Prize Payout Process

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Tom Kessenich
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Prize Payout Process

Post by Tom Kessenich » Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:30 am

With the season drawing to a close here is the process to get your prize checks sent to you:

1. ALL prize winners MUST submit the Online W9 form located under the Settings menu on your team page. Again ALL prize winners MUST submit this form. The ONLY exceptions are Canadian prize winners and those prize winners who have won prizes from us in the past 2-3 years in any of our contests (NFBC, NFFC and NFBKC) and whose contact information has not changed. There are no other exceptions.

NOTE: Some regular season Cutline prize winners have still not submitted this form. If you have not received your $250 Cutline check yet be sure to submit this form. You MUST submit this form to receive your regular season check.

2. Shared prize forms are now available. Email me at [email protected] to receive a form. All forms must be notarized and emailed back to me by Monday Oct. 10. Please email the forms back to me. Do not fax them to STATS.
Tom Kessenich
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Ichiban
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Ichiban » Fri Sep 23, 2016 3:54 am

Will there be an option for electronic payouts like last year? Thanks.

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Tom Kessenich
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Tom Kessenich » Fri Sep 23, 2016 11:58 am

Ichiban wrote:Will there be an option for electronic payouts like last year? Thanks.
Not this year, sorry. All prizes will be paid as checks.
Tom Kessenich
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KJ Duke
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by KJ Duke » Fri Sep 23, 2016 1:46 pm

Tom Kessenich wrote:
Ichiban wrote:Will there be an option for electronic payouts like last year? Thanks.
Not this year, sorry. All prizes will be paid as checks.
We're going backwards!

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Deadheadz
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Deadheadz » Sat Sep 24, 2016 5:44 am

.

Are we still over a year away from the ability to have some or all winnings left in our account to be used for paying the fees of our next season leagues?
The longer we put off getting this started the more likely it won't ever happen.

Doesn't it seem like you'd get more signups from managers playing with "house money"?


.
The Bill Buckner of FAAB
Deadheadz

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Greg Ambrosius
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Wed Sep 28, 2016 7:57 am

Deadheadz wrote:.

Are we still over a year away from the ability to have some or all winnings left in our account to be used for paying the fees of our next season leagues?
The longer we put off getting this started the more likely it won't ever happen.

Doesn't it seem like you'd get more signups from managers playing with "house money"?


.
Sure we'd love to have all of your prize money in your Player Accounts for you to roll over to the next year or to spend on other contests, but corporately STATS has decided against setting those up now or in the future. Sorry but internally all cash in and all cash out each year is the method we will be using. There are legal and accounting reasons for this and so we will follow the company's lead. Hope that helps.
Greg Ambrosius
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Yah Mule
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Yah Mule » Sun Oct 09, 2016 8:36 am

Slightly off-topic question: Will the NFBC ever offer the ability to purchase gift certificates? Seems like a great way to introduce people to our leagues.

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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Yah Mule » Fri Oct 21, 2016 11:09 am

Yah Mule wrote:Slightly off-topic question: Will the NFBC ever offer the ability to purchase gift certificates? Seems like a great way to introduce people to our leagues.
I guess I'll take that as a "no".

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Greg Ambrosius
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Fri Oct 21, 2016 12:24 pm

Yah Mule wrote:Slightly off-topic question: Will the NFBC ever offer the ability to purchase gift certificates? Seems like a great way to introduce people to our leagues.
I don't know if we will but there isn't any plan at this point for gift certificates. The first move is to create the Player Accounts that allow your winnings to get directly deposited there. After that you can let us know if you want full payments or if you want to keep some money on account for future purchases. We have a plan in place for ewallets starting in 2017. Hope that helps.
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bjoak
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by bjoak » Fri Oct 21, 2016 8:10 pm

Confused that no one has asked this. Maybe it's on another thread. When do you plan to pay out the winnings? I don't think it's rude to ask at this point. I only had three teams win in my own league and the two that were not me asked before the season was even over.
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Bronx Yankees » Fri Oct 21, 2016 8:31 pm

bjoak wrote:Confused that no one has asked this. Maybe it's on another thread. When do you plan to pay out the winnings? I don't think it's rude to ask at this point. I only had three teams win in my own league and the two that were not me asked before the season was even over.
See thread lower on this page of the Message Board: "All 2016 NFBC Payments Going Out Via Checks" for what I believe is the most recent update on that topic.

