Count me amongst those defrauded. It's twice bitter as family, friends, and I were also swindled by antsports a year ago. I am not losing nearly as much money as some, as I spread my money around different platforms and local friends leagues, and I never leave money on deposit in any account (interest free loans seemed kind of silly, since i didnt trust the guys much to begin with). Like many of you i made the idiotic assumption that antsports was an abberation, I didn't realize there had been numerous leagues that had gone under, stealing players money in the process the last several years.
For me, i had a lot of injuries this year, and so 3 of my 4 phenoms teams missed out (2 missing the playoffs by a game, and thankfully 4 of my 5 title game participants this past year were at fuzzys, fantasybowl, and in 2 local friends leagues, so only 1 of my 5 teams set to pay me well was at phenoms). The sad thing for me was that my winner was an experimental team that was one of my best ever built: i decided to do a post week 1 auction league squad, and focused on going after players who had off week 1's and would be available on discount (Graham, Charles, Lacy etc) from their early august auction prices, I got all three of them for 30% or more cheaper than they were going for before week 1, and was busy patting myself on the back for a brilliant season on my 40th birthday last saturday when the news came down.
Just brutal.
At this point I'd have to agree w/the consensus: I am no longer going to entrust much money into any site ever again, I'll spread my money around so I can never be taken for too much by any one league. I can't quit this hobby, I'm not going to full myself into thinking I can, I enjoy it too much, but I'm going to try to mitigate risk as much as possible by never booking multiple leagues in any online site as I did at antsports and Phenoms.
I have no expectation of getting my money back, but it is pretty sickening. I'm a teacher, and flat out don't make enough money to be defrauded by vile cretins like this guy, now having been welched on by antsports, phenoms, and a local friend of the girlfriend in the past year, I'm just out of ideas, especially if apparently leaguesafe isn't necessairly safe either.
How in the hell can anything be proven to be reliable and trustworthy at this point? I guess I'll just have to consider the money a sunk cost for having fun (something I already do), w/no expectations one way or the other on the site holding up its obligations honorably at the end of the year.
As for the owner of the site. It's despicable, and I don't understand how anyone can defend the guy. The concept isn't difficult, his profits were his 10-20% off the top of league fees period, the winnings were never his in the first place. It's fraud and theft and I would assume illegal to do what he did in any sane world. Just a p.o.s. person, period. I don't care if he was nice or friendly, so was antsports steve, it didn't stop him from defrauded me of my orphaned keeper team (I bought a team a year ago on discount, and when he merged leagues he: took my keepers away so the team could fit together (some other team had the same keepers), then blocked my phone calls, and blocked my attempts at trading down in the draft when i realized he wouldn't give me my money back, or move me to other leagues: the coup de grace was when i had agreements to trade down so i could get extra picks in the keepable rounds (4th-18th), he stepped in and blocked the expletive trades). Nice guy superficially, but like Mike, had no problem committing fraud, and defrauding thousands of players of over a million dollars for his own interests: in other words, both guys are steaming piles of expletive, and criminals to boot.