Denial Esports allegedly chargeback payments to former players, owner responds [UPDATED]

Update, 12:20 PM EST, May 28:

Denial co-owner Zach Smith claims that these payments were flagged as ‘suspicious activities’ by his credit card company, causing the transactions to be disputed.

Smith sent Dexerto a screenshot appearing to show that money  is already being repaid to all affected players, including the Gears of War team.

“This affected multiple people,” Smith explained. My [credit card] company flagged a few suspicious activities. They were already notified and are fixing the problem. This affected GoW as well and was fixed yesterday.”

The transactions in the screenshot were sent on May 27 and, according to Smith, cover the amount which was disputed from the previous payments. Further confirmation about the repayment from some of the affected players was also received. 

Names of payees blanked out at Smith’s request.

Original article below…

A former Call of Duty player for Denial Esports, Jason ‘Prophet’ Nicoletti, has publicly shared a PayPal dispute appearing to show the organization attempting to charge back a goodwill payment they made to him in February 2019.

Denial Esports, under previous ownership and management, fell foul of failing to pay players, and eventually disbanded, only to return under new management in early 2019.

As a show of goodwill, the organization reached out to former players affected by the issues of previous ownership, and, as shown by Prophet’s February 12 post, sent monies to these players.

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Zach Smith, who recently stepped down from the day-to-day running of the Denial organization, was responsible for sending these payments, thanked personally by Prophet.

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However, on May 28, 2019, Prophet replied to his original post, showing evidence that Smith had disputed the payment, stating that ‘the purchase was not authorized.’

Gears of War players FraNChiS and Icy have also alluded to payments being charged back from a “previous org”.

Both players now play for Team Reciprocity, and the team’s community manager has confirmed that Denial is the “previous org” in question.

Denial are currently facing allegations of failing to pay their previous all-French Call of Duty roster, as well as not yet paying for the CWL spot acquired from Overtime eSports.

Zach Smith is also the CEO of esports betting site MoneyMatches.