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I had a nasty bout with an SEO marketer a few years ago. He had taken content from my website and other assets of mine without permission or advance request. I

I had a nasty bout with an SEO marketer a few years ago. He had taken content from my website and other assets of mine without permission or advance request. I was willing to overlook it as an inevitable cost of doing business. But when he started to steal my customer reviews word for word and posting them as fake reviews, I became irate. I guess I am OK with someone stealing from me but I felt the reviews were my customer's property, not mine. When I confronted him he started spamming my business and then wrote detailed fake blog posts about how I was criminal hacker that now works covertly for the FBI. My name and photoshopped images were posted on gay websites for bondage sex. I Googled very poorly for a while, especially my images. I lost many many nights of sleep over this and I probably lost a contract over it. I eventually found where he lived and fortunately he owned his own home. I threatened to sue him and take his home. He removed all the libelous posts shortly after that. After all had been settled, a few months later he wrote me asking if I wanted to partner with him on a project, demonstrating a pathological lack of awareness. Apparently tormenting me had just been another fun day at the office and not a memorable event. I ignored him and never heard back. My personal experience does make me wonder if the subject in the parent article was motivated to kill his competitors just for profit. Or did he and his competitors have had a nasty on-going personal war that just kept escalating. Not that I would ever justify attempted murder. Just saying... edits: grammar, clarity.

alunchbox 9y ago
well that escalated quickly. Hope I never have to get into a situation like this, happy to hear it got resolved.
danmaz74 9y ago
Out of curiosity, why didn't you report these facts to the authorities? Fear of wasting time, or of retaliation, or something else?
- matart 9y ago
  Not the original poster but I feel that sometimes you just want it to be over even if taking a loss on it.
- strathmeyer 9y ago
  Not everyone is rich.
  - zipppy 9y ago
    You don't need money to report to authorities, only to battle over in court.
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    I was talking about reporting a criminal case, not suing. With criminal cases it's the State which pays for everything, I think?
    - CodeWriter23 9y ago
      In my experience, having had two former employees of my mom’s shop and a strong arm robber arrested, it came down to me handing the police work to the detectives. The other complaints we filed, just to name one, another employee stealing inventory from mom’s shop in Manhattan and selling it to a vintage shop in Brooklyn went nowhere because we didn’t have surveillance in the store showing she stole it despite there being surveillance in the other shop showing she sold it. Or the time I caught a kid red handed with my bike, and the cops wouldn’t do anything because I didn’t have a bill of sale despite my ability to describe the bike and it’s serial number. They gave me the kid’s address and said if I demanded my bike back and he gave it to me, I could keep it. The kid was running a bicycle chop shop in his garage. So yeah, if you want the cops to close a case, you need to help them and that costs money. Unless you get lucky and everything is obvious and the case closes itself. Or in case of a murder. They tend to actually put resources into solving murders. Or anything where they can reasonably seize loot. But property theft or damage doesn’t really register.

alunchbox 9y ago

well that escalated quickly. Hope I never have to get into a situation like this, happy to hear it got resolved.

danmaz74 9y ago

Out of curiosity, why didn't you report these facts to the authorities? Fear of wasting time, or of retaliation, or something else?

matart 9y ago
Not the original poster but I feel that sometimes you just want it to be over even if taking a loss on it.
strathmeyer 9y ago
Not everyone is rich.
- zipppy 9y ago
  You don't need money to report to authorities, only to battle over in court.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  I was talking about reporting a criminal case, not suing. With criminal cases it's the State which pays for everything, I think?
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    In my experience, having had two former employees of my mom’s shop and a strong arm robber arrested, it came down to me handing the police work to the detectives. The other complaints we filed, just to name one, another employee stealing inventory from mom’s shop in Manhattan and selling it to a vintage shop in Brooklyn went nowhere because we didn’t have surveillance in the store showing she stole it despite there being surveillance in the other shop showing she sold it. Or the time I caught a kid red handed with my bike, and the cops wouldn’t do anything because I didn’t have a bill of sale despite my ability to describe the bike and it’s serial number. They gave me the kid’s address and said if I demanded my bike back and he gave it to me, I could keep it. The kid was running a bicycle chop shop in his garage. So yeah, if you want the cops to close a case, you need to help them and that costs money. Unless you get lucky and everything is obvious and the case closes itself. Or in case of a murder. They tend to actually put resources into solving murders. Or anything where they can reasonably seize loot. But property theft or damage doesn’t really register.