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LeagueSafe


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That's Paul Charchian's new product isn't it? I don't think it's been around for very long so probably not much have experience with it. It doesn't do exactly the same thing as paypal. It is a place to hold league fees and than it pays out the fees after the end of the year. It lets you avoid the hassle of collecting and also wondering if the commish will come through at the end of the year with payouts as well.

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Never tried it...what's the major difference between League Safe and PayPal?

I am not overly familiar with PayPal and I only know what I've read about LeagueSafe so far. Sounds like the commish enters the league name and email addresses of all the owners. Everyone can then pay by e-check or card and the site holds on to the money until the end of the year when it will cut checks or otherwise disperse the funds to the winners. Looks like it is set up specifically for fantasy leagues whereas I believe PayPal is more universally used for making payment. Anyways, I was just curious if anyone had any experience with it before we give it a try. Sounds like we're going to, though, so if anyone is interested I can post about how it is once the season is going and I have some experience with it.

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That's Paul Charchian's new product isn't it? I don't think it's been around for very long so probably not much have experience with it. It doesn't do exactly the same thing as paypal. It is a place to hold league fees and than it pays out the fees after the end of the year. It lets you avoid the hassle of collecting and also wondering if the commish will come through at the end of the year with payouts as well.

I think you're probably right, MV. Our commish heard about it on KFAN and I think it is based out of Maple Grove...

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That's Paul Charchian's new product isn't it? I don't think it's been around for very long so probably not much have experience with it. It doesn't do exactly the same thing as paypal. It is a place to hold league fees and than it pays out the fees after the end of the year. It lets you avoid the hassle of collecting and also wondering if the commish will come through at the end of the year with payouts as well.

 

You are correct sir. Very respectable ownership. I have yet to try it though so I can't recommend it on experience, just ownership.

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I worked with Charch for eight years and still do the radio show with him. I was also involved in some of the testing for League Safe as well as the soft launch for a baseball league I am in. Take that for what it's worth; I don't get any cut of his action.

 

As a commissioner, the advantages would be that I don't have to mess with collecting the money ("I forgot my checkbook", "I'll mail it to you", "Bill owes me so collect it from him", I'm sure you've heard all the same excuses), and I don't have to worry about writing checks at the end of the season (which I always mean to do and then a month later still haven't gotten around to). For league members, the pros would be paying by credit card or automatic checking account withdrawal, so you don't have to bring your checkbook to the draft. And if you're in a league with people you don't know, there's no chance someone bails with your money; LeagueSafe holds it and disperses it at the end of the season.

 

Cons, as I see it: there can be a small processing fee depending on how your league is set up. It was a couple bucks max, if you're thinking about doing this please check into it as I don't remember exactly; it wasn't enough to bug me but I do remember getting dinged for a smidge more than the $50 entry fee. And since the interminable baseball season is still going on, I haven't been part of any payouts so I don't know exactly how that works. My understanding is that you can get a check mailed to you or get it as a prepaid Visa or there might be other options. I know at one point Charch said you could customize your prepaid Visa (for a small fee) to say something like "Weapons of DMD Fantasy Football League 2008 Champion" or what have you. Not sure if that's still in the offing or not.

 

Again, for what it's worth, in testing there were no apparent glitches (my bank account didn't get dinged twice, for example), and the AutoNag function (which pings non-payers daily until they pay up) was reined in. But like I said, I can't vouch for payouts because we haven't reached that point yet. And the way my team is (under)performing, I won't have any more information along those lines even after the season ends.

 

But I digress. I would say if you're an organized commissioner who's never gotten through the holidays and realized you spent your league's entry fees on presents and had to dig into your wife's purse to pay your league winners... um, hypothetically speaking, of course... then you probably don't need LeagueSafe.

 

If you're interested in the service and have questions I'd suggest visiting their site and emailing their support with any questions you may have. And if they don't get back to you in a timely fashion I'll punch him in the throat next Saturday just before we go on the air. Or just pester him until he does get back to you.

 

2V

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I worked with Charch for eight years and still do the radio show with him. I was also involved in some of the testing for League Safe as well as the soft launch for a baseball league I am in. Take that for what it's worth; I don't get any cut of his action.

 

As a commissioner, the advantages would be that I don't have to mess with collecting the money ("I forgot my checkbook", "I'll mail it to you", "Bill owes me so collect it from him", I'm sure you've heard all the same excuses), and I don't have to worry about writing checks at the end of the season (which I always mean to do and then a month later still haven't gotten around to). For league members, the pros would be paying by credit card or automatic checking account withdrawal, so you don't have to bring your checkbook to the draft. And if you're in a league with people you don't know, there's no chance someone bails with your money; LeagueSafe holds it and disperses it at the end of the season.

