There are rules we must all adhere to in order to maintain a functional society. Foremost among them is this: If you enter a fantasy league/pick 'em group/tournament pool, you must pay up before it starts, or at the very least promise to pay at the next available opportunity, or you do not get to claim the prize money if you win.
Alex hosted a World Cup tournament pool for friends. The entry fee was $20, payable before the tournament began, for obvious reasons. But Alex couldn't figure out who owned one entry, named "bigfnjewishdick." And bigfnjewishdick hadn't paid up.
Alex messaged bigfnjewishdick through the site, posted on the group discussion board, sent multiple group emails specifically asking bigfnjewish dick to identify himself (and to pay up), even searched Facebook for the name associated with the account and messaged those people. No response.
Of course, the bigfnjewishdick entry won the pool. And the owner ("a friend of a friend of a friend," as it turned out) emailed Alex this morning to claim his prize.
Alex,
I won the bracket, but don't remember if I sent payment or not. Let me know what the next steps are...
Alex replied, CCing the entire group, and laid out the lengths he had gone to to try to get money from that owner, or even just to explain who the hell he was. Alex closed by saying bigfnjewishdick had been disqualified from the pool and would not receive his winnings.
Now I'm a big proponent of giving the benefit of the doubt. So I thought perhaps my emails went into your spam folder, and perhaps you've blocked people from searching you on Facebook, so you never got any of my messages. And perhaps, although you initially signed up on ESPN and joined the pool, you forgot all about it and decided not to join in, which is why you never emailed me or paid, and why you didn't see all my requests on the group homepage. After all, it's impossible NOT to see them if you've ever visited the page (see attached). But I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that maybe you never did!
But JUST IN CASE my benefit of the doubt was wrong, I left "bigfnjewishdick" in the group as a social experiment. What if this bracket ended up winning the whole thing? Would its creator suddenly appear and try to claim that he won? Surely no one would have that much chutzpah, right?
The owner of bigfnjewishdick then responded to everyone in the pool:
From: [redacted]
Date: Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 11:52 AM
Subject: Re: world cup bracket
To: [redacted]
Cc: [Rest of the group]
Alex,
Congratulations on wasting a lot of your time, as well as mine, reading that great piece of satire. Unfortunately, I really couldn't care less about your winnings. In fact, as I made the picks with my right hand, I was jerking off with the left. It's actually pretty pathetic how bad this group was, I don't even remember half my picks. Although I do remember why I didn't pay the $20, as I had given your mom an $11 tip for the massage, which left me with only 9 dollars, which I used for an Uber home. But hey, to the 2nd 3rd and 4th place winners, I hope they enjoy their consolation prizes. Real champs don't need a trophy.
Bigfnjewishdick remains undefeated, but I think we're all winners.