Non-Payment of Prize Money at Chattahoochee River BBQ Competition

At the end of the day, a check is a written agreement of payment. I know its not the fun way to do it, but you can take them to court for passing bad checks and I'm sure its some LLC that will be hard to nail down, but him giving you a check, gives you a leg up on having nothing at all.
 
Cayman1 said:
My experience from practicing law for 35 years is to deposit the checks, wait for them to be returned ISF, then take to local prosecuting attorney and let them take it from there. The threat of criminal charges tends to help people find the funds to make the checks good.
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Correct me if I'm wrong here, but a signed check is a BINDING legal agreement that you owed that person said amount and you agreed to pay that amount in full.

I have done the exact same thing in depositing a check and then took it to the local PA and they took care of it. It took a while but i did get my money and didn't cost me a dime.
 
Skip said:
I have to agree with Gowan. There is no way to get an escrow account for prize money 30 days out let alone 90 days out. To require most organizers to do so would remove them from the market. I have worked on contests and know that with everything else going on that this would just be the straw that breaks the camels back. Contests would be offering terrible initial payouts due to the need for a guaranteed account. Once you start lowering payout expectations you lose teams to other contest with deeper pockets even though your contest will end up with a good prize pool. First year contests just wouldn't get off the ground without professional organization and that normally comes with its own headache. It would probably change the face and nature of contests as well since they would become a for profit endeavor and profit would drive the contest. BBQ contests would become a portion of a festival since the BBQ doesn't make the money or the entry fees would go through the roof since charitable donations wouldn't be around anymore.
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Up until 2010, this was the requirement and contest were put on and the number of contest were growing. Do a thread search in the early time frame of 2010 and you will see most of the same sentiments were expressed. So the requirement was eliminated and we moved on. Since then, there have been multiple defaults to the cooks but not one to KCBS or the reps. GO FIGURE.
 
DawgPhan said:
So we need new rules because one contest doesnt pay out? There are hundreds of contest that do pay out. New regulations that are going to cost more money to organizers and ultimately the teams? We want to make every contest more expensive, make this hobby more expensive because one organizer got in over his head.
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Genius! Absolutely genius :clap2:! Ignore it/give less clout to it/don't look into changing it because the system pleases the majority. This philosophy works so well for so many different industries, societies, govenments, associations, corporations, bills, laws.........uhhhhhhhh.....strip clubs.....you get the picture.

Though I'm sure with your experience you can denounce this.
 
Non Payment

Not sure about down on the Chattahoochee, but here in Kansas a $600 bad check is a felony. I agree with Cayman. Some legal charges might help this guy find some cash.

Eric
 
I think a simple solution is to make it mandatory for the organizers to mail the guaranteed money to KCBS at least 1 month in advance. Then at least there is some money to give to the cooks. It might not be all the money but at least its something. No money in the office, no contest.
 
as an organizer I can tell you that this is a horrible deal for all...especially the teams. Are all of you teams willing to send your money in for entry 45 days in advance? That would fix it but many teams dont pay until they get there...
 
Big Poppa said:
as an organizer I can tell you that this is a horrible deal for all...especially the teams. Are all of you teams willing to send your money in for entry 45 days in advance? That would fix it but many teams dont pay until they get there...
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Well you are definitely one of the good organizers here. But how would you propose protecting the cooks? I assume that these organizers are getting their added money up front from sponsors. If they advertise $10,000 added money, isn't that money already in their pocket from their sponsors?
 
DR said:
I think a simple solution is to make it mandatory for the organizers to mail the guaranteed money to KCBS at least 1 month in advance. Then at least there is some money to give to the cooks. It might not be all the money but at least its something. No money in the office, no contest.
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I appreciate your input and on paper its a solid plan. Unfortunately in the field of contest organization its really not feasible. I am working on a contest right now and in the last three weeks (the contest is this sunday) we have gone from 13-32 teams and many of those joined in this final week. If we had needed to send the money in we wouldn't have had enough teams for a 1st year contest let alone an 8th year contest. We can plead with the teams to pay early but its human nature to wait to the last second. Some will say "Just put in a mandatory time to sign up by" but this doesn't work either. You just have teams look for a more flexible option. Asking teams to pay more after a certain date only brings bad feeling on the contest. "Oh that's the contest that charges more for late entry". Organizers must be completely flexible to field their contest. Any pressure put on teams will only result in backlash. As an organizer you are walking on eggshells as it is hoping no one finds something to complain about they don't want to manufacture more reasons to have teams bad mouth their contest.
 
