Massive Fraud

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Matt
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Re: Massive Fraud

#31 Post by Matt »

Checking latest exports, I arrive at some more clues. The Charlie/Dylan masquerade has been proven, this only confirms it. But the data on the other three teams suggest they weren't involved and got caught up in his shenanigans through no fault of their own.

Hya and Charleston exported 9 mins apart today. Seoul more than an hour later. But Kure and Kawaguchi have not exported at all in the last few days.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#32 Post by Matt »

I re-activated the accounts of Kawaguchi, Seoul, and Kure. I believe through no fault of their own they became caught up in this mess. After hours upon hours of sorting through it all, I believe that they were simply victims of the unscrupulous tactics of Charlie. I'm not sure what depths Charlie would stoop to, but I am convinced they are fairly low.

While my responsibility to the league is to root out this type of fraud, even more important is my responsibility as a person. These three gentlemen were wrongly implicated in this mess, and I want to be perfectly clear: ALL evidence suggests they were wrongly implicated because of Charlie's actions. There is not a single shred of evidence that any of these three gentlemen were involved in Charlie's various acts of fraud.

While the initial evidence suggested that Charlie was masquerading with as many as six aliases, in the final analysis it seems that it was probably three. Two for sure, and a third with a probability of about 95%. It was complicated to figure out, but that's no excuse. I feel deep regret that these men were implicated. To them, I offer each my deepest apologies. None of them deserved this.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#33 Post by Alleghenies »

Wow! I kinda feel dirty now. I mean, almost everyday Charlie bugged me with trade offers and I thought myself how he got so many players from number of teams. I wish I can post our conversation here, but I already deleted my inbox. He just said "I had my ways to get them" something like that. It didn't raise a red flag right away because I thought he was really dealing out there with different teams. IMO, our trades were balanced or even, I just feel stupid dealing with him. I'm glad you traced all these scams, Matt!
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Re: Massive Fraud

#34 Post by Matt »

Alleghenies wrote:Wow! I kinda feel dirty now. I mean, almost everyday Charlie bugged me with trade offers and I thought myself how he got so many players from number of teams. I wish I can post our conversation here, but I already deleted my inbox. He just said "I had my ways to get them" something like that. It didn't raise a red flag right away because I thought he was really dealing out there with different teams. IMO, our trades were balanced or even, I just feel stupid dealing with him. I'm glad you traced all these scams, Matt!

Don't feel dirty. He got us all. I can name a half dozen teams that had potential deals with him slated for the winter meetings. Including myself. All of us on the wrong side of that can really do is shake our heads, and do our best at damage control.
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Massive Fraud

#35 Post by Mike Dunn »

Matt can you clarify who is still in and which teams were run by the little punk? I'm confused.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#36 Post by Matt »

Ghosts wrote:Matt can you clarify who is still in and which teams were run by the little punk? I'm confused.

Charlie ran HYA and Charleston for sure. Zero doubts.

I also suspect with 95% probability that he was also Shannon Franklin, formerly of Kawaguchi.


Kure (Donald), Seoul (Rick), and the new Kawaguchi GM (Jonas) have all been cleared. It appears Charlie was hacking into their accounts or at least attempting to do so.


When confronted on the OOTP forums, he didn't even offer a rebuttal. He simply changed the text of his original post to the words 'never mind' and disappeared.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#37 Post by Matt »

I have an email from Charlie admitting to being Shannon Franklin, so that part is solved completely.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#38 Post by Apollos »

Ugh, what a confusing mess. I'm sorry that its caused so much extra time and work for you, Matt but I'm glad you were at the helm to both deal with it efficiently and track down the perpetrators. It sucks that we had two pending deals with the con artist lined up for the WM's including one which was already partially completed, but we can deal with it.

So, is there a correlation between the massive debt that Kawaguchi ran up and Charlie's actions? I have to admit that I've lost the bead a bit with regard to who owns which team in the LRS and what damage has been done. It's just unfortunate that we have so many great, long-time owners in the LRS who's league has been disrupted by these recent scandals.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#39 Post by Maulers »

This is heroic work on your part, Matt. I'm heartened to learn that Charlie only manipulated three, rather than 6, teams; and I'm thrilled that Donald, Rick, and Jonas have been cleared of any wrongdoing.

Yes, Brian: "Shannon Franklin," the former owner of KAW who ran the team's finances into the ground was actually Charlie.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#40 Post by Matt »

But just so we are clear, the present GM of Kawaguchi, Jonas Pine, has been cleared. All evidence I find exonerates him of any wrong doing. He was just another unfortunate victim in this.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#41 Post by Robert_Ogden »

Alleghenies wrote:Wow! I kinda feel dirty now. I mean, almost everyday Charlie bugged me with trade offers and I thought myself how he got so many players from number of teams. I wish I can post our conversation here, but I already deleted my inbox. He just said "I had my ways to get them" something like that. It didn't raise a red flag right away because I thought he was really dealing out there with different teams. IMO, our trades were balanced or even, I just feel stupid dealing with him. I'm glad you traced all these scams, Matt!

