As already posted in MTTc, Jack McDermott scammed multiple people during SCOOP including myself. His good friend Warren Bennett also scammed me for a much smaller amount but a scam nonetheless. I was their long time backer leading up to SCOOP and dropped them for reasons you'll see below in our correspondence. This will be a long post but I want to get as much in there as I can.
I started backing Warren about 3 years ago after he was put in touch by another British horse I had at the time who vouched for him. The relationship was fine, small profit here and there and no issues with transfers or anything. At one point with ~7k in makeup, Warren disappeared for a few months (this wouldn't be the first time that happened with these guys.) I attempted to contact him a few times and he finally got back to me saying he had some things happen and that he didn't have a computer or a place to grind. Because he had been no problem in the past and I trusted his friend and I wanted to recoup the makeup, I gave him $500-$800 (I can't remember the amount or find the convo, I think it may have been on facebook which I deleted but I'm going to look further into my skype to find that convo if it's there) to get a laptop and get playing again. It worked out well as he got out of makeup and plenty more over the next few years. He also suggested to me that I back his friend Jack. Jack wanted to play a little higher than I wanted to back so I said no but eventually he agreed to the stakes I had in mind. This was the beginning of a pretty good relationship for almost two years. Financially everything went great. They both crushed for a good amount of time, sent the money in a timely fashion and stuck almost 100% to their schedule. I moved them up in stakes with results and they were happy. Communication on the other hand was always pretty bad but I gave them leeway because they did grind hard and always were good with the money.
Last year around April they both fell off the face of the earth. All forms of contact were ignored and I was actually concerned about their well being. Neither had much makeup at the time (maybe 10k combined at the absolute most) and I had a lot going on so I didn't do much other than try and contact them every week. A few months later, I think it was in August I was contacted by them both saying they were ready to get back to playing. I asked questions about why they were gone and all I got over and over was "it was the worst times of our lives." So I didn't really pry about it too much assuming it was a family issue, possibly jail or something weird. I explained to them profusely that it was completely unacceptable to do that again and how I felt and they agreed to improve communication and never leave like that again. Everything went great online with them winning, communicating just fine and even meeting and hanging out with me in London for the UKIPT. I actually played the entire day 1 on Jack's table and Warren on the table behind me and had a fun day/tourney as I was able to make the FT. After London they continued to play with no hiccups and some really good results.
In October I began my plan to get out of poker full time. I thought the game was passing me by, the variance getting bigger, tougher games, etc... I considered dropping them as horses then but decided to let them keep going out of loyalty and a little bit of greed (they just kept winning so why stop). I did have a plan to drop them if they had a big downswing but they kept winning.
While Jack was crushing to start 2015, Warren Started to downswing really hard. He lost about 30k about as fast as possible for his stakes. In April after I hadn't heard from them in a couple weeks (which I didn't think anything of, I was visiting some friends in Louisiana, was rarely on the computer and I know that poker players need time off especially after that type of downswing) I got this Whattsapp message from Warren's number.
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The email that I'm referring to is this below.
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I spent a few weeks trying to find someone to back them with me and couldn't find anyone. I know some guys with pretty big stables but they just didn't want to take anything on right before SCOOP. The last week of April I decided to end the deal and that led to the following conversation on Whattsapp that was a little hostile but seemed to be fine with me ending up buying 12.5% of Jack's SCOOP and 25% of Warren's smaller package. The money was sent by Purecash25 (who would be happy to confirm this as he's one of my best friends in the world) as I was in the U.S. In the email to me about the package he even said "You deserves first looks at this." I'm glad I didn't end up buying more which I considered at the time.
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After sweating the big score I sent Jack an email congratulating him and actually asking him to buy a piece of my small WSOP package that I planned to play. He didn't respond but it was mid SCOOP and I didn't think too much of it. So after a few days I sent the following message to try and some money sent to my brother on Stars and that is when everything turned bad.
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I responded on Whatsapp a couple times but they obviously blocked me as the blue checkmark was never there. After a few days I began to email them and also asked a friend of mine who had met Jack in London and also bought a piece of the package if he had any contact. He told me that he hadn't but Jack had sent him his portion of the score on stars. I was nervous from the get go when I read this message just because of how brash it was. Had he just ignored me I would have thought that he might listen to reason eventually but he obviously was set on not paying right away.
I sent multiple emails to both of them in attempt to make it right. I got zero response from either. I tried to reason with them saying it's not worth it to end your reputation like this, that the UK is a small community etc.. but no response. I have talked about how I bought Woz a new computer to get his life going again, how I gave Jack a $500 bonus after he won the thrill to take his boys out partying, how I gave them another chance after no contact in four months but none of that got a response.
I haven't even looked at Woz's cashes during SCOOP because it was such a small amount but regardless I got no response or any money sent from either so he's just as guilty as Jack. I honestly don't believe that Woz intended for this to happen, he probably just got caught up in Jack's deal and maybe got a piece of it on the side for keeping quiet or something.
At this point I don't expect to see any of this. Based on his brash responses, lack of empathy, and also how he acted in London around me and my friends I just think that he's from a different place than I'm familiar with. He doesn't give two sh*ts about reputation or anything. I really thought that it was a possibility last year that he was in jail during the 4 month disappearance and based on the facebook response that Robert received from his friend, my intuition was probably correct.
While I don't plan to receive any money I do want to do whatever I can to destroy their reputations online by any means necessary. That will probably just have to be making websites linking their names, backgrounds, passport photos (I have them), all poker photos from pokernews, etc.. and hope that someday down the road that it bites them in the ass. Please contact me if you have web development knowledge and would like to be paid to build the sites for me.
Lastly if anyone has another way to possibly collect, information on him and his family or anything that can help me please dm me.
Last edited by Videopro; 11-24-2020 at 02:54 PM.
Reason: per op request