Sarah Phillips, ESPN’s alleged scam artist, admits making ‘poor choices’ ( 2011 article )

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[h=2]Sarah Phillips, ESPN’s alleged scam artist, admits making ‘poor choices’[/h] By Chris Chase
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The bizarre story of Sarah Phillips, the ESPN freelancer and alleged Internet scam artist, continued on Wednesday, as more people came forward to say they were conned by the former columnist.


Phillips, who posted around 10 items per month for ESPN since she was hired in September, was terminated Tuesday after Deadspin identified her as the ringleader of a scheme that allegedly conned popular web producers out of rights to their content. The 22-year-old used her lofty status as an ESPN writer to convince youngsters with high follower counts on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook to join a non-existent sports comedy venture. In exchange for a stake in that site, the producers turned over their comedic Facebook pages and parody Twitter feeds to Phillips and others. She was looking for rubes and the Internet was full of them.


As Deadspin and other websites have detailed, Phillips used these new sites to promote her own work. The sockpuppetry helped raise her Twitter follower count to over 60,000.


When two of the writers realized that the promise of riches from Phillips' venture was a pipe dream, they demanded she return their sites and passwords. According to emails, she responded with vague legal threats from lawyers who probably were as real as her sports comedy site.


Phillips promised one woman to be paid in exchange for her Twitter followers, and the woman claims she was scammed out of the money and her account:
Long story short, I never got paid and lost my Twitter account to this scumbag. As seen [here] Sarah kept making up excuses as to why I wasn't being paid yet continually. Months went on and I lost interest in retrieving my Twitter account until I realized something crucial. (Here is where the story gets interesting)


When I gave Sarah the Twitter account it had 2000 followers — after she got hired by ESPN it was now at about 50,000 followers. I emailed her and pretty much said — if you don't pay me the $500 that you owe me, I will take back MY Twitter account that has accumulated over 50,000 followers. Pretty good investment for me considering 50, 000 Twitter followers is worth A LOT more than $500.
Phillips admitted some deception in a series of tweets on Tuesday. The fake picture of a comely blonde she used as her original Covers.com avatar was to conceal her identity from future employers. She also said she made poor choices and fell in with the wrong crowd.


ESPN quickly ended the relationship and has managed to stay out of the forefront of the story. The network hired Phillips without meeting her, a common occurrence in the world of freelancing. She went rogue. (Or continued to be rogue.) When ESPN found out, it cut ties.


It's not clear how much, if any, she gained financially from her maneuvers, nor is it readily apparent that she broke any laws. If the allegations are true, she's guilty of misleading, cajoling, bullying, stretching the truth and being undeniably shady.
 
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<header class="">[h=1]Would You Like To Donate Money To A $50,000 Sarah Phillips Documentary? If So, You Are Too Late[/h]</header> 21,710