Similar story here. But, I didn't delete them. Searching now. Both Charlotte and Hyakujuu. Similar signatures. Played Mafia characters for both.

I have evidence against both Kure and Seoul.
Don't be so quick to think they are in the clear.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#42 Post by Mike Dunn »

Matt, I hope you get some rest, it seems you've been up all night on this.

I will only add that the most victimized people here, IMHO, are Matt and Dan, who have worked extremely hard to keep this league going only to see its integrity compromised by this douchebag. More specifically, they also processed an incredible number of deals by this kid. I count about 30 deals since the beginning of the year!

So again, please don't feel responsible Matt. I'm not sure any Commissioner could have caught this. Even that other guy. What was his name again? Rodriguez? :wink:
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Re: Massive Fraud

#43 Post by Mike Dunn »

Evas wrote:I'm not sure why someone would do that. It's just... stupid. What good is winning if you cheat like that? Even with all of that, he wasn't that good.
You're thinking far too rationally, Kevin. Jerks are jerks. One of my first OOTP leagues was run by a guy who was later found to be cheating -- he was incrementally boosting the ratings of some of his players. After several seasons of him constantly winning, some of us got suspicious, and one of us figured out a way to prove it. When confronted with the evidence, the Commish admitted no wrongdoing, but folded the league that very day, saying he was suddenly quite busy.

And that guy was an adult, not a teenager. Somehow he got satisfaction from winning by cheating, rather than just trying to win on a level playing field. It made no sense, but yet he did it. A couple of years later I saw the guy on the OOTP forum trying to start up a new league.

So be forewarned: Charlie could easily try to show up here again, or in some other league, under a different name. Once a dick, always a dick.
Evas wrote:The damage to some of those franchises is just massive. HYA and SEO are in good shape, but Kure and Kawaguchi are husks. It would take them years to recover with good consistent management. Getting that management is tough. The LRS is a niche in a niche....

At this point, I think the best choice is to take a step back assess. Skipping some sims is probably in order. We need to determine how extensive the damage is and what the best options are for a viable PEBAverse moving forward.
I suggest that Kevin, representing the SSG, and Ron or Mark for the BBG, work closely with Matt to assess the damage and look at options. I will say that the fact that HYA is in good shape through illicit means is more problematic that Kawaguchi having been stripped under "Shannon."

I still need to step down as Ghosts GM but can hang in there for a while for some continuity...
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Re: Massive Fraud

#44 Post by roncollins »

Ok. Deep breath.

Yes, we need to take a moment and let Matt and the guys finish their work--including checking into the rest of David's findings. Assume innocence until guilt is proven. I'm happy to help in any way I can, though as I noted earlier I will be away and pretty much out of contact from April 5-14. I accept Matt's taking on "blame" here as long as he accepts the rest of us taking on a similar amount of it. I admit I found much of Charlie's persona to be unlikely, and his approach to running his team(s) to be a bit irksome at times, but I said nothing. Seems like others had similar feelings. Bottom line, this is a community failure, but I would rather have an open and welcoming community that exposes itself to this kind of consequence than one that is so closed that it chokes the life out of the place.

If finding ownership to limp along a bit proves to be too difficult, then it seems we have a couple options:

1. Put the vacant teams on computer control (I hate this option, as it can't play like an LRS GM has to).
2. Contract the LRS to 8 or 10 teams (assuming we actually have 3-5 vacancies), and then maybe expand again in a season or three.
3. Take existing LRS teams and merge into PEBA immediately, adding an owner or two just to flesh out what's needed for a balanced league.

Of these, I'm a bit intrigued by the idea of contraction, as it keeps our Japanese-ness intact. I'm almost of a mind to make that my top choice, though I admit I don't know the administrative headaches and ramifications of that since it's been several versions since I've fiddled with the guts of the game. I would almost prefer merging before having a ton of teams go on remote control.

If we keep the LRS going, I suppose we could do some roster diving and decide exactly how bad things are. The league would need to look into boosting organizations that were deeply damaged (which at this time seems to be primarily Kawaguchi and Kure, which were being used as a major clearing house--and of these two, Kure is essentially on life support, Kawaguchi may have enough around to build on...though it will take time). As Mike said, perhaps a greater damage is that HYA has been made so beastly. Not sure how to go about rectifying that...though we could certainly go back over the deals since the season ended and nullify those. Pain in the butt.
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Re: Massive Fraud

#45 Post by Mike Dunn »

Cliff Hangers wrote:I admit I found much of Charlie's persona to be unlikely, and his approach to running his team(s) to be a bit irksome at times, but I said nothing. Seems like others had similar feelings. Bottom line, this is a community failure.
Agreed. There were clues. For example, there was this post. After Shannon (Charlie) had been kicked out of running the Transmitters, some voiced the hope that it could be filled, and Charlie says he could do it.

http://pebabaseball.com/boards/viewtopi ... 908#p86908

Haha indeed. I remember thinking how odd that was. And irksome. But I said nothing.
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