NEWS
Online resalers target rival site
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by Nick Penzenstadler
Monday, February 5, 2007
A popular ticket auction website last week accused a competitor of trying to sabotage its online venue to promote his own newly launched rival website.
According to Nate Lustig, co-owner of Madison-based ExchangeHut.com, Brandon Kelly, founder of UWPipeline.com and a defensive lineman for the University of Wisconsin football team, bought more than 80 tickets for $3,092 Jan. 31 in ExchangeHut.com auctions.
ExchangeHut.com allows students to post their Badger athletic tickets in online auctions.
Lustig added Kelly then sent e-mails to the ticket sellers saying he would not pay for or pick up the tickets he bought, and advertised his own website as an alternative.
When contacted by The Badger Herald, Kelly said it was the first he had heard of the alleged scam and denied any wrongdoing.
"I haven't heard anything like that — I don't know where that even originated," Kelly said. "I'm going on record saying I had nothing to do with it."
However, Lustig said his ExchangeHut.com staff noticed last Wednesday two accounts with the same IP address — one registered under Kelly's WiscMail account and the other under "exchangehutsucks@hotmail.com" — were buying an irregular number of tickets.
It was from those two e-mail accounts, Lustig said, that ExchangeHut.com users received the alleged e-mail messages from Kelly saying they would not be paid for their tickets.
Lustig said the offense could easily be tracked back to Kelly because a member needs to activate his account through WiscMail, where he would need to provide his UW password.
"The only possible way is if he gave his wisc.edu password to someone and they did it," Lustig said. "The way our registration process works, if you register an e-mail account, you have to log into your e-mail account and activate it. Someone either has it or he is flat-out lying."
Lustig added he filed a report with the Madison Police Department, including his website's user logs and had his attorney send Kelly a warning letter. However, Lustig said the site would not pursue the case any further.
"It was another person unethically using our website at the expense of other students," Lustig said. "[ExchangeHut.com users] all wanted us to pursue him. No one understood why you would try to screw students into using your site."
After realizing the alleged scam, Lustig said ExchangeHut.com staff suspended the accounts, re-listed the tickets and refunded the ticket sellers.
Kelly, however, said UW Pipeline would not take part in such unethical practices.
"I'm a professional, and it's unnecessary," Kelly said. "As far as I'm concerned, we're working for the same cause. I don't see why anyone would do that to their website."
One UW student who was selling his Iowa and Penn State basketball tickets on ExchangeHut.com said he was surprised when he received the suspicious e-mail after both tickets sold.
"Apparently this guy was from Pipeline — he sent me an e-mail to go to Pipeline and have a better time over there," UW senior Michael Bodnia said. "I got automatically billed so I got pissed off, … and he pissed off about 50 other people. … That'll backfire."
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 7:12am):
Well, at least it wasn't assault or burglary.
Maybe Coach B needs to go over the "STAY OUT OF TROUBLE" lecture a few more times?
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 10:47am):
I am one of the co-owners of ExchangeHut and would like to just reiterate what we believe happened.
At 8:30 pm Wednesday night, Mr. Kelly logged registered for an ExchangeHut account using his personal wiscmail email address. The only way that it could be someone else besides Mr. Kelly is if someone has his wiscmail login and password because new users have to activate their accounts by clicking a link in their email.
Between 830 and 844, Mr. Kelly purchased 20+ tickets from 14 of his fellow students.
At 844, Mr. Kelly registered another account, called "ExchangeHut Sucks" and bought another 50+ tickets, affecting many more of his fellow students.
We were able to match the IP address of his real wisc account and the exchangehut sucks account, meaning that the same computer was used to make both accounts.
Our users then recieved calls from someone who called themselves "B" saying that people should "use UWPipeline.com because it was better."
Next, users recieved this email from both Mr. Kelly's account and the other account:
"hey sorry, i didnt mean to purchase the ticket, but another site you can
check out to list it on is
www.uwpipeline.com
they have a lot better listing for tickets, and they don't take anything out
of the money you make."
We suspended the accounts, refunded our fellow student users and reposted their tickets.
We have no problem with UWPipeline, in fact, we like competiton from other students like us. It only helps serve students' interests. The only problem we had was the way that it happened.
We have no plans to persue this any farther and hope that both ExchangeHut and Pipeline can coexist on the UW Campus.
Nate Lustig
co-owner, ExchangeHut.com
UW Junior
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 11:10am):
SSHHHHAAAADDDYYYY
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 12:30pm):
Brandon Kelly, hopefully the feds don't come sniffing around. It sounds like you've been bad.
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 1:16pm):
Yeah it was probably him. Shoutout to Brandon Kelly: Try to come up with your own ideas instead of ripping someone else off and then trying to bring them down.
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 1:40pm):
Why would someone sink so low into trying to sabotage competition. From the looks of this he seems pretty guilty. I think exchangehut should sue for him but since they choose not to shows some class. I use EH to sell my tickets and it is very convenient. Also i noticed there were new features on it now besides selling things. Like news and other links. I was happy to see that.
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 3:31pm):
Amazing. The best part about this whole thing is that UWPipeline is such a piece of garbage. It's nothing more than a canned auction website purchased from www.xcAuction.com and dressed up with horrible graphics and logos. But hey, it's nice to see that BK is multi-talented. He can play football and operate as an unethical business man.
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 8:36pm):
haha, its karma bk.... you should have seen this coming...
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 8:37pm):
Nate Lustig is a scalping f*%#!
Anonymous (February 5, 2007 @ 11:22pm):
i used to play ball with bk and he is always scamming people, he sucks as a person and as a player and as a wannabe business man.....derrrty
Anonymous (February 6, 2007 @ 12:18am):
agreed, after reading this article.. i checked out both sites... exchangehut knows what they are doing.. uwpipeline is a joke and should do everyone a favor and put itself up for auction.- too bad no one would care to buy it though.
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