrowed to be a member of the association? This way, only those operators who can guarantee prize funds availability can don the association logo.

It makes one leery to join any league that is not guaranteed.

Is escrowing the funds even enough guarantee?

Man this is frustrating! Good post Russ. While your scenario above sounds good, I honestly don't think either trade association has the ability to completely police this industry and having the FSTA hold the prize money for every single pay contest just isn't feasible. Besides, AFFL.com had the FSTA logo on their site even through the tough times last year when Neil admitted he didn't have the funds to pay everyone.

I want to figure out a way to have folks trust in every pay game, but I'm not sure it's possible. At some point, folks have to trust the game operators and the companies that are backing them. And the game operators are going to have to show how they are guaranteeing the prize money will be there, whether that's in a Wells Fargo account like we've done in the past or putting all of the money in escrow. The game has changed and the game operators MUST change, too.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:30 am

Originally posted by Fly Route:
I like the idea of having the prize money escrowed with an association like the FSA or FSTA that is talked about. This would protect the players much more than we are now. It appears we have very few options right now if a site cant or doesnt want to pay the winners. What am I suppose to do to try to collect the 5k that is owed to me? It seems like the cost of legal actions would wipe out my winnings anyhow!

I played here for the first time last year and had a prize check right around the 1st of the year as well as another check shortly after the contest ended. I appreciate that a lot but what are the guarantees with the NFFC or most any other contest out there? The FJ guaranteed payment and now I might not see that. I took 3rd in the Jungle last year and I think have cashed every year I played since '05 and have had no issues collecting. I loved playing there and promoted the site all the time. I never saw this coming as they have had excellent customer service ever since I had been with them and the number of entries were growing every year. Now im left not trusting anyone! Again Mike, I feel bad for you and everyone else who won money in that contest. Nobody should have the thrill of victory taken away from them by game operators who didn't set the prize money aside. I've read FJ's e-mail to their winners over and over and again nowhere in that update does it say where all of this money went that was supposed to have been set aside as prize money. It's unreal, as was Neil Wickham's situation.

The fact that you now can't trust anyone is a shame. Many of us have paid on time EVERY TIME for years. I'd hate to see anyone on these boards leave the NFFC, WCOFF, CDM or any other long-time industry contest because of the actions of others. Granted, AFFL and FJ paid for several years beforehand too, but you have to look into each individual company before making a decision about every one.

What's the difference between those companies and the NFFC? Corporate backing. Neil ran AFFL.com, Mike and Scott ran Fantasy Jungle. There's nothing wrong with individuals running high-stakes events and several are doing fine with them now, but at least in our case it's great to have F+W Media and NBC Sports backing us. Trust me, it's now my bank account or Tom's bank account ensuring the prizes. F+W Media backs everything we do in the NFFC and this contest is just a very, very, very small part of what we do here. At no point can I see a problem with us because this isn't our sole business, this is just part of a huge company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year.

Hopefully you won't give up on our industry completely Mike. I can certainly understand it if you do after what happened in the FJ contest. But I know you did well in our Primetime event last year and hopefully things will work out this year for you. Stay well and remember that there are a lot of honest companies still working in this space, ours included.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:36 am

Originally posted by J Homer:
Look at all the contest that have taken money over the last fewyears,AFFL,Turfwar,Topfantasysports.com and know looks like fantasy jungle.To me the worst part is when I talk to other people who ask me about fantasy sports the first thing that they always ask, are they going to pay you and are they legit,sad that know we can't say for certain. This post might hurt the worst because I'd hate to think that fantasy players out there are saying they'd like to play in pay contests but they aren't going to do it this year because they just can't trust ANYONE.

Again, I'll state that there are MANY reputable game operators out there today and even in this "buyer beware" market I think you can play with ease in most of these contests. Pick the right contest in 2009 after doing some background checks and if it looks too good maybe it is.

Send them our way Jesse and I promise we won't disappoint. It's time to restore that integrity that we have in the baseball market (how come nobody has a problem over there?) to the football market and get the trust back from our customers. Again, I'll do whatever I can to get that back, but it's time for the game operators to step up and take the necessary steps to prove to the customers that all prizes will be paid, on time EVERY TIME.

Raiders · Post by **Raiders** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 6:01 am

Snake,

It's called bankruptcy.

