[cesser]

I've already been given approval by the mods here to post this....


Our league, the PFBL, in existence since 2002, had an issue with collusion 15 months ago, in which we found out, after several seasons unfortunately, that we had three owners posting on our forums from the same IP address. They were obviously one person running three teams. The names and emails this person used in our league were Chad Carter (qfl1@yahoo.com), Mark Lee (big_lee@fastmail.fm), and James McCarthy (jmccarty@budweiser.com).

We kicked him/them out. In response to my expulsion email to him at the time, this person sent back this reply:

Well, I'm astounded that it took so long, but we knew this day would
come eventually. This game within the game was incredibly addictive.
I'm surprised we didn't get caught with 2 teams, so we had to add a
3rd. In any case you're rid of us. Farewell-

Mark J. McCarthy

They had traded among themselves all the time. Unfortunately, this had been going on for multiple seasons in our league before we uncovered the scandal as the trades they made got more and more outrageous. We had to contract their 3 teams after their expulsion because 2 of the teams had become way too strong (their AAA teams probably could've competed for the major league title). Basically this person used one of his teams to "tank" each season by playing all scrubs. He'd then get the first pick in the draft each season, and would also pick numerous underdevloped propsects in the Rule 5 draft each year, play them at the major league level immediately, the team would suck, the Rule 5'ers would be sent down the next season, then the picks and prospects, over time, would be traded to the other two teams he had in exchange for over-priced, declining veterans. So two of the teams would always get top notch young players, while his third team acted as a dumping ground for crap players the other two didn't need anymore.

While, in hindsight, it looks pretty obvious now as to what was happening, at the time, at least at first, it didn't seem too out of the ordinary. We pretty much figured that the one owner who kept "screwing up" his team was an owner that was still learning the ropes and trying out new strategies to improve his team. By the time we kicked him/them out after finding out what was really happening (as the trades just got more and more one-sided and we had our other "legit" owners crying bloody murder) our league's owners and myself were very frustrated and we nearly folded, as we almost couldn't decide how to proceed. After 45 days of bickering back and forth, we finally decided to contract those 3 teams, bring in 3 new owners, and make 3 new teams along with holding a dispersal draft as well for the remaining teams. Luckily things went well, and now our league is stronger than ever.

Anyway, back to the point - yesterday I was emailed by the commish of another league. He had advertised for openings in his league on the online leagues forum recently and filled up his league right away. However, he noticed that 11 of his new owners were posting on his forum from the same IP address as well. He then discovered that on the PFBL's owner history page (http://takeyourbase.com/ootp/pfbl/pages/teamchanges.htm - see season 2013) that three of his new owners had the same names as the ones that the PFBL kicked out last year. It just blows my mind that this person is actually still using the same names and even the same email addresses he used in my league, but for some strange reason he is.

Doing further reserach on the OOTP boards (searching for any of the three email addresses used by this person), I have discovered that OOTP user woburn is the person in question. I found at least 2 past posts from woburn in which he used both the yahoo and fastmail email addresses he used in my league in different posts:

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...l1%40yahoo.com (yahoo email)

http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...%40fastmail.fm (fastmail email)


This person also, using the name Chad Carter, used to run the QBA baseball league a few seasons ago (I believe the league is now defunct).


Woburn is still posting on OOTP's boards btw (last post 10/20/06 over in the OOTP2006 forum).

I know of at least one other league that this person is currently in, using the name Chad Carter, along with the same email address. Yesterday I emailed the commish of that league to let him know who he's in bed with.

Seeing all the crap we had to go through in our league to fix things (not to mention the permanent blemish we now have in our history because of this), it seemed like a heads-up would be appropriate for all the other commishes out there so that they don't suffer the same fate we did and have to do a major clean-up job.

Since this happened to us, I've made our forums private and also do extensive background checks on any prospective new owners. I also DON'T keep a waiting list going, as this is how James and Mark got into our league - instead, if possible, I actually look for people on the OOTP boards that are LOOKING for a league instead of us advertising an opening - much safer that way.

Be on the lookout for this guy(s). It's very possible that he's also in other leagues out there at the moment as well in addition to the two I've mentioned.

I'm not sure why any person would get a kick out of doing this, and especially KEEP doing it. Get a life already.