What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

Issues with LeagueSafe (1 Viewer)

Jrodicus

Footballguy
Some other leaguemates have posted about an issue we had with an owner, Josh Meyer, and how he was able to get a refund from LeagueSafe. Below is the rest of the story and my dialgoue with their customer service group.

Oct 29 07:45 (CDT)
Hello,
My name is Jared ***, and I am the commissioner of a league that uses your site. Our leaguesafe homepage is https://www.leaguesafe.com/League/1382110
This is the first year of our fantasy league, and most of the owners do not know each other. To help keep the buy-in’s “safe,” one of our leaguemates, Josh Meyer, suggested we use your service. Josh was not the commissioner of the league, but he was put in charge of setting up the leaguesafe account because the commissioner was not familiar with your site.

This is a dynasty league, so we have quite a bit of activity during the NFL offseason. By 2/15/13, all 12 of our members had paid their $306 buy-in.
In July, our league commissioner (name removed) stepped down, and I took over his responsibilities. I am familiar with your site, and I use your services for other leagues that I am commissioner of. On7/29, Josh Meyer gave “commissioner” powers on your site to Chuck Cantrell. Chuck then gave me commissioner powers on the same day. I then removed Leaguesafe commissioner powers from Chuch and Josh (not sure if I did this on July 29th or in the next couple days).

Having said that:
Josh Meyer was still in our league for the first 7 weeks of the season has been inactive in our league since 10/20/13. He removed his contact information from the fantasy league homepage, and has made it obvious that he has dropped out. I’m still trying to contact him, but he is not responding.
Looking at our page on your website, Josh received a full refund of his $306 buy-in on 7/30, and he “left” our Leaguesafe site on 9/3. As commissioner, I did not receive any notification of either event.

MY QUESTIONS:
1. Why did Josh Meyer received a full refund on 7/30? We specifically chose to use your service just so that an issue like this would not occur. He was still active in our league, and there was no reason for him to receive a refund.
2. Why was I, as commissioner on Leaguesafe, not notified of either transaction – both Josh’s refund on 7/30 and him “leaving” the Leaguesafe league on 9/30?
3. What are you going to do to rectify this? This payment should not have been made to him, plain and simple. Josh’s team would not have made the playoff’s (which is probably why he decided to drop out after 7 weeks), so now we are short $306 for our payouts.
Please respond as soon as possible. Thank you,
-Jared ***
Their reply.

Oct 29 12:32 (CDT)
Hey Jared,
We refunded his payment because he made the refund request well before the 2013 NFL season began.
We do not notify the league commissioner via email when a league member receives a refund, or when a league member leaves the league.
LeagueSafe is never responsible for resolving disputes between a league commissioner and league members, or between league members. LeagueSafe always recommends that intra-league disputes be resolved internally. We cannot possibly know what is happening within a league hosted by ESPN, NFL.com, etc.
All these details are, however, displayed on the league events page.
You can get in touch with Josh and have him pay back into the league, but we cannot force him to do so.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Thank you for using LeagueSafe.
Beth W.
Customer Service Manager
So they refunded his money because he asked them to and it was "well before" the start of the season. My reply:

Oct 29 13:13 (CDT)
Beth,
Your hyperlinks do not work, so I will reply here.
I looked back through my emails, and to confirm, I was made Commissioner on 7/29/13. I then removed Commissioner status from both *name removed* and Josh Meyers on that day – 7/29/13 – so that I was the only one with Commissioner rights.
Per LeagueSafe Terms and Conditions: https://www.leaguesafe.com/terms


“Refunds
LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the League Payment Deadline. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the League Payment Deadline. After the League Payment Deadline, refunds are not allowed unless approved by the league Commissioner. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isn’t performing well.
Refunds are not allowed after the Season Payment Deadline, unless authorized by the Commissioner.
According to our league Payment & Refund Deadline – 3/1/13 was the deadline for entry fee payments. According to the League Events, Josh Meyer received his refund of $306 on 7/30/13 – the day after his Commissioner status had been revoked. It doesn’t matter when the NFL season began – our payment deadline was March 1st.
This is not a matter of a league dispute; this is LeagueSafe not adhering to its own Terms and Conditions.
1. The league deadline for entry fee payments was 3/1/13.
2. Josh Meyer’s Commissioner status was revoked on 7/29/13.
3. The request for a refund was made on 7/30/13.
4. Per Terms and Conditions “After the League Payment Deadline, refunds are not allowed unless approved by the league Commissioner.”
5. I was the only Commissioner of the league on 7/30/13. I did not approve this transaction.

I do not expect you to “force” him to reimburse the league dues. Our “contract” is with you, the service provider. It makes no difference to us where the money comes from, but the fact of the matter is that you are the service provider, and you violated your own Terms and Conditions. It is your responsibility to rectify this violation. If you would like to pursue the $306 from Josh Meyers, we would encourage you to do so. However, regardless if you are successful in that endeavor or not, it still remains that the onus is on LeagueSafe to remedy the $306 that was incorrectly refunded from our league account.
Please reply as soon as possible with how you are going to resolve this issue. Regards,

Jared
Their reply:
Oct 30 10:58 (CDT)
Hey Jared,
I completely understand your frustrations.
At the time Josh received his refund, our policy, per our Terms of Service, was to refund a payment - no questions asked - until LeagueSafe's payment/refund deadline, which was 9/20.
After careful consideration, we decided to change this policy to what it currently reads in our Terms of Service. In all honesty, we changed this policy because of situations exactly like you're describing.
I'm very sorry this policy wasn't in place at the time Josh asked for a refund.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Thank you for using LeagueSafe.
Beth W.
Customer Service Manager
All I'm looking for is for them to acknowledge their mistake and correct it. You are a service provider to a very specific clientel. Mistakes happen - would you rather own up to them, correct the issue, and get positive press for it, or stick to your guns and get horrible press over $306?

