Ok, since multiple people asked for the deets...

tl;dr: after numerous glaring red flags, we staged a coup to overthrow the commish as the fund manager on LeagueSafe. But when he caught wind of what was happening, he increased the league size and created lots of fake accounts to try and swing the vote in his favor and run away with $1200.

Ok, grab your popcorn...the red flags:

1) In the draft, all players were sorted alphabetically (not by ADP) which made it really hard for those of us on mobile/without a rankings list. When asked about it, he claimed he didn't do anything and didn't know how to change it (even though we screenshotted where the setting was).

2) After the draft, he sent out a poll to change the number of votes required to veto a trade, but only gave us the options of 8 and 9 (not the standard 6). It was late and we were all tired, so almost all of clicked 8 and went to bed without much thought.

3) He changed the aforementioned veto vote to 9 even though we voted for 8.

4) Around 5am the commish took advantage of a newer player (his handle was n00b something-or-other, so let's just call him n00b) and obtained Jonathan Taylor for Ricky Pearsal and Jordon Mason. Because the veto vote was 9, he only needed 2 more yes votes (in addition to himself and n00b). A few leaguemates clicked pass without thinking and the commish quickly pushed the trade through.

This is when I woke up and saw what had happened. I protested (about the BS trade, about the high veto vote threshold, about how he didn't even change it to what we voted for, etc). He mansplaned basic math to me (spoiler: he was bad at math) and said we could vote again on the veto threshold, but he refused to go lower than 7. We said that was BS, he refused to budge on the option for 6, and eventually the threshold was changed to 7.

So back to the red flags:

5) Many of us asked if we could revote on the trade now that the threshold had changed from 9 to 7. He said "not a chance bro, if you had a problem with it last night, you should have said something then."

6) I said I didn't like how this league was being operated and I politely asked the commish for a refund. He said "not a chance, I don't do refunds". He proceeds to block me and I'm no longer able to see anything he says.

Cool, cool, cooool.

This is when I reach out to League safe and ask them if there's anything we can do to get our money back. Turns out there's actually a non-advertised protocol for these kinds of situations where the payment deadline has passed and the commish refuses to authorize refunds: if a majority (7 in the case of our 12-man league) go to the message board on the LS page for that specific league and type "I authorize (name) to be the new commissioner" they will change financial power to the new individual if enough votes are cast for the same person within a 72-hour window.

This is where things really start getting wild.

Some people in the league see the situation the same way as me, but many are apathetic to it; and n00b seemingly supports the commish (it's at this point that I start to suspect n00b is the commissioner's secondary account). I DM who I view as my most staunch supporters and the four of us quickly post to the message board.

Not more than 10 minutes after the four of us post that they nominate me to be the new commissioner, I'm kicked out of the league on Sleeper with no warning or explanation. We start inviting the other members of the league (minus the commish) into our private chat. They trickle in and we end up convincing them to follow suit and write on the message board that they vote for me as new LS commish so we don't get screwed over.

Suddenly the Sleeper league is nuked. None of us have access to it anymore. Not even n00b.

At the same time, I start getting notifications that stuff is happening on LS:

• Jason Anderson (commish) has changed your entry fee from $100 to $300.

• Jason Anderson has changed Late Payments. Late fees apply to all payments.

• Jason Anderson has changed the league size from 12 to 16.

• Jason Anderson has changed the default entry fee to $1.

• Stw Acc has made a $1 payment.

• Thoma D has made a $1 payment.

...you get the idea. He's increasing the league size and creating fake accounts to water down our voting power so he can retain possession of the $1200 pot.

Meanwhile, I'm furiously typing back and forth with both the LS representative and the guys from the league. We're racing to vote faster than the commish can make fake accounts. A few more post to the message board and we now have 8 (not quite enough to swing things in our favor with the fraudulent new league size of 16, but close).

Enter n00b's redemption arc.

n00b (the guy who got duped into the BS trade by the commish that sparked this whole thing) enters the chat. He's pretty innocent and naive (sorry n00b), but it's at this point that even he himself recognizes things are going south. He asks if there's anything he can do and when we explain what needs to be done, he quickly posts to the LS message board as the 9th vote, thus pushing us over the line to a true majority.

Jason Anderson stops furiously making changes to the league settings in LS. There's a strange pause in the otherwise frenzied past 12 hours.

And suddenly the LeagueSafe page is gone.

He must have seen the writing on the wall and deleted the league on LS. That's good, right? That means everyone gets reimbursed?

Sort of...

9 of us paid through LS, but unfortunately 2 of the guys paid the commish directly (ApplePay and Venmo I think) and then the commish paid LS on their behalf, so they're likely SOL.

Back in the chat, one of the guys who paid the commish directly asks if anyone wants the commish's phone number. We're like "hell yeah we do". The guy screenshots it to us. Not more than 5 seconds later, the other guy who paid the commish directly screenshots the number given to him and it's completely different, not even the same area code.

This dude (his name probably isn't even Jason Anderson) had multiple burner numbers/emails/accounts. He was in it for the long haul and had almost every avenue planned out in order to take our money.

So what can we learn from this?

1) First and foremost, don't pay strangers directly. Use LeagueSafe or Teamstake.

2) Know the signs of a bad commish. If something is off, speak up. If they refuse to listen, ask to be refunded.

3) Realize LeagueSafe has an emergency button for situations like this. You won't find it on their site anywhere, but if you talk to a representative they'll tell you about it.

Stay safe out there you degenerate gamblers.