 

Cons, as I see it: there can be a small processing fee depending on how your league is set up. It was a couple bucks max, if you're thinking about doing this please check into it as I don't remember exactly; it wasn't enough to bug me but I do remember getting dinged for a smidge more than the $50 entry fee. And since the interminable baseball season is still going on, I haven't been part of any payouts so I don't know exactly how that works. My understanding is that you can get a check mailed to you or get it as a prepaid Visa or there might be other options. I know at one point Charch said you could customize your prepaid Visa (for a small fee) to say something like "Weapons of DMD Fantasy Football League 2008 Champion" or what have you. Not sure if that's still in the offing or not.

 

Again, for what it's worth, in testing there were no apparent glitches (my bank account didn't get dinged twice, for example), and the AutoNag function (which pings non-payers daily until they pay up) was reined in. But like I said, I can't vouch for payouts because we haven't reached that point yet. And the way my team is (under)performing, I won't have any more information along those lines even after the season ends.

 

But I digress. I would say if you're an organized commissioner who's never gotten through the holidays and realized you spent your league's entry fees on presents and had to dig into your wife's purse to pay your league winners... um, hypothetically speaking, of course... then you probably don't need LeagueSafe.

 

If you're interested in the service and have questions I'd suggest visiting their site and emailing their support with any questions you may have. And if they don't get back to you in a timely fashion I'll punch him in the throat next Saturday just before we go on the air. Or just pester him until he does get back to you.

 

2V

Thanks for the response. I did read up on the site pretty thoroughly and we are going to try it. We have a couple guys who used to live here in MN but are now out in Denver so our commissioner was looking for a way to handle all the finances a little more efficiently than sending checks through the mail. This site should do the trick. I will try to remember to post as the season progresses and let others know what we think of it.

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  • 4 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Swammi, Christian Peterson (a former colleague and the operations manager at LeagueSafe) tells me that they don't have that functionality yet. "Right now the commissioner has to go in at the end of the season and enter a total amount for all transaction fees... then each owner is responsible for making one big deposit to cover that full amount at the end of the year." He does acknowledge that auto-bill would be a cool option, so at least now they're aware of it. And LeagueSafe does have a relationship with MFL at present where you can pay the commissioner fees right out of the LeagueSafe collections for your league, but no auto-bill there either. So that portion is still a work in progress.

 

Aside from that, my experience (and again, in the interest of full disclosure, I used to work with Paul Charchian, founder of LeagueSafe and still do a radio show with him, but I don't get any cut of the LeagueSafe action) this year has been positive. My winnings for the two leagues I was in that collected through LeagueSafe were available on December 30, as opposed to the league I run where I still have checks to send out yet. My withdrawal options were a prepaid Visa card (no cost, unless you get the customized "League Champion" card for $5-$10; takes 5-7 business days); E-Check (automatic deposit into the account you used to pay your league fees; $3, takes 5-7 business days); or paper check ($3, 7-10 business days). I used the option to keep my winnings at LeagueSafe and pay my baseball league entry fee and next year's football leagues out of them.

 

If you have other questions, or suggestions about what you'd like to see, visit the site and email them directly. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to help you out.

 

2V

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I liked the idea when I read about it this year but didn't think it was worth the cost.

 

There is no cost if you do the automatic withdrawal option to pay your fees and get a prepaid Visa with your winnings at the end. If you do it other ways you could pay a buck or two transaction fee on the front end (or whatever juice you're paying on your credit card, if you don't pay it off right away) and $3-$5 for a different payout method.

 

In a league where the Commish gets you your payouts promptly it may not be worth it; in a league where you don't know or trust your Commish, or you trust him but he's a slow payer, it's not much to pay for insurance that you collect your winnings.

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We used it in one league I was in this year...50 dollar buy-in and it just holds your money until the end. The only thing that was strange was that at the end of the season, everyone had to go in and confirm the pay-outs that the commish set up in order for LeagueSafe to disperse the winnings. So all 12 teams had to log-in to the website, say that it was okay to pay everybody those amounts, and then the winners got their payouts. Not sure what would have happened had 1-2 team owners not confirmed but everyone in this league said okay...I came in 3rd and the payout was 50...it gave me a couple of options for payment and all but the Visa card would have cost a few bucks to implement. My bank wants me to pay a $3 transaction to use it at the ATM to withdraw the cash, so I'll just use it whenever I need to buy something...so for the most part not a bad deal really and I can see where it saves the commish some headaches with trying to collect/record/keep all the money for everyone.