I like how she says, "In all honesty..." Oh, so you weren't being completely honest before, but NOW you're coming clean. Yeah, I completely trust you now.

My reply:

Oct 30 13:40 (CDT)
Beth,

Your statement is blatantly false, and it can be easily shown that this policy was in place at the time.

I have evidence that shows this, and it is readily available. I believe given the circumstances I have been more than reasonable in giving LeagueSafe an opportunity in righting this blatant disregard of your own Terms and Conditions. However, I also have 10 other owners in my league who are seriously upset about this, and word of what has happened is already spreading on some of the more well-known fantasy football forums. Two of the owners in this league write for online fantasy football sites, and another owner is an owner and co-founder of another high traffic site.

The ball is in your court, Beth. I cannot force you to do the right thing here and correct this. Mistakes happen, and I understand that. What I cannot tolerate, however, are false statements. I’m giving you the opportunity to make this right, and get positive press at the same time. Most of the other members in the league are upset more at Josh, not at LeagueSafe, and would be happy to tell everyone that this was corrected.

You’re forcing my hand here. If this mistake is corrected, and I will be happy to share the evidence with you that shows your statement is false and gladly tell me league mates that the mistake has been corrected. If you continue along this path, I will still show you the evidence, but I will also be showing it to the rest of my league mates.

Please let me know which course of action I should pursue. Regards,
-Jared
Now the boss joins the conversation.

Oct 30 14:59 (CDT)
Hi Jared,
I'd like to address a few issues related to the conversation you have been having with Beth.

First, she is correct in telling you that our Terms and Conditions changed shortly after Josh Meyer was granted a refund from your league. The segment you copy/pasted below is from our current T&Cs, which was updated on August 16, 2013 to amend our refund policy. However, at the time Josh made his refund request, we were following the exact policy that was outlined in our T&Cs at that time. We have not made any false statements whatsoever. At no point have we acted in a way that wasn't 100% consistent with the Terms and Conditions of our website. I will refer you to the very first paragraph of our Terms, which states: "LeagueSafe holds the right to amend the Terms at any time by posting a revised version on the LeagueSafe website. The revised version will be effective at the time we post it and applies to all Members."

I also want to reiterate that we changed our policy, in part, because of this exact situation. There are two sides to the payment deadline/refund issue. One is your side. The other is a dishonest league commissioner who creates what appears to be a legitimate league, gets 10 or more people to pay their entry fee, and then bumps their deadline way up to "trap" the league funds in an effort to simply allocate them back to himself at the end of the season. Up until very recently, we've always erred on the side of the individual owner, and our refund policy reflected that by offering a "no questions asked" refund policy up until a couple of weeks into the regular season. Owners were therefore protected against a fraudulent commissioner whose sole goal was to get people to pay into a league he never had any intention of playing out fairly. However, in response to several other situations just like yours, we decided to amend the refund policy to grant commissioners some extra protection against unscrupulous owners as well.

As of today (and every day since August 16, 2013), we've required commissioner approval for refund requests that come in after the league's payment deadline. While it's unfortunate that your circumstances arose prior to that date, I can't stress enough that we are in no way obligated to pay money into your league. We are providing a service that allows for the simplification of collecting fantasy league dues. In no way, shape, or form do we offer any type of guarantee related to being able to collect from every league member.

I apologize if you feel you were misled and I can certainly understand your frustration. Nobody wants a fantasy league to blow up in the middle of a season because of the actions of one dishonest owner. However, all of Josh's actions were posted on your league's LeagueSafe home page for anyone to see. Both his refund and his withdrawal from the league were posted before the season began (in the case of the actual refund, well before). There was no attempt to intentionally hide this information from anyone. I can't speculate as to why someone would pull their money out from a league in July and continue to act as if he was still a part of the league, but again, this is not LeagueSafe's fault. Your league owners are correct to be upset with Josh.
Unfortunately, all I can do in this particular case is offer an apology. It is my sincere belief that our updated refund policy will do a better job of protecting you, as the commissioner, against this type of action in the future.
Thank you,
Laura Drew
Manager
LeagueSafe Customer Support

Now at least they are kind-of admitting some fault here - but allegedly this happened before they updated their T&C and they are not claiming any liability.

Oct 30 15:13 (CDT)
Laura Drew,
I’m sorry to hear that you feel that way.
Below you will see a screen shot from LeagueSafe’s FAQ section. At the top of the page, you can clearly see that YOU personally made this post on “Apr 01 13:28.”

The post clearly states:


“After your league’s payment deadline has passed, all refund requests must first be approved by your league commissioner.”
1. Our league’s payment deadline was 3/1
2. I was league commissioner as of 7/29.
3. Josh received his refund on 7/30.
4. I did not approve this refund.

It’s really as simple as that. Your own post to the FAQ shows that the refund policy – which only allows refunds after the league payment deadline if approved by the commissioner – was in place almost 4 months before Josh’s transaction took place. I’m genuinely sorry that this is the course of action that you have chosen. Good day,
-JaredPictures or it didn't happen, I guess. (I'll be happy to post the picture here if anyone wants to see it - just tell me how to upload on this site. lol)

Saying "this is the only part that is binding" does not make it so. Saying that the policy was updated on August 16, 2013 doesn't make it so either. The onus is on them, and all they're doing is making claims without any support...while also admitting to flaws in their sysytem.