John KoblinFiled to: Sarah phillips 8/02/12 2:56pm




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A few days ago, someone wanted to raise $50,000 for a Sarah Phillips documentary. As we remember, Phillips got into all sorts of trouble while she was a columnist at ESPN and a gambling columnist at Covers.com. But this proposed documentary didn't set out to wrestle broader themes like creepy scams or the vagaries of cyber presences. Nah, it just wanted to tell you the story about a misunderstood person named Sarah Phillips:
Phillips was a rising contributor at the Worldwide Leader. She produced her first column for the website when she was 21-years-old in September 2011. Phillips was apparently very well regarded by those who personally knew her, according to multiple local columns in Oregon. Chris Singer, a former co-ed soccer teammate of Phillips, described her as being "nice, friendly [and] funny" to The Daily Barometer. Singer also described Phillips athletically as "[a] good soccer player."
By all accounts, Phillips was well on her way to becoming a star among sports writers and bloggers. In May 2012, that all changed.
Deadspin, a sports blog known for taking aim at ESPN's personalities, published a column claiming that Sarah Phillips may or may not be a real person.
Sigh. The movie set out to tell the true Phillips story since it was incomplete and "commenters began openly questioning Deadspin." And the moviemakers promised more than a movie about Sarah Phillips. They also promised access to her:
Phillips has been contacted for the past three months with interview requests from sports bloggers. Recently, she was contacted by ABC's 20/20 to provide her side of the story. Phillips has declined all requests.
Until now.
This proposed documentary will take viewers inside the life of Sarah Phillips. Phillips will detail her experiences from unknown sports forum poster in December 2010, to ESPN.com contributor in September 2011, all the way to making international headlines in May 2012. Most importantly, the documentary will answer the question: Who is Sarah Phillips?
Actually, most importantly, if you contribute now, and contribute significantly, you'll get to know Phillips.
Pledge $100 or more
A personal video message from Sarah Phillips + previous levels of rewards.
Pledge $500 or more
One hour *group* video chat with Sarah Phillips + previous levels of rewards.
Pledge $2,500 or more
One hour *individual* video chat with the crew (including Sarah Phillips) + previous levels of rewards. You will also be credited as an *associate producer* of the documentary.
Group chats, individual chats! Fun! The Kickstarter post includes a video that tells you a little about the Sarah Phillips saga, a video that was originally made by the Slate News Group. Two observations: The video has been edited just so. It includes updated photos of Phillips, including her latest Twitter pic and one glamour shot. And it also deletes some notable lines from Slate's original video, such as:
But according to the website Deadspin.com, the young woman has since used her ESPN position to scam at least two people, demanding that they pay her for everything from fictional website advertising to bad gambling advice.
But that hasn't stopped Phillips from defending herself on Twitter. Quote, I made poor choices with who to trust. I'll correct that moving forward. It's not an excuse, unquote.
Whoever dreamed up the project obviously thought better of it. The project was soon removed from Kickstarter. Maybe because they had no access to Phillips?
And, coincidentally or not, Phillips has really ramped up her tweeting in recent days. Her updated Twitter bio certainly indicates that she's not running away from the scandal. She proudly describes herself:
 
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<header class="">[h=1]Everything You Need To Know About Sarah Phillips, Former ESPN Columnist And Social-Media Scammer[/h]</header> 113,570


1
John KoblinFiled to: Sarah phillips 5/11/12 12:18pm




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Last week, we published a long story about Sarah Phillips, the ESPN columnist who, among other things, used her connections to the Worldwide Leader to hijack a teenager's Facebook venture. The story developed quickly from there, getting progressively more complicated as more tipsters came forward with their own Sarah Phillips stories. In case you got lost somewhere in the sea of updates, let's get you up to speed.
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
[h=6] Is An ESPN Columnist Scamming People On The Internet? [UPDATE] [/h] A few weeks ago, ESPN columnist Sarah Phillips concluded her weekly "Junk Mail" column… Read more


</aside> Who is Sarah Phillips?
She's 22 years old and lives in Corvallis, Ore. She attended Oregon State, but hasn't studied there since last summer.
So she's a real person?
Yes.
What's with all these different photos of her?
In some of her columns, Phillips used photos of a woman named Ivy Smith, a hairdresser in Eugene, Ore. In her eventual Twitter apologia, she said she wanted to conceal her identity.
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
[h=6] Sarah Phillips Admits She "Concealed" Her Identity, Made "Poor Choices With Who To Trust" [UPDATE] [/h] Sarah Phillips, the former ESPN.com contributor and self-professed gambling guru, is having a bit… Read more


