A popular ticket auction website last week accused a competitor of trying to sabotage its online venue to promote his own newly launched rival website. According to Nate Lustig, co-owner of Madison-based ExchangeHut.com, Brandon Kelly, founder of UWPipeline.com and a defensive lineman for the University of Wisconsin football team, bought more than 80 tickets for $3,092 Jan. 31 in ExchangeHut.com auctions. ExchangeHut.com allows students to post their Badger athletic tickets in online auctions. Lustig added Kelly then sent e-mails to the ticket sellers saying he would not pay for or pick up the tickets he bought, and advertised his own website as an alternative. When contacted by The Badger Herald, Kelly said it was the first he had heard of the alleged scam and denied any wrongdoing. "I haven't heard anything like that — I don't know where that even originated," Kelly said. "I'm going on record saying I had nothing to do with it." However, Lustig said his ExchangeHut.com staff noticed last Wednesday two accounts with the same IP address — one registered under Kelly's WiscMail account and the other under "[email protected]" — were buying an irregular number of tickets. It was from those two e-mail accounts, Lustig said, that ExchangeHut.com users received the alleged e-mail messages from Kelly saying they would not be paid for their tickets. Lustig said the offense could easily be tracked back to Kelly because a member needs to activate his account through WiscMail, where he would need to provide his UW password. "The only possible way is if he gave his wisc.edu password to someone and they did it," Lustig said. "The way our registration process works, if you register an e-mail account, you have to log into your e-mail account and activate it. Someone either has it or he is flat-out lying." Lustig added he filed a report with the Madison Police Department, including his website's user logs and had his attorney send Kelly a warning letter. However, Lustig said the site would not pursue the case any further. "It was another person unethically using our website at the expense of other students," Lustig said. "[ExchangeHut.com users] all wanted us to pursue him. No one understood why you would try to screw students into using your site." After realizing the alleged scam, Lustig said ExchangeHut.com staff suspended the accounts, re-listed the tickets and refunded the ticket sellers. Kelly, however, said UW Pipeline would not take part in such unethical practices. "I'm a professional, and it's unnecessary," Kelly said. "As far as I'm concerned, we're working for the same cause. I don't see why anyone would do that to their website." One UW student who was selling his Iowa and Penn State basketball tickets on ExchangeHut.com said he was surprised when he received the suspicious e-mail after both tickets sold. "Apparently this guy was from Pipeline — he sent me an e-mail to go to Pipeline and have a better time over there," UW senior Michael Bodnia said. "I got automatically billed so I got pissed off, … and he pissed off about 50 other people. … That'll backfire."