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Greg Ambrosius
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Sat Oct 22, 2016 4:37 pm

bjoak wrote:Confused that no one has asked this. Maybe it's on another thread. When do you plan to pay out the winnings? I don't think it's rude to ask at this point. I only had three teams win in my own league and the two that were not me asked before the season was even over.
Brian, checks should be going out the first week of November, so look for them in the mail soon. Congrats on the winning teams.
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EA Sports
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by EA Sports » Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:00 am

Greg and Tom,

Will we once again have the option of splitting prizes with co-owners?

Thanks,

Eric
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by EA Sports » Thu Oct 27, 2016 9:02 am

Never mind fellas. Missed the bottom of the original post. Thanks
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by tslive » Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:21 am

Greg & Tom,

This is my first post in quite a while, just for context. I received my winnings from CBS in Monday's mail. NFBC is a great entity, it's a smaller company with personal aspects to it, better structures and it's year-round... but I wonder how you can let a main competitor outperform in this area. Add on top of this the cancelled postseason event, which was pretty disrespectful to people's time, all in the name of a marketing ploy of guaranteed minimum payouts which isn't necessary for you to do. In the spring I had to argue with one of your helpers regarding an unpaid balance that was actually paid, my credit card was charged but "unallocated" on your end. I didn't receive any apology once I was proven to be correct. A couple other smaller annoyances I won't bother mentioning.

You're not going to lose my business, but my point is I wonder if you are getting too big for your own good without increasing technological and staffing resources (i.e. improving your margins). If you don't recognize these challenges, you risk things getting worse and the goodwill you have built with such personal dedication in the past could be damaged. Anyway, I hope that this season was an anomaly and that these experiences won't repeat themselves in the future because there are a lot of die-hard fans that want to see you maintain what is great about NFBC.

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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Potter » Fri Oct 28, 2016 2:08 pm

Yeah, why call, text, pm or email when you can go on a message board and put Greg/Tom on blast. The inconsideration/disrespect that goes on in here on a regular basis embarrasses me.

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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by davetniagarafalls » Fri Oct 28, 2016 2:59 pm

I agree with Potter 100%. I guess if you have tried repeatedly to address stuff with Tom or Greg privately and get no response or not the response that you'd like, then maybe posting something publicly is your right. But it just doesn't seem fair to them. I don't contact them often but when I do (e.g., over email) I get a response almost immediately ... in most cases, immediately. I think there have been long posts from one or both of them about this small portion of the STATS business. So if it means the mother ship having to get through its annual audit, I am willing to wait. No one wants to make their customers happy more than Tom and Greg.
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by tslive » Fri Oct 28, 2016 6:00 pm

That's not the point at all, actually they do a great job, but how much can two guys handle? Think about that for a minute rather than reacting on pure loyalty. It's a growing business that is trying to satisfy more and more things/people, and the business needs to scale its operations to keep up. That was a pretty clear point in my post, it's not as personal as you make it seem. Sickening? That's so twisted to bring it to that level. This is a business that makes a profit and a message board regarding prize payouts is an acceptable forum for a customer's experience as anywhere else. CBS has improved their payout times and NFBC has gotten worse. That's just a fact, god forbid someone says it and upsets the family but there is a corporate entity behind a lot of this you know. I'm sure there's many that feel the same way and I wouldn't write it if I didn't think it could help out NFBC and all of you in the long term. I'm not a villain here.... I'll shut up now since this has been escalated into something it's not.

Dat Bum
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Dat Bum » Sat Oct 29, 2016 7:38 pm

Greg and Tom,

Much appreciation for your hard work. As long as no other promises or date estimations have been made, I think as long as people get paid before the first DC opens up in late November that should be reasonable enough. If people are shelling out anywhere from $150, to $1,600+ for these leagues I would hope nobody is hurting for their payout so badly that they need it instantly. I have no doubt that you two are working your ass off to get us paid and to ensure we all get a chance to scratch our itch to start drafting in the very near future.

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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by TOXIC ASSETS » Sat Oct 29, 2016 8:19 pm

Probably shouldn't even say anything but let me jump in an defend TSlive a bit. The money for these contests is paid to NFBC / Stats in..... January. February. March. The games start in April. The season ends at end of September. So STATS has had the use of YOUR money for upward to 10 months. It is not unreasonable to wonder where the payouts are a month after the season has ended. STATS is a profitable organization and it's made interest on your entry fees. When the season ends, and the w2 has been confirmed --- the money should be paid out. Given all of the BS we have seen with other operators over the years --- that is not unreasonable.

P.S. I'm not an NFBC / NFFC basher --- I've been doing leagues for 8 seasons now.