</aside> How'd she get to ESPN?
Phillips developed a following in the message boards at Covers.com, a gambling website. Covers gave her a column, and in August 2011, ESPN's Page 2 came calling. We'll return to ESPN in a bit.
And who is this Nilesh Prasad guy?
Phillips was the distaff side of a sort of low-rent social-media-scamming version of Bonnie and Clyde; Nilesh was the other half. He is a few years older than Phillips—26, according to public records—and he shares an address with Phillips. According to one person who knows a number of Sarah's and Nilesh's friends, "Everyone here readily admits that Nilesh is more or less the 'puppetmaster' in this situation."
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How'd they meet?
According to some Oregon locals, Prasad and Phillips have known each other for years. It's not entirely clear if they're dating now, but it appears they got to know each other when she was in the eighth grade and he was a senior in high school. They worked at a T-Mobile store in Corvallis together and got fired together as well. A source told us they were "selling phones and activating phones outside of policy (selling them on eBay and other routes)," then claiming commissions.
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
[h=6] Meet Nilesh Prasad, Sarah Phillips's Scamming Partner And Supposed "Puppetmaster" [UPDATE] [/h] Here, at last, are some photos of former ESPN columnist Sarah Phillips and her partner, Nilesh… Read more


</aside> They seem like a good couple. What did they do to that kid with the Facebook page, exactly?
The kid is a 19-year-old college student (let's call him Ben) who had created a popular Facebook page, NBA Memes, a collection of LOLCat-like image macros of NBA players. Phillips asked him to contribute to her new web venture, the Sports Comedy Network. She told him to get in touch with the editor of the new site, who turned out to be Nilesh Prasad.
You said they "hijacked" his page. How?
Prasad told Ben that he was a "managing director" at ESPN.com who was on the cusp of being promoted to VP. (This was a lie—Prasad did not work for ESPN). He eventually got Ben to give up administrator rights to the page by raising the specter of a copyright-infringement suit. Under Phillips's and Prasad's control, the NBA Memes page became a vehicle to steer traffic to the Sports Comedy Network.
So what was the fallout?
Shortly after our story was published, ESPN cut ties with Phillips. She returned the NBA Memes page to Ben. It's unclear if the Sports Comedy Network will still launch.
That's it? This whole thing was about some kid and his Kobe lulz?
No. Ben wasn't the only one who got suckered. When our story came out, Phillips had at least two other people wriggling on the hook, Erik Miller and Brent Booher, creators of popular Twitter feeds @_Happy_Gilmore and @FauxJohnMadden. Phillips had told the pair that she was working with an editor at ESPN.com (presumably this was Prasad) on a new site, called FauxESPN.com, a precursor to the Sports Comedy Network. Miller and Booher were set to the join the team. All Phillips needed was—
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
[h=6] Another Sarah Phillips Scam: "I'm A Writer For ESPN And I Have A Plan To Take Over The World" [/h] On Tuesday, Sarah Phillips took to Twitter. She told us she was 22. She said she's happy that… Read more


</aside> Lemme guess: All she needed was access to their Twitter accounts
Correct. After our story was published, the two quickly ended their relationship with Phillips.
So she and Prasad were sort of a roving Twitter protection racket?
You could say that. It appears that Phillips was also in possession of another popular Twitter feed, @OhWonka. She also took over this person's Twitter feed so she could goose her own follower count. She agreed to pay him and then never did.
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
[h=6] Sarah Phillips Admits She "Concealed" Her Identity, Made "Poor Choices With Who To Trust" [UPDATE] [/h] Sarah Phillips, the former ESPN.com contributor and self-professed gambling guru, is having a bit… Read more


</aside> What's the point of a social-media scam, anyway?
Phillips told Miller that FauxESPN.com would be "a way for us to monetize the followings we've created on Twitter." The site would also lead traffic to her weekly stories at ESPN.com. More traffic for her ESPN work meant more traffic for her new web venture and so on—traffic begetting traffic begetting traffic. In fact, in Phillips's last piece for ESPN, she opened her column by linking to a photo from the Sports Comedy Network.
Was she involved in any other unorthodox business activities?
Here's one we know about: While Phillips was still writing for Covers, she and Prasad began work on a website called SarahPHI.com. At least two people, Matt and a person with EA Sports Consultants, provided money for advertising on the site. Not long after, the site was shut down.
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
[h=6] Is An ESPN Columnist Scamming People On The Internet? [UPDATE] [/h] A few weeks ago, ESPN columnist Sarah Phillips concluded her weekly "Junk Mail" column… Read more


