Serious company headaches, can anyone advise?
Discussion
It all started about a year ago, an american company bought and paid for us to install and setup our software for them. It's an intranet/groupware solution.
What happened next was this company cloned our website exactly offering the exact same services and products, renamed our software and began offering it for sale.
It took us a couple of months trying to reason with the most arrogant of b*stards for them to take the site down, only for it to spring up under another name somewhere else. This guy then charged back both fees and despite my pages and pages of evidence to the contrary including *two* companies he had sprung up off the back of our "failed to deliver" charges, we got hit with the chargeback as well.
You would think that this would end at some point, yet this guy sets up sites on the net bringing us into disrepute, contacts our customers, sends constant bragging emails about our software being buggy, leaves comments on article reviews, registers domains and points them to porn sites...the list goes on. What caps it though is today I received a phone call from the "Inland Revenue" asking lots of personal questions. Later in the day I get an email back from Mr. Ethical telling me what I had said to the Inland Revenue guy...and he's gloating about it.
He's caused so much damage and I know that right now he's developing a competing product based on our code, yet I simply dont know what to do about it. I've been developing this app for over four years on pretty much a shoestring, less than that for months on end. I've lost so much time dealing with him and the personal impact is just, well I cant find words for it.
I have no money, I've invested everything into the development of this application so I cant fight him legally. I really dont know what to do about it, does anyone know of anything at all I could do? Can people just do this and get away with it? His chargeback amounts to fraud yet American Express doesn't really care.
I'm really at my wits end with this guy.
Anyone have any suggestions?
What happened next was this company cloned our website exactly offering the exact same services and products, renamed our software and began offering it for sale.
It took us a couple of months trying to reason with the most arrogant of b*stards for them to take the site down, only for it to spring up under another name somewhere else. This guy then charged back both fees and despite my pages and pages of evidence to the contrary including *two* companies he had sprung up off the back of our "failed to deliver" charges, we got hit with the chargeback as well.
You would think that this would end at some point, yet this guy sets up sites on the net bringing us into disrepute, contacts our customers, sends constant bragging emails about our software being buggy, leaves comments on article reviews, registers domains and points them to porn sites...the list goes on. What caps it though is today I received a phone call from the "Inland Revenue" asking lots of personal questions. Later in the day I get an email back from Mr. Ethical telling me what I had said to the Inland Revenue guy...and he's gloating about it.
He's caused so much damage and I know that right now he's developing a competing product based on our code, yet I simply dont know what to do about it. I've been developing this app for over four years on pretty much a shoestring, less than that for months on end. I've lost so much time dealing with him and the personal impact is just, well I cant find words for it.
I have no money, I've invested everything into the development of this application so I cant fight him legally. I really dont know what to do about it, does anyone know of anything at all I could do? Can people just do this and get away with it? His chargeback amounts to fraud yet American Express doesn't really care.
I'm really at my wits end with this guy.
Anyone have any suggestions?
this suggestion is possibly a load of bollocks... invoice him for some huge amount, then get a factoring company to sort out the collection of the debt? they have big blokes work for them.
might as well spend some time discrediting him, if you're that badly hit by it and are going down, take him with you?
seriously tho, why doesnt everyone reverse engineer everyone's software? it can't be purely lawsuits? i mean you used to have FAST to prevent piracy... what is there for such a similar activity?
what about getting a friend in another part of the country to ask about installing his software at their business and just wasting lots of his time, without signing contracts. make him go for meetings etc
(i admit i'm probably talking shite but what you've described really sucks so if anything sparks an idea then great)
>> Edited by shadowninja on Wednesday 13th October 23:35
might as well spend some time discrediting him, if you're that badly hit by it and are going down, take him with you?
seriously tho, why doesnt everyone reverse engineer everyone's software? it can't be purely lawsuits? i mean you used to have FAST to prevent piracy... what is there for such a similar activity?
what about getting a friend in another part of the country to ask about installing his software at their business and just wasting lots of his time, without signing contracts. make him go for meetings etc
(i admit i'm probably talking shite but what you've described really sucks so if anything sparks an idea then great)
>> Edited by shadowninja on Wednesday 13th October 23:35
A friend's company was the victim of a similar kind of attack. The chief mistake they made was in letting it distract them from getting on with the basic day to day running of the business. They started blowing sales cases through paranoia and inattention. This was precisely what the aggressor was hoping to achieve.
Thanks for the advice guys, its such an awkward one isnt it.
The company isnt going down, I'm actually a couple of months away from a new product launch. I've got money for the launch, but like you say, wasting it on getting him in court just hurts me as he wont pay up on any judgement. His company is registered in Nevada which makes it even worse.
I've been through the paranoia stage as well- not nice and very damaging.
I guess I'll just have to play dirty back, seems like the only option when you are tiny.
The cheek of it all is infuriating!
The company isnt going down, I'm actually a couple of months away from a new product launch. I've got money for the launch, but like you say, wasting it on getting him in court just hurts me as he wont pay up on any judgement. His company is registered in Nevada which makes it even worse.
I've been through the paranoia stage as well- not nice and very damaging.
I guess I'll just have to play dirty back, seems like the only option when you are tiny.
The cheek of it all is infuriating!
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