Oct 30 15:30 (CDT)
Hi Jared,
Unfortunately, it appears that the post in our FAQ - which was originally authored by me in April, shortly before we switched over to our new 3rd-party customer service ticket software - does not timestamp updates that are made. I updated that particular FAQ entry in August in conjunction with the updated Terms and Conditions. In an effort to prove this to you, I just went in and added the following line of text as the first sentence in that FAQ: "On August 16, 2013, we amended our refund policy. The new policy is described below." You'll notice that the timestamp remained April 1, despite the fact I changed it literally two minutes ago.

In any case, the binding document here is our Terms and Conditions, not our FAQ. We have acted in accordance with our Terms and Conditions every step of the way. Again, I understand why you are upset and I apologize for the confusion.
Laura Drew
Manager
LeagueSafe Customer Support

My reply:

Oct 30 16:11 (CDT)
Laura,

All that you're update shows is that the timestamp did not update as of today. It doesn't prove that the terms were actually updated when you say they were.

Your Privacy Policy page says, "Effective Date: July 7, 2011." Your Terms and Services page has no such update on it. The FAQ page did not have an update on it until I brought it to your attention. You've shown me no evidence, other than your word - which I'm sure you can understand means very little to me at this point - that these updates were made on August 16th as you claim.

You claim to have identified a flaw in your system that was being exploited and took action to correct that issue on August 16th. You did not notify your users that this risk had been identified and eliminate.

At best, you've shown apathy in regards to your product and your customers (which is especially poor practice considering the service you provide). At worst, you've shown negligence.

At this point, it doesn't really matter which lack of regard you're guilty of.

Regards,
-Jared


Her reply is below. The message is screwed up with some code on the left-hand side. Perhaps they decided to try and "fix" their timestamp issue after I made them aware of it with my last email, and it f'd up their email system? Who knows.

Oct 31 08:16 (CDT)
#2b2e2f;"> Hi Jared,
#2b2e2f;"> Obviously, you've made up your mind on this. I'm sorry that you were taken advantage of by a dishonest league member, and I will leave it at that. Let me be 100% clear: LeagueSafe has always acted in accordance with our Terms of Service when issuing refunds to our customers. We are in no way responsible for the $300 that a league owner pulled from your league nearly 6 weeks before the start of the NFL season. I encourage you to reach out to the owner that received the refund to see if you can resolve this issue on your own. LeagueSafe cannot and will not get in the middle of league disputes. If you're unhappy with our policies or procedures, I encourage you to use a different method of collecting your league fees in the future.
#2b2e2f;"> Thank you,
#2b2e2f;"> Laura Drew
Manager
LeagueSafe Customer Support

Well, there it is. I'll let you form your own conclusions. The FAQ post was updated yesterday, but the other pages don't have dates on them.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've never used LeagueSafe and have no dog in the fight.

IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe. The manager's explanation is reasonable and consistent.

ETA:

I then removed Leaguesafe commissioner powers from Chuch and Josh (not sure if I did this on July 29th or in the next couple days).
How do you reconcile this with all your subsequent claims that Josh's commissioner status was revoked on the 29th?

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Find a commissioner you can trust, a good one will have no shortage of owners that vouch for them and have them handle the money. If you can't trust the commish, then don't play in the league. I will never use Leaguesafe.

 
Thanks for sharing dude. Best of luck with the league.

It doesn't look like LeagueSafe does the job it says it does. No sense in keeping their money with them if they aren't going to help the good guys.

 
I've never used LeagueSafe and have no dog in the fight.

IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe. The manager's explanation is reasonable and consistent.
LeagueSafe has no idea what a dynasty league is?

We are in no way responsible for the $300 that a league owner pulled from your league nearly 6 weeks before the start of the NFL season.
 
Thanks for sharing dude. Best of luck with the league.

It doesn't look like LeagueSafe does the job it says it does. No sense in keeping their money with them if they aren't going to help the good guys.
Exactly. They appear to have zero interest standing by their honest customers.

Frankly, business-wise I'm amazed that they didn't just take the financial hit as a way to build goodwill in their brand. I wonder how much $300 is going to cost them in the future.

 
I've never used LeagueSafe and have no dog in the fight.

IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe. The manager's explanation is reasonable and consistent.
LeagueSafe has no idea what a dynasty league is?

We are in no way responsible for the $300 that a league owner pulled from your league nearly 6 weeks before the start of the NFL season.
I don't know how much Beth W. knows about fantasy football, but that doesn't seem especially relevant.

At the time Josh received his refund, our policy, per our Terms of Service, was to refund a payment - no questions asked - until LeagueSafe's payment/refund deadline, which was 9/20.
:shrug:

And as they admitted, due to situations like OP's, they've since amended these terms to account for the fact that various leagues use different cutoffs for payment (e.g. dynasty leagues that remain active throughout the offseason).

Again, with no dog in the fight and no other info than what's posted in the OP, I think LeagueSafe's response is reasonable. Whether or not they should pony up $300 for good publicity is a matter of opinion, but I'd tend to assume that they wouldn't blatantly violate their own terms simply to screw over some league out of $300, as he's accused them of doing. OP was scammed by Josh, not by LeagueSafe.

 
Sorry, man. You ain't getting your money from that website. Hunt down Josh "Michael" Meyer on Halloween and make him pay.

 
Thanks for sharing dude. Best of luck with the league.

It doesn't look like LeagueSafe does the job it says it does. No sense in keeping their money with them if they aren't going to help the good guys.
Exactly. They appear to have zero interest standing by their honest customers.