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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Mon Oct 31, 2016 1:41 pm

TOXIC ASSETS wrote:Probably shouldn't even say anything but let me jump in an defend TSlive a bit. The money for these contests is paid to NFBC / Stats in..... January. February. March. The games start in April. The season ends at end of September. So STATS has had the use of YOUR money for upward to 10 months. It is not unreasonable to wonder where the payouts are a month after the season has ended. STATS is a profitable organization and it's made interest on your entry fees. When the season ends, and the w2 has been confirmed --- the money should be paid out. Given all of the BS we have seen with other operators over the years --- that is not unreasonable.

P.S. I'm not an NFBC / NFFC basher --- I've been doing leagues for 8 seasons now.
No, it's not unreasonable. People who won money have a right to ask "WHERE'S THE MONEY?"

That's why I went on the boards earlier this month to tell you the truth: Prizes weren't going out until the first week of November because Accounting was again finishing an audit. Right now we are taking an unusual step to get these checks in the mail this week and we'll explain everything very shortly. But bottom line is that we are working with Accounting to do everything we can to get your checks in the mail this week. As soon as I know when that has happened I will post here.

We are always available to talk about this via phone, text or email. I would have posted an update before this but there wasn't any update while the audit was still being completed. All Accounting hands are on deck for that. Sorry to say that, but now let's get you folks paid and move onto the 2017 season. We have almost $3 million in prize money that needs to go out and hopefully that is done this week. Thanks for your patience all and CONGRATS to all of our winners.
Greg Ambrosius
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Mon Oct 31, 2016 1:58 pm

tslive wrote:Greg & Tom,

This is my first post in quite a while, just for context. I received my winnings from CBS in Monday's mail. NFBC is a great entity, it's a smaller company with personal aspects to it, better structures and it's year-round... but I wonder how you can let a main competitor outperform in this area. Add on top of this the cancelled postseason event, which was pretty disrespectful to people's time, all in the name of a marketing ploy of guaranteed minimum payouts which isn't necessary for you to do. In the spring I had to argue with one of your helpers regarding an unpaid balance that was actually paid, my credit card was charged but "unallocated" on your end. I didn't receive any apology once I was proven to be correct. A couple other smaller annoyances I won't bother mentioning.

You're not going to lose my business, but my point is I wonder if you are getting too big for your own good without increasing technological and staffing resources (i.e. improving your margins). If you don't recognize these challenges, you risk things getting worse and the goodwill you have built with such personal dedication in the past could be damaged. Anyway, I hope that this season was an anomaly and that these experiences won't repeat themselves in the future because there are a lot of die-hard fans that want to see you maintain what is great about NFBC.
Tim, feel free to call me anytime.

Yeah, glad CBS got out all of their payments on time. We hope to get ours out this week. After this baseball season you will see a completely revamped payment process from the NFBC and NFFC. The plan going forward is to deposit your winnings in your Player Accounts and let you decide what to do with your winnings. Look for more details on this change next week.

As for the Post-Season Contest, when people don't want a product they don't want it. I'm not going to force a product on anyone. We never charged anyone and we cancelled the event when we were at 60 percent of our goal. We'll see if lowered guarantees is the answer or if just leaving the post-season alone is a better answer. We'll ask you that next year once we have the ewallets in place and you can easily use some of your winnings on this contest. We'll see.

I have no idea which one of our helpers you had to argue with, but sorry from all of us. It's usually just me and Tom, but maybe you talked with someone else. No idea. Feel free to mention the other annoyances if you'd like and we can discuss.

No we're not getting too big for our own good. In fact, we hope to get bigger this year. But you are right, we do need technological changes and that is coming down the road. There is a plan in place for tech upgrades and we look forward to announcing them soon. Thanks for the feedback and I look forward to a fantastic 2017 and beyond.
Greg Ambrosius
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Teufel Hunden
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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Teufel Hunden » Wed Nov 02, 2016 10:15 am

Are checks still going out this week?

Any ETA on 2017 roll out?

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Re: Prize Payout Process

Post by Greg Ambrosius » Thu Nov 03, 2016 11:42 am

Teufel Hunden wrote:Are checks still going out this week?

Any ETA on 2017 roll out?
We are on pace for that, but I should have more info tomorrow. We are working with a third party vendor to get checks mailed out, so look for an update on where those checks are coming from shortly. But we're almost there.

Our goal is to go live mid-November with slow drafts. that is always our goal and hopefully we will be live two weeks from now.

I'm in Phoenix now at the Arizona Fall League Symposium but will update this thread shortly. Thanks
Greg Ambrosius
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