</aside> Is any of this illegal?
Very possibly. Bradley Shear, a sports and social media attorney, identifies a "potential wire fraud issue here." He explains: "They were utilizing fraudulent means to have people turn over their internet assets. There are potential criminal issues here." Joseph V. DeMarco, a former assistant U.S. attorney who founded and ran a cybercrime team of prosecutors for New York's Southern District, sees a possible larceny case. Of course, anyone building such a case against Phillips and Prasad would have to put a value on those social-media accounts. That's easy enough to do when the accounts are owned by companies and used for marketing purposes, DeMarco says. It's much more difficult, however, when the accounts belong to individuals.
Still, all that seems pretty bush league. Did they ever get anyone's money instead of their social-media passwords?
Try this: When Phillips was still a columnist at Covers, one of her readers, Joe, asked her via private message if she knew of any reliable bookies. She directed him to someone who has the same phone number as Nilesh Prasad (and who almost certainly is Nilesh Prasad). Joe deposited a few hundred dollars with the bookie, who neither paid out Joe's winnings nor returned the original stake.
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
[h=6] Source: Sarah Phillips Steered Business To A Bookie Who Was Probably Nilesh Prasad [/h] So far, we know that former ESPN columnist Sarah Phillips and her partner, Nilesh Prasad, hijacked… Read more


</aside> That's ... theft?
Yes. "If a bookie isn't anything but a thief," DeMarco says, "it doesn't take a stretch of the law to hold him accountable." And what if a victim won't cooperate (since it seems doubtful a gambler ever would)? In theory, prosecutors could bring a case without a victim's cooperation, but it makes their job much harder.
Are they potentially breaking any other laws?
There are the obvious ones. If Prasad was indeed a bookie, he was violating federal law. And if Sarah Phillips was steering people to him, according to DeMarco, that too could be a violation of "various state laws and federal law," namely the Wire Wager Act, both substantively and under conspiracy and aiding and abetting principles. "It's a violation to be a front person for a bookie and to help a bookie run their business," DeMarco says.
What was Phillips's reaction to the first story?
Her initial response was a tweet not long after we published our story (and right around the time ESPN was cutting ties with her):
:(
That was soon deleted. Later that night, she again took to her Twitter and cryptically announced she was "cutting ties" with people. It's unclear if that referred to Prasad. She has not commented since. At last check, per Oregon State's student newspaper, The Daily Barometer, Phillips was still working at an AT&T store in Corvallis.
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
[h=6] Sarah Phillips Admits She "Concealed" Her Identity, Made "Poor Choices With Who To Trust" [UPDATE] [/h] Sarah Phillips, the former ESPN.com contributor and self-professed gambling guru, is having a bit… Read more


</aside> How did ESPN fuck up?
There are two arguments here. The first one is that no one at ESPN actually met Phillips in person. But this happens—you can't meet every freelancer you work with. The more damning issue is why ESPN hired her in the first place. She had been writing professionally for only a few months, and a quick breeze through her work at Covers would've shown that there were plenty of nagging questions about her identity, to say nothing of her writing. She was a walking red flag.
Why did ESPN hire her?
"I landed a job with ESPN because they thought I was pretty, quick witted, and knew my stuff," Phillips wrote a friend in an email.
So what's the moral of the story?
Well, there are any number of interesting angles. The story about Joe and his missing bets is a good glimpse into sports gambling as it operates today. On April 15, 2011—known as Black Friday—federal prosecutors hit three online poker sites with fraud and money-laundering charges. This drove internet betting further underground in general, which is why Joe was asking a gambling columnist for new bookie referrals to begin with. The war on internet gambling helped send Joe into the arms of the simplest of hustles.
OK, what else?
There's also the social-media hustle, which was addressed nicely by Chris Lehmann in the New York Observer. Sarah Phillips is what happens when personality becomes a commodity.
 