Frankly, business-wise I'm amazed that they didn't just take the financial hit as a way to build goodwill in their brand. I wonder how much $300 is going to cost them in the future.
I have 3 leagues that were considering going to LeagueSafe. Those leagues buy ins are a total of 600, 600 and 1800. I'm going to post this if they don't know about it already. I am confident that LeagueSafe won't be used by my leagues after this garbage.

 
I've never used LeagueSafe and have no dog in the fight.

IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe. The manager's explanation is reasonable and consistent.

ETA:

I then removed Leaguesafe commissioner powers from Chuch and Josh (not sure if I did this on July 29th or in the next couple days).
How do you reconcile this with all your subsequent claims that Josh's commissioner status was revoked on the 29th?
Did you read on after that?

Oct 29 13:13 (CDT)

Beth,

Your hyperlinks do not work, so I will reply here.

I looked back through my emails, and to confirm, I was made Commissioner on 7/29/13. I then removed Commissioner status from both *name removed* and Josh Meyers on that day – 7/29/13 – so that I was the only one with Commissioner rights.

 
Thanks for sharing dude. Best of luck with the league.

It doesn't look like LeagueSafe does the job it says it does. No sense in keeping their money with them if they aren't going to help the good guys.
Exactly. They appear to have zero interest standing by their honest customers.

Frankly, business-wise I'm amazed that they didn't just take the financial hit as a way to build goodwill in their brand. I wonder how much $300 is going to cost them in the future.
Waaaaay less than $300. Considering that they make next to nothing on the money they hold for you during each season. They may lose $20 max in processing fees from never hosting your league in the future.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've never used LeagueSafe and have no dog in the fight.

IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe. The manager's explanation is reasonable and consistent.
LeagueSafe has no idea what a dynasty league is?

We are in no way responsible for the $300 that a league owner pulled from your league nearly 6 weeks before the start of the NFL season.
I don't know how much Beth W. knows about fantasy football, but that doesn't seem especially relevant.

At the time Josh received his refund, our policy, per our Terms of Service, was to refund a payment - no questions asked - until LeagueSafe's payment/refund deadline, which was 9/20.
:shrug:

And as they admitted, due to situations like OP's, they've since amended these terms to account for the fact that various leagues use different cutoffs for payment (e.g. dynasty leagues that remain active throughout the offseason).

Again, with no dog in the fight and no other info than what's posted in the OP, I think LeagueSafe's response is reasonable. Whether or not they should pony up $300 for good publicity is a matter of opinion, but I'd tend to assume that they wouldn't blatantly violate their own terms simply to screw over some league out of $300, as he's accused them of doing. OP was scammed by Josh, not by LeagueSafe.
It may very well be the case that this policy was changed when they said it was. However, they didn't lead out with this.

First it was a league issue.

Then it was not against their current policy to not grant refunds as long as it was well-before the start of the season.

Then it was against their current policy, but that policy had been changed after this issue - and they changed the policy for just such an issue but didn't notify anyone.

Then I really need to take their word for it that they have issue with their website and just to trust them that even though their time stamps don't work and they put dates on their other pages when they are updated.

If you knew there was an issue, and that you had corected this issue, but the correction to this issue happened after this occurrence, why would you not start out by saying that? Deny, deny, deny causes you to lose all credibility, even if what you eventually say is true.

 
Thanks for sharing dude. Best of luck with the league.

It doesn't look like LeagueSafe does the job it says it does. No sense in keeping their money with them if they aren't going to help the good guys.
Exactly. They appear to have zero interest standing by their honest customers.

Frankly, business-wise I'm amazed that they didn't just take the financial hit as a way to build goodwill in their brand. I wonder how much $300 is going to cost them in the future.
Waaaaay less than $300. Considering that they make next to nothing on the money they hold for you during each season. They may lose $20 max in processing fees from never hosting your league in the future.
It's a 3% processing fee for many transactions. It's a $3,672 worth of buy-ins for this league. I'm in 3 other leagues that use LeagueSafe that will likely not be using them again next year. I know 15 other people who are in just as many other leagues or more who have said that they will not use LeagueSafe as a result of this.

Do the math.

 
I've never used LeagueSafe and have no dog in the fight.

IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe. The manager's explanation is reasonable and consistent.

ETA:

I then removed Leaguesafe commissioner powers from Chuch and Josh (not sure if I did this on July 29th or in the next couple days).
How do you reconcile this with all your subsequent claims that Josh's commissioner status was revoked on the 29th?
Did you read on after that?

Oct 29 13:13 (CDT)

Beth,

Your hyperlinks do not work, so I will reply here.

I looked back through my emails, and to confirm, I was made Commissioner on 7/29/13. I then removed Commissioner status from both *name removed* and Josh Meyers on that day – 7/29/13 – so that I was the only one with Commissioner rights.
I did read the whole thing, but forgot that part when I went back and edited my post. My apologies.

In any case, like the manager(s) you spoke to, I understand your frustration with the situation but you're fighting the wrong entity IMO. Some guy took you for $300. Should LeagueSafe reimburse you for PR purposes? Maybe. I really have no idea what their business model is like. Are they obligated to? I don't think so, based on the info you provided.

If you're playing fantasy football with complete strangers for hundreds of dollars, you have to be extra careful with the money. On the one hand, I understand that's exactly the point of using something like LeagueSafe. On the other hand, you should've been better acquainted with the terms and probably should've noticed before now that the money went missing back in July. Especially if you claim that, "I am familiar with your site, and I use your services for other leagues that I am commissioner of," I'd expect you'd be well acquainted with their refund policy as it existed at the time you took over for this particular league. Of course, I'm operating under the reasonable assumption that LeagueSafe isn't blatantly lying, in writing, about the history of changes to their terms of service just to screw you out of $300.