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This might seem like a silly question, but how does leaguesafe handle league fees above and beyond the actual prize pool? In other words, if my league has a $50 buy in but each owner also chips in $5 for their share of fees for MFL, does leaguesafe somehow allow a designation of how much of the total amount deposited ($5 of the $55 total in this case) goes to the commish, who presumably paid for the MFL site?

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Again, all the payouts are designated by the commish, so paying the MFL website fee would just mean it would have to be allocated for out of the prize pool. Not sure if the commish could get it at the start of the season instead of the end as again, all the owners had to go onto leaguesafe and confirm the payouts.

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Again, all the payouts are designated by the commish, so paying the MFL website fee would just mean it would have to be allocated for out of the prize pool. Not sure if the commish could get it at the start of the season instead of the end as again, all the owners had to go onto leaguesafe and confirm the payouts.

 

Yeah, I figured they could get the MFL fee at the end of the season. Kinda sucks if it can't be had earlier...

Edited by MTSuper7
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So what happens if an owner goes AWOL? Or worse, kicks the bucket? No one gets their payouts?

 

I was wondering that myself and since I didn't commish this league or set it up, I don't know. I would probably have to think that when you initially set it up if probably gives you options of how the payouts should be allocated, but not sure.

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I've been collecting funds for a dozen sites for many years. I'll be moving all collections to league safe next season. Too much of a pain in my butt anymore. Have some friends who used it this season and all went fine.

:wacko:

I was thinking about you TOS when I was reading this thread.

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2V brought me in to the loop on this. Hopefully I can answer some of your questions about LeagueSafe.

 

1) Having members go AWOL doesn't have to be an issue. At the beginning of the season when you register your league, all members will be asked to vote on a "Payout Authorization Method (PAM)," which establishes how much control the commissioner & other owners have over the end-of-year payout process. You can choose to allow the commish total control, or you can choose to require a vote by league members at the end of the year to approve the payouts assigned by the commish. In this way, if you disagree with how the commish is allocating funds, you can stop him. But if you decided to allow the commissioner total control, then 1 or 2 (or 12) AWOL members wouldn't hold anything up.

 

2) We have a relationship with MFL whereby they send your league's info (names/emails) over to us and you complete registration for LeagueSafe on our side. You can also choose to pay your MFL fee directly out of your LeagueSafe balance. This happens up front, not at the end of the year. As soon as your league has enough money in it to cover the fee (could be a single $100 deposit or five $20 deposits) - as soon as the balance is enough to cover, we transfer the funds over to MFL.

 

3) Even if you're not using MFL, you can select our "Commissioner Reimbursement" option, which allows the commissioner a one-time withdrawal before the season starts to cover the cost of whatever service you're using. So you don't have to wait until the end of the year on that, either.

 

Please email either myself or our customer service department if you have further questions.

 

Christian Peterson

Operations Manager

LeagueSafe.com

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2V brought me in to the loop on this. Hopefully I can answer some of your questions about LeagueSafe.

 

1) Having members go AWOL doesn't have to be an issue. At the beginning of the season when you register your league, all members will be asked to vote on a "Payout Authorization Method (PAM)," which establishes how much control the commissioner & other owners have over the end-of-year payout process. You can choose to allow the commish total control, or you can choose to require a vote by league members at the end of the year to approve the payouts assigned by the commish. In this way, if you disagree with how the commish is allocating funds, you can stop him. But if you decided to allow the commissioner total control, then 1 or 2 (or 12) AWOL members wouldn't hold anything up.

 

2) We have a relationship with MFL whereby they send your league's info (names/emails) over to us and you complete registration for LeagueSafe on our side. You can also choose to pay your MFL fee directly out of your LeagueSafe balance. This happens up front, not at the end of the year. As soon as your league has enough money in it to cover the fee (could be a single $100 deposit or five $20 deposits) - as soon as the balance is enough to cover, we transfer the funds over to MFL.

3) Even if you're not using MFL, you can select our "Commissioner Reimbursement" option, which allows the commissioner a one-time withdrawal before the season starts to cover the cost of whatever service you're using. So you don't have to wait until the end of the year on that, either.

 

Please email either myself or our customer service department if you have further questions.

 

Christian Peterson

Operations Manager

LeagueSafe.com

 

Very nice for MFL leagues... I think LLD is planning on giving this a whirl.

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  • 4 months later...

Lets pretend I'm in a league with people I don't know. I either have to trust the commissioner who I don't know to make the payouts correctly (for all I know he could be running several of the teams himself), or I have to agree that no one gets paid without a majority vote which could once again be prevented by a few friends who get pissed that they didn't place, or by one person who is actually playing multiple teams. I don't understand how this offers any more security than just sending a check to some random guy who promises he's legit. As far as I can tell, in the end you still have to trust people you don't know with your money.

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