Bevils NV · @bevils1sg
14th Mar 2018 from TwitLonger
The situation with eRa
Let me preface by saying this is going to be a long read with no TL:DR at the end, but in short, we have been scammed by eRa Eternity and the owner/CEO CJ Kornhaus. What's written in this statement only regards the Call of Duty team, although I have been made aware it goes deeper than just us and teams that represent eRa from other games are also now having to deal with very similar circumstances.
In our contracts it was stated that we were to be paid $5,500 per month but we would not be paid until the 4th of March (45 days) and we were to receive those 45 days worth of pay on said date. This equals to around $13,000 owed as of the 4th of March.
I spoke to CJ via twitter dm on the night before the 4th of March and was assured we would be paid the following day and everything was fine. March 4th comes around and to our surprise, CJ is all of a sudden having problems with the "investor" and it would now take a little while longer to be paid. We were a bit skeptical about what was going on because days before, eRa's management started jumping ship and when we were told the money wasn't ready to be paid out on the 4th obviously we all knew something was wrong.
We decided to not go public immediately and give eRa the benefit of the doubt despite it being quite clear everything was beginning to fall apart. After a week or so went by, we were still not paid and were told the "investor" had backed out completely and eRa had no means to pay us what we are owed.
Despite ALL this, again, we gave CJ and eRa the benefit of the doubt and gave him time to find a new investor or bring the previous one back on board. Days go by and we decide it is time to tell CJ that we will be going public in the coming days. Later that night, CJ told us that the previous investor had contacted him back and the cause for the delay was a medical emergency and that they were still wanting to invest into eRa. We demanded CJ show us some kind of proof despite us assuming he was just trying to buy time. CJ showed us text logs of his conversation with said investor seemingly trying to prove that our payday was coming very soon. We were told that the investor would be sending CJ the money on March 12th and we would be paid the following day.
We were mostly not expecting the money to actually come but we tried to remain somewhat optimistic and we were certain that if we were not paid on the 13th of March, we were going to escalate the situation by going public and seeking legal counsel. Early on the 13th it was made clear to us by CJ the money had not come in and here we are.
It's somewhat mind blowing to me that people like this are still around in the pro level of esports although the fact it surprises me is probably due to my own naivety.