 
Thanks for sharing dude. Best of luck with the league.

It doesn't look like LeagueSafe does the job it says it does. No sense in keeping their money with them if they aren't going to help the good guys.
Exactly. They appear to have zero interest standing by their honest customers.

Frankly, business-wise I'm amazed that they didn't just take the financial hit as a way to build goodwill in their brand. I wonder how much $300 is going to cost them in the future.
Waaaaay less than $300. Considering that they make next to nothing on the money they hold for you during each season. They may lose $20 max in processing fees from never hosting your league in the future.
It's not just his fees. It's everybody else's fees that they might have received if this story were reconciled and never posted in the first place. I guarantee there are people that read this that were considering it and decide not to use it now.

After reading this, I don't really know who is right and who is wrong. I can see that both sides arguments, but in the end, the company should find a way to reconcile this to keep their customers happy and to prevent bad reputation leaking out over the Internet.

 
While it's true that they updated the terms saying that Refunds can only be granted with commisioner approval after the payment deadline, this was actually a softening of the original policy that was in place at the time. The older terms stated that Refunds were never allowed after the payment deadline:

LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the Season Payment Deadline for the League. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the Season Payment Deadline. After that time, refunds are not allowed. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isnt performing well.
New terms:

LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the League Payment Deadline. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the League Payment Deadline. After the League Payment Deadline, refunds are not allowed unless approved by the league Commissioner. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isnt performing well.
So under the policy in place at the time, they shouldn't have been able to get a refund with or without your approval. That said, we would need to know if you had the payment deadline configured correctly in LeagueSafe -- it's not clear if that is the date you're quoting or if it is just something from your league bylaws

 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've never used LeagueSafe and have no dog in the fight.

IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe. The manager's explanation is reasonable and consistent.

ETA:

I then removed Leaguesafe commissioner powers from Chuch and Josh (not sure if I did this on July 29th or in the next couple days).
How do you reconcile this with all your subsequent claims that Josh's commissioner status was revoked on the 29th?
Did you read on after that?

Oct 29 13:13 (CDT)

Beth,

Your hyperlinks do not work, so I will reply here.

I looked back through my emails, and to confirm, I was made Commissioner on 7/29/13. I then removed Commissioner status from both *name removed* and Josh Meyers on that day – 7/29/13 – so that I was the only one with Commissioner rights.
I did read the whole thing, but forgot that part when I went back and edited my post. My apologies.

In any case, like the manager(s) you spoke to, I understand your frustration with the situation but you're fighting the wrong entity IMO. Some guy took you for $300. Should LeagueSafe reimburse you for PR purposes? Maybe. I really have no idea what their business model is like. Are they obligated to? I don't think so, based on the info you provided.

If you're playing fantasy football with complete strangers for hundreds of dollars, you have to be extra careful with the money. On the one hand, I understand that's exactly the point of using something like LeagueSafe. On the other hand, you should've been better acquainted with the terms and probably should've noticed before now that the money went missing back in July. Especially if you claim that, "I am familiar with your site, and I use your services for other leagues that I am commissioner of," I'd expect you'd be well acquainted with their refund policy as it existed at the time you took over for this particular league. Of course, I'm operating under the reasonable assumption that LeagueSafe isn't blatantly lying, in writing, about the history of changes to their terms of service just to screw you out of $300.
Thanks for sharing dude. Best of luck with the league.

It doesn't look like LeagueSafe does the job it says it does. No sense in keeping their money with them if they aren't going to help the good guys.
Exactly. They appear to have zero interest standing by their honest customers.

Frankly, business-wise I'm amazed that they didn't just take the financial hit as a way to build goodwill in their brand. I wonder how much $300 is going to cost them in the future.
Waaaaay less than $300. Considering that they make next to nothing on the money they hold for you during each season. They may lose $20 max in processing fees from never hosting your league in the future.
It's not just his fees. It's everybody else's fees that they might have received if this story were reconciled and never posted in the first place. I guarantee there are people that read this that were considering it and decide not to use it now.

After reading this, I don't really know who is right and who is wrong. I can see that both sides arguments, but in the end, the company should find a way to reconcile this to keep their customers happy and to prevent bad reputation leaking out over the Internet.
They could have lead out with:

"We recognized that this was an issue, so we made modifications to correct on such and such a date. You will notice on our T&C page that it was updated on that day to reflect this change. However, becuase this issue happened after that day, we unfortunately cannot return the $306 that was refunded."

They could also have acknowledged that there are improvements that could be made to their process:

We also recognize that commissioners get email notification when deposits are made, but not when ot"her league activity occurs (such as Josh "dropping" from the league or getting his refund). We are working on a solution that will allow commissioners to get notifications regarding any league activity."

Had they done either, I still would be pissed that this happened, but at least I would have thought that LeagueSafe cared about their customers.

I really can't remember what their refund policy was when I read it almost 2 years ago. It's never come up in any league I'm in, and we've always used the "late payment" deadline for when someone must make the decision on whether or not they are going to join.

 
First it was a league issue.
It is a league issue.

Then it was not against their current policy to not grant refunds as long as it was well-before the start of the season.
She didn't say this.