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And who is this Nilesh Prasad guy?
Phillips was the distaff side of a sort of low-rent social-media-scamming version of Bonnie and Clyde; Nilesh was the other half. He is a few years older than Phillips—26, according to public records—and he shares an address with Phillips. According to one person who knows a number of Sarah's and Nilesh's friends, "Everyone here readily admits that Nilesh is more or less the 'puppetmaster' in this situation."
17li0olqf32bhjpg.jpg

How'd they meet?
According to some Oregon locals, Prasad and Phillips have known each other for years. It's not entirely clear if they're dating now, but it appears they got to know each other when she was in the eighth grade and he was a senior in high school. They worked at a T-Mobile store in Corvallis together and got fired together as well. A source told us they were "selling phones and activating phones outside of policy (selling them on eBay and other routes)," then claiming commissions.
<aside class="referenced-wide referenced-fullwidth js_inset tmpl_referencedGroupFullWidth clearfix core-decorated-inset">
Meet Nilesh Prasad, Sarah Phillips's Scamming Partner And Supposed "Puppetmaster" [UPDATE]

Here, at last, are some photos of former ESPN columnist Sarah Phillips and her partner, Nilesh… Read more


</aside> They seem like a good couple. What did they do to that kid with the Facebook page, exactly?
The kid is a 19-year-old college student (let's call him Ben) who had created a popular Facebook page, NBA Memes, a collection of LOLCat-like image macros of NBA players. Phillips asked him to contribute to her new web venture, the Sports Comedy Network. She told him to get in touch with the editor of the new site, who turned out to be Nilesh Prasad.
You said they "hijacked" his page. How?
Prasad told Ben that he was a "managing director" at ESPN.com who was on the cusp of being promoted to VP. (This was a lie—Prasad did not work for ESPN). He eventually got Ben to give up administrator rights to the page by raising the specter of a copyright-infringement suit. Under Phillips's and Prasad's control, the NBA Memes page became a vehicle to steer traffic to the Sports Comedy Network.
So what was the fallout?
Shortly after our story was published, ESPN cut ties with Phillips. She returned the NBA Memes page to Ben. It's unclear if the Sports Comedy Network will still launch.
That's it? This whole thing was about some kid and his Kobe lulz?
No. Ben wasn't the only one who got suckered. When our story came out, Phillips had at least two other people wriggling on the hook, Erik Miller and Brent Booher, creators of popular Twitter feeds @_Happy_Gilmore and @FauxJohnMadden. Phillips had told the pair that she was working with an editor at ESPN.com (presumably this was Prasad) on a new site, called FauxESPN.com, a precursor to the Sports Comedy Network. Miller and Booher were set to the join the team. All Phillips needed was—
 

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What a tool.............she should get time over this............
 

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BAS

based upon this revelation, who immediately comes to mind? once again, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, .......................
 
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BAS

based upon this revelation, who immediately comes to mind? once again, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, .......................

listen... whatever it is, it is... I posted this to show how many Different type of scams there are out there.
I don't know what this current one is.. But nobody "Girl" just woke up one day and went from Health and Fitness to Gambling with the knowledge like that.
also found Every Sports Portal on the net. to boot !

anyway, she has been on post review since day one and they will stay.
What she does on other forums is none of my business ... once the truth comes out, we will decide what's the RX's next step
It's very clear that she wants to make a name for herself ... and that's exactly what she is doing.
When she started losing, she posted that she would take some time off. But after going 3-0, she's back bright and early the next day.
If she would have gone 0-3, no shot of her posting Today. She would have re-group and came back in a couple of days to try to go on another run.

again, it is what it is. Take it with a grain of salt

Whoever is behind the curtain does have an opinion. Just guess he needed an extra Twist to make it known.
If it's just some guy, it would take him longer to get noticed.
 

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This was exactly who I thought of after the first couple of threads by a certain someone. Just wasn't sure what the policy of posting links to articles was. Good looking out BAS.
 

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