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DR said:
Well you are definitely one of the good organizers here. But how would you propose protecting the cooks? I assume that these organizers are getting their added money up front from sponsors. If they advertise $10,000 added money, isn't that money already in their pocket from their sponsors?
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Most prize pools are purely the entry fees from contestants. I have been to very few value added contests. Not that there aren't any but I would say a majority of them are funded on just the entry fees. With that being said thats why most of those who organize say the teams need to change their mentality and be willing to pay much earlier. The incentive could be getting paid but then a "normalcy bias" will set in where most will think its not going to happen to them because it hasn't in the past.

For contests that can escrow the money the suggestion was made to label them as gold star or premier contest. Thats a great idea and would probably catch on. But it may hurt other contests and bolster the premier contests. A proven team will look at their travel range for contests and choose the ones inside it that are guaranteed prize pools rather than those who are unable to do so.

I think asking KCBS to hold the money is a terrible liability on their part and would be a foolish endeavor for them. What might work better is to have the contest open an account in the events name. Make KCBS able to view the account info online. Set up protocols on what will be used for the prize pool and allow people to send their payment directly to that account. You don't even need paypal as the banks can be sent the payment directly and the cancelled check is their receipt. Full disclosure to the participants as well so they know what percentage of the entry fees will be used towards the prize pool. There could also be a simple spreadsheet constructed to show the progress of the payments and how the payout would go. Any unauthorized withdrawals would be noticed immediately by three levels of people (organizers,KCBS and teams). This would give KCBS some oversight without the task of financial responsibility.
 
I am by no means an organizer so i was just thinking out loud. I did, however, help put on some rodeos back about 15 years ago and all my added money was collected up front.

But like i said, i am not a BBQ organizer and my hats off to all of you that work so hard to put these on. I was just thinking out loud.
 
rtboswell said:
So KCBS didn't get their money up front and still let them put the contest on and you and Rusty come out and rep? Reps were amazing by the way in the midst of an awful situation
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KCBS has a sanctioning fee that is paid at the time application is made. That is basically the cost of the reps. They charge a per/team fee that pays for supplies and other expenses. That invoice is presented to the organizer after the contest is over as is an invoice for the rep's travel expenses. Those were the fees that were not paid. Basically, Andy had 14 trophies made, when he got checks he picked up 16 checks - 14 award checks and 2 additional checks. Because he couldn't get more checks I sat down with him and we managed to combine categories and get most of the teams paid by check. Then he went to an ATM and got cash for the remaining teams - which is why some of the teams finishing 6 - 10th received cash. There weren't enough checks at that time to write a check for KCBS or us. Andy has been in touch with me every day this week. Monday, well, actually Sunday/Monday at midnight he tried to reach me to get everyone's contact information. We talked Monday. He called Tuesday to ask for a KCBS contact and then called Randy Bigler, since Randy had already called me about the situation. Yesterday he called and asked me if I could send him the names and amounts of the checks that were written. At the very least, I can say he isn't hiding. I'm reserving my judgement until at least the end of a full week from the date of the contest.
 
Gadragonfly said:
In the case in question, KCBS did not get a check nor were the rep's expenses paid. GO FIGURE.
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My understanding of the KCBS and MO procedures, the reps are contractors to KCBS and not the cook-off. Therefore KCBS is liable for your expenses and then they would have to go after the additional fees per team and your expenses. KCBS has already been paid the sanctioning fee and the rep fee. Is this not correct?

Basically, what I am saying is you, personally, are not out anything, only KCBS has a potential loss of less than $500 for the additional per team fees and your expenses which they will pay. This is a whole lot less than the GC and the RGC not to mention the other winners (losers).
 
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Smoke'n Ice said:
My understanding of the KCBS and MO procedures, the reps are contractors to KCBS and not the cook-off. Therefore KCBS is liable for your expenses and then they would have to go after the additional fees per team and your expenses. KCBS has already been paid the sanctioning fee and the rep fee. Is this not correct?

Basically, what I am saying is you, personally, are not out anything, only KCBS has a potential loss of less than $500 for the additional per team fees and your expenses which they will pay. This is a whole lot less than the GC and the RGC not to mention the other winners (losers).
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Thats eye opening if thats the case. The cooks stand to lose the most?? Thats just pathetic.
 
here is another side...with the comp costs so high most teams are living from comp to comp....so for the last two years at the Guinea Pig I have had teams sign up and say "Ill pay you at the contest, Im good for it" Each of the last two years I have had a total of 5 no show and not pay and since there is no sponsor and the prize money comes from the full contest entry fees, I am out the money each year. The teams that did it the first year were upset they were denied entry the second year.

As much as it pains me (hahahah) to admit but KCBS does require a lot of information before you get on the website.

I know that this is not on topic per se but it is another side of money and organizers.
 
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