Then it was against their current policy, but that policy had been changed after this issue - and they changed the policy for just such an issue but didn't notify anyone.
They presumably posted the revised terms on their website. Do you want an email every time a website amends their terms? (I think we'd all probably agree that you don't.) Could they have done a better job of communicating it to their users? Perhaps - as I said I don't use the site and I have no idea how prominent the change was. And perhaps you don't either, since money left your account in July, the change to the terms was made in August, and you're just now noticing that the money is gone, so obviously you weren't frequenting the website around the time the change was made. In any case, their failure to (in your opinion) adequately communicate this change to you doesn't invalidate the actual change they made. To the extent that they didn't do enough, it's a PR blunder, not an act of fraud.

Then I really need to take their word for it that they have issue with their website and just to trust them that even though their time stamps don't work and they put dates on their other pages when they are updated.
I'm not sure it's really an "issue with their website" that the timestamp doesn't change when a post is updated; and in any case, she's right that the actual terms and conditions of the website would trump whatever a FAQ page says.

It's a 3% processing fee for many transactions....

Do the math.
Right, so presumably they're doing a pretty good business. So let's loook at it from an unbiased perspective: You're accusing LeagueSafe of blatantly lying, in writing, about the terms and conditions of their service, simply to save $300. If you're able to set aside your frustration at having been scammed by Josh, you'd have to admit that's a pretty unreasonable charge.

 
While it's true that they updated the terms saying that Refunds can only be granted with commisioner approval after the payment deadline, this was actually a softening of the original policy that was in place at the time. The older terms stated that Refunds were never allowed after the payment deadline:

LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the Season Payment Deadline for the League. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the Season Payment Deadline. After that time, refunds are not allowed. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isnt performing well.
New terms:

LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the League Payment Deadline. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the League Payment Deadline. After the League Payment Deadline, refunds are not allowed unless approved by the league Commissioner. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isnt performing well.
So under the policy in place at the time, they shouldn't have been able to get a refund with or without your approval. That said, we would need to know if you had the payment deadline configured correctly in LeagueSafe -- it's not clear if that is the date you're quoting or if it is just something from your league bylaws
Where did you find the older terms posted at?

The actual LeagueSafe setting was 3/1. This is why we thought everything was locked in - the payment deadline was almost 5 months prior.

 
While it's true that they updated the terms saying that Refunds can only be granted with commisioner approval after the payment deadline, this was actually a softening of the original policy that was in place at the time. The older terms stated that Refunds were never allowed after the payment deadline:

LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the Season Payment Deadline for the League. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the Season Payment Deadline. After that time, refunds are not allowed. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isnt performing well.
New terms:

LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the League Payment Deadline. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the League Payment Deadline. After the League Payment Deadline, refunds are not allowed unless approved by the league Commissioner. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isnt performing well.
So under the policy in place at the time, they shouldn't have been able to get a refund with or without your approval. That said, we would need to know if you had the payment deadline configured correctly in LeagueSafe -- it's not clear if that is the date you're quoting or if it is just something from your league bylaws
Where did you find the older terms posted at?

The actual LeagueSafe setting was 3/1. This is why we thought everything was locked in - the payment deadline was almost 5 months prior.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130305230725/http://leaguesafe.com/terms

 
While it's true that they updated the terms saying that Refunds can only be granted with commisioner approval after the payment deadline, this was actually a softening of the original policy that was in place at the time. The older terms stated that Refunds were never allowed after the payment deadline:

LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the Season Payment Deadline for the League. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the Season Payment Deadline. After that time, refunds are not allowed. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isnt performing well.
New terms:

LeagueSafe honors refunds any time prior to the League Payment Deadline. Members who wish to request a refund must notify LeagueSafe prior to the League Payment Deadline. After the League Payment Deadline, refunds are not allowed unless approved by the league Commissioner. This measure safeguards the league against Members who might wish to pull their funds from the league when it becomes apparent that their team isnt performing well.
So under the policy in place at the time, they shouldn't have been able to get a refund with or without your approval. That said, we would need to know if you had the payment deadline configured correctly in LeagueSafe -- it's not clear if that is the date you're quoting or if it is just something from your league bylaws
Note the bolded in red. From what it sounds like, their policy used to use a "Season Payment Deadline" which was September 20th. Under their revised terms, the cutoff is each league's individual "League Payment Deadline".

 
I can see that both sides arguments, but in the end, the company should find a way to reconcile this to keep their customers happy and to prevent bad reputation leaking out over the Internet.
Except if they adopted this policy, they'd potentially be setting themselves up to just hand out money to any league that ever had a member's entry fees refunded. LeagueSafe has no idea what's going on in your league. For all they know, OP and Josh are buddies and trying to scam LeagueSafe out of $300. (I'm not saying that is the case, of course, just that from LeagueSafe's perspective, they have no way to distinguish between a situation like OP's and a situation where they're getting scammed).

The decision to bite the bullet and give a customer money just for goodwill/PR purposes is never one to be taken lightly.

 
league safe had a loophole, it was exposed, they changed their terms to cover the loophole and could care less about the impact. League Spoof more appropriately.

 
First it was a league issue.
It is a league issue.

Him leaving the league was a league issue. The fact that he was able to get a refund without approval or league notification was a LeagueSafe issue.

Then it was not against their current policy to not grant refunds as long as it was well-before the start of the season.
She didn't say this.

Actually, yes, yes she did say this:

"We refunded his payment because he made the refund request well before the 2013 NFL season began."

Then it was against their current policy, but that policy had been changed after this issue - and they changed the policy for just such an issue but didn't notify anyone.
They presumably posted the revised terms on their website. Do you want an email every time a website amends their terms? (I think we'd all probably agree that you don't.) Could they have done a better job of communicating it to their users? Perhaps - as I said I don't use the site and I have no idea how prominent the change was. And perhaps you don't either, since money left your account in July, the change to the terms was made in August, and you're just now noticing that the money is gone, so obviously you weren't frequenting the website around the time the change was made. In any case, their failure to (in your opinion) adequately communicate this change to you doesn't invalidate the actual change they made. To the extent that they didn't do enough, it's a PR blunder, not an act of fraud.