John

KOTRAX · Post by **KOTRAX** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 7:04 am

I AGREE WITH SNAKE'S POINT 100% WHY AREN'T THERE ANY REPRECAUTIONS WHEN OPERATORS DO THIS?

AT ANY MOMENT ANY "TRUSTED" GAME OPERATOR IN THE PAST CAN SIMPLY WALK AWAY UNSCAVED FROM WHAT IT APPEARS.

WHICH I REALLY BAD FOR THE PLAYERS. WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO "HOPE" WE ARE GOING TO GET PAID.

ARE BIGGEST CONCERN SHOULD BE DRAFTING RIGHT, MAKING THE RIGHT LINEUP DECISIONS IN ORDER TO GET PAID IN THE END.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:26 am

Originally posted by GK:
...here's a Q that perhaps you can answer here Greg - WHY were there no repercussions for what Neil did two years ago which might, just might have set a precedent for what FJ did again this past year and what any other game operator might do AGAIN next year?...there simply has to be accountability so that responsibility can follow - if one doesn't do the time for the crime, well then that's not much of a deterrent ISHO...thanks much...SNAKE It's a worthy question and one that Lou and some of the AFFL customers can answer better than me. From what I know, the customers could sue for the return of their entry fee money, but not the prize money they should have won. So they had little recourse, even as a group.

The industry did nothing to him and very little was ever even written about this, which is embarrassing in itself. And when he "sold" the company, the new owners had participants agree to new terms with free entries into the 2008 event, basically paying off their winnings that way. I'm not sure there's any retribution you can get now when someone has "bought" the old AFFL, gotten their customers to agree to new terms and moved forward now as a new legitimate AFFL.

Neil did harm to our industry and nobody covered it (including me), nobody took him to court for it and nobody seems to have any recourse for what happened other than to play the new AFFL game. I might be wrong on all of this, but that's how it looks from here today.

Greg Ambrosius · Post by **Greg Ambrosius** » Tue Apr 14, 2009 8:35 am

Originally posted by GK:
quote:Originally posted by KOTRAX:
I AGREE WITH SNAKE'S POINT 100% WHY AREN'T THERE ANY REPRECAUTIONS WHEN OPERATORS DO THIS?

AT ANY MOMENT ANY "TRUSTED" GAME OPERATOR IN THE PAST CAN SIMPLY WALK AWAY UNSCAVED FROM WHAT IT APPEARS.

WHICH I REALLY BAD FOR THE PLAYERS. WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TO "HOPE" WE ARE GOING TO GET PAID.

ARE BIGGEST CONCERN SHOULD BE DRAFTING RIGHT, MAKING THE RIGHT LINEUP DECISIONS IN ORDER TO GET PAID IN THE END. ...never really knew this as up until now it's either been the NFFC or WCOFF (one year) which SNAKE has participated in and implicitly trusted but if one really stops to ponder here it is rather shocking that there is ZERO, absolute ZERO regulation of any sort to ensure that the winners of High Stakes Fantasy Sports contests get paid their due...if Greg & Co. would like to keep the government regulators out of their business (can't blame them one bit) then the time could be ripe - immediately - for some REAL industry self-regulation...SNAKE [/QUOTE]Well, we started the Fantasy Sports Players Association in 1999 to help police our industry after the Replica Corporation went under without paying off all of their prizes. The FSPA became the FSTA (Fantasy Sports Trade Association) and other issues overtook policing games, which honestly, was a non-issue for many years.

Now even if the FSTA oversaw every pay fantasy game, both AFFL.com and Fantasy Jungle would have received high marks before the 2007 and 2008 seasons, respectively. Both had histories of paying on time, both had little to no issues with customers and both were active members in the industry. Neil, Mike and Scott were trusted.

But something happened to both companies that I certainly didn't see coming. We know how Neil invested the money and only Mike and Scott know what happened last year at FJ. No matter what their answer is, nobody saw this coming and a self-regulating watchdog would be as surprised right now as we all are because there was no previous indication that this would happen.

So we're back to the trust factor and looking at the companies behind these high-stakes contests. Is there enough backing for the game you're playing in to really guarantee the prizes and pay them out on time in good times and in bad times? That's the key right now: Play with contests that have more than a good history. They need the backing to back up their claims.