Do you have a credit card? How about a bank account? Ever use iTunes? They send you notifications every time their terms and conditions change (or make you acknowledge them online). Most credible businesses do.

They put a date on their Privacy page for when it was updated last. They put time stamps on other pages when they are updated. Why would you not be consistent with this? If nothing else, it's at least extremely lazy or careless on their part...and I don't imagine you'd feel too good about your bank or credit card company being lazy with your money.

Then I really need to take their word for it that they have issue with their website and just to trust them that even though their time stamps don't work and they put dates on their other pages when they are updated.
I'm not sure it's really an "issue with their website" that the timestamp doesn't change when a post is updated; and in any case, she's right that the actual terms and conditions of the website would trump whatever a FAQ page says.

The "we can change these terms whenever we want clause" doesn't mean that they aren't in fact liable for changing terms or that the consumer has to abide by them, depending on the change. Let's when you joined, the terms were that you could cash out your money free of charge. Then, after your league is over, they say, "Well, we changed our terms. Now you have to pay us a 25% withdrawl fee." You don't have to abide by the updated terms; you are only bound by the terms that we in place when the contract began (the initial transaction).

It's a 3% processing fee for many transactions....

Do the math.
Right, so presumably they're doing a pretty good business. So let's loook at it from an unbiased perspective: You're accusing LeagueSafe of blatantly lying, in writing, about the terms and conditions of their service, simply to save $300. If you're able to set aside your frustration at having been scammed by Josh, you'd have to admit that's a pretty unreasonable charge.

They did lie. They said it was their policy to refund money as long as a refund was requested "well before" the start of the NFL season. That is not what their terms say. It's a non-truth, whether it was deliberate or out of ignorance.
 
Hmmm, I'm glad I just read this. I have a dynasty league that I'm in that was looking for a third party for league fees. Looks like I'm going to continue looking after what I read here.

 
it seems like league safe is good as long as you dont have a #### head in your league.

the league should of been notifed on 7/30 that a member had requested a refund with a vote by the league to follow.

the reason i mention a vote as people could be leaving the league for numerous reason, in the army, navy, transfered over seas, sick whatever.

not wanting to play this year wouldnt really fly though..

most people are pretty reasonable and with a month before the season the league could of found one more person if they were notified by league safe or didnt have a knucklehead for an owner

 
IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe.
You must be referring to JOSH THE CROOK, who keeps checking in on these boards (11:00 p.m. last night; 9:43 a.m. today) but won't respond on these boards and address his wrongdoing because his skirt keeps blowing over his face.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
Him leaving the league was a league issue. The fact that he was able to get a refund without approval or league notification was a LeagueSafe issue.
It's not a LeagueSafe issue, because that was their policy, as the manager explained to you. How is it a LeagueSafe issue that a LeagueSafe user was able to take an action on LeagueSafe that was completely in accordance with LeagueSafe's terms?

You had a complete stranger scam you and your leaguemates out of $300 - that's the issue. Don't lose sight of that fact.

Actually, yes, yes she did say this:

"We refunded his payment because he made the refund request well before the 2013 NFL season began."
That doesn't say what you're claiming it says.

Do you have a credit card? How about a bank account? Ever use iTunes? They send you notifications every time their terms and conditions change (or make you acknowledge them online). Most credible businesses do.

They put a date on their Privacy page for when it was updated last. They put time stamps on other pages when they are updated. Why would you not be consistent with this? If nothing else, it's at least extremely lazy or careless on their part...and I don't imagine you'd feel too good about your bank or credit card company being lazy with your money.
IANAL so I don't know what their obligations are, and I won't speculate on that. If you can demonstrate that they violated some kind of law by not emailing you the revised terms, then I strongly suggest you make your case that way.

I agree that, potentially, they've done a poor job of communicating changes, maintaining formatting consistency on webpages, etc. And for that, you might hope that they'd be willing to offer you $300 for goodwill. But as far as I can tell, none of that actually obligates them to pay you the $300 Josh took.

The "we can change these terms whenever we want clause" doesn't mean that they aren't in fact liable for changing terms or that the consumer has to abide by them, depending on the change. Let's when you joined, the terms were that you could cash out your money free of charge. Then, after your league is over, they say, "Well, we changed our terms. Now you have to pay us a 25% withdrawl fee." You don't have to abide by the updated terms; you are only bound by the terms that we in place when the contract began (the initial transaction).
Um, right. That's exactly what they're telling you. Under the terms in place at that time, Josh was allowed to request a refund. The terms have since changed, but the new terms don't retroactively apply to when Josh got his money.

They did lie. They said it was their policy to refund money as long as a refund was requested "well before" the start of the NFL season. That is not what their terms say. It's a non-truth, whether it was deliberate or out of ignorance.
You're reading something into her statement that isn't there. She didn't say it was their policy to refund money as long as it was well before the start of the season. Nothing about her response to you was a lie. At worst it was poorly phrased; without substantially changing the meaning of her response you can imagine her saying the following: "We refunded his payment because he made the refund request well before the 2013 NFL season began, and our policy at that time was to issue refunds prior to September 20th." The italicized bit might've added some clarity to her statement, but its omission doesn't make the first part a lie.

 
$35 to file in small claims court? Seems like you have a legit amount of documentation and a reasonable chance to win.

 
IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe.
You must be referring to JOSH THE CROOK, who keeps checking in on these boards (11:00 p.m. last night; 9:43 a.m. today) but won't respond on these boards and address his wrongdoing because his skirt keeps blowing over his face.
Do you guys know any other personal information about him? I know you can't disclose it on these boards.

 
Don't misinterpret my responses, BTW. Josh sounds like a lowlife who's failed so miserably at life that he's resorted to scamming strangers out of what are ultimately inconsequential amounts of money. I do genuinely hope you get your $300 back somehow. I just think you're trying too hard to make this LeagueSafe's fault when it isn't. I agree that maybe it would be wise of them to consider making you whole just for the PR, but I don't agree that you've demonstrated they actually lied or are otherwise legally liable to pay you $300.

 
He filed for refund as Commish prior to be being granted one on 7/30 and before he was removed as commissioner 7/29. It does take a couple days for it to be processed) Even if your Payment Deadline was 3/1/13, I believe the Commissioner (which he was at the time) can at any time get a refund.

*I did not read through every post in this thread, but I've never had a single issue with LeagueSafe. There's going to be idiots out there like this Josh character.

Entry fee payments for NFL leagues may not be made after X/XX/2013. To set an earlier payment deadline, activate this feature and set a new date. This date is also the refund deadline for your league members. Refunds requested prior to the Payment Deadline will be honored, no questions asked. After this date, any refund requests must be approved by the league commissioner. Our refund policy is designed to prevent league members who may have a bad draft or an underperforming team from withdrawing their entry fees from the league.

Modifying this setting will automatically distribute an email notification to all league owners.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've always had positive responses from Leaguesafe and I agree that they simply were the middle man in a shady owner taking advantage of the situation.

I played in two leagues with Josh last season. In the first, he whined and complained about every trade that was made before going on a tirade against every owner in the league. He was eventually removed from the league.

In the second, he was the commissioner and changed the rules multiple times, and replaced his "brothers" team with a new owner in the middle of the season, just after making multiple trades with him. He also repeatedly logged in with commissioner access, even after being asked to turn it off time and time again. In fairness, this was a leaguesafe league where I won some cash, and I was properly paid out at the end of the year.

I'd suggest you get in contact with him directly about returning the money, but given my previous dealings with him, I highly doubt you'll get anywhere with that. Of all the people I've played fantasy football with, he's definitely on my list of those I'll never be in a league with again.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
This is common across the Internet, as the crooks sink their claws in.

LS claims to have changed a policy, but the new policy was not on the website when you transacted with them. Rather, the old one was.

It's all very convenient for them, of course. It means they can pick and choose whether to go with what is on the site or what they claim should have been on the site.

 
IMO you got scammed by a shady owner, not by LeagueSafe.
You must be referring to JOSH THE CROOK, who keeps checking in on these boards (11:00 p.m. last night; 9:43 a.m. today) but won't respond on these boards and address his wrongdoing because his skirt keeps blowing over his face.
So what is Josh's screen name so we can avoid him in the future.
meyerj31

CSTU started this thread in Looking for Leagues as well - http://forums.footballguys.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=696933

 
yes he did steal, but at least he didnt scam the whole league out of all their funds and only got back what he put in.

doesnt make it right but just saying

 
it seems like league safe is good as long as you dont have a #### head in your league.
But if you don't have one of those in your league, then screw leaguesafe and someone just hold the money.

Seems like a whole lot of hassle happening here considering you were supposedly using a service that's entire point is to make the financial end of running a league hassle-free.

 
it seems like league safe is good as long as you dont have a #### head in your league.
But if you don't have one of those in your league, then screw leaguesafe and someone just hold the money.

Seems like a whole lot of hassle happening here considering you were supposedly using a service that's entire point is to make the financial end of running a league hassle-free.
the problem with that is..

your gonna trust a complete stranger with 3600 dollars?

i know it sucks but at least the players are only getting scammed out of 300 in this case and not the whole 3k

 
Guys, I'm interested in high-dollar deep redraft leagues with some IDP and a coherent scoring system. Feel free to PM me during the offseason.

 
Guys, I'm interested in high-dollar deep redraft leagues with some IDP and a coherent scoring system. Feel free to PM me during the offseason.
wrong thread/forum, if you look in the looking for a league forum you should be able to find something

 
As a user of Leaguesafe with both friendly leagues (big money) and leagues with strangers (small money) I am unaffected by this. It is a unique situation since it is a dynasty format and there is no true off-season/start of season, but it seems like the guy just played his cards right and swindled the league. Leaguesafe admittedly saw this loophole being exploited, and has done their best to remedy it. Unfortunately for your league, you were stuck in that period of time in between the fix, and that sucks, but you've got to move on and deal with it. Leaguesafe appears to have their #### together on this issue, despite the first couple emails, which no doubt were a Support Person down the chain of command that was just giving canned responses, and isn't and shouldn't budge from their stance.

I was hoping to see Paul Charchian chime in here, as he's been known to do from time to time on Leaguesafe threads. Maybe he'll write you a personal check for $306 :)

 
ADMIN - Can we get more control over Looking For Leagues?Posted by meyerj31 on 26 April 2013 - 02:09 PM

I'm getting a little annoyed by all the spam from companies who are advertising in here for leagues without 100% payouts. Why are you letting people advertise their own small businesses here?

I think this should be reserved for nothing but 100% payout, personally commished leagues. Some of these links are taking 15-20% of the money out of the prizepool - robbery!

Can we get an admin's thoughts on this please? Do you have some deal with FFL that you allow all of their postings in here?
Thanks.
Haha

 

Users who are viewing this thread

Top