quincy
Senior Member
Yes, I have no doubt that this was the worst $2500 you have ever spent. I am sorry you were enticed into paying this investigative service to handle the matter for you instead of consulting with an attorney in your area.... Unfortunately this was the information given to me by the person working on my case. As mentioned earlier, I was not satisfied about the work done and demanded a refund which was not given. You can look up "XXXX Investigation Services" in google. I have no intensions of making this up. They did run some standard background checks on my brother and found his address and stuff. That is about it. The consolidated list of 70+ sites which had malicious content in one huge pdf document and sent it to me. Worst $2500 ever spent and yes it was my fault
The important thing is that you asked your mom to intervene. Perhaps she will talk to your brother later.... I have even asked my mom to intervene and asked her to compensate me through my brother but she refused.
If you are defamed online and wish to "unmask" your anonymous defamer, you need a court to issue a subpoena. A court will generally not issue a subpoena until you present to the court a "prima facie" case, a pretty solid case that will withstand a motion to dismiss. In other words, you generally need to file a defamation suit against a "John Doe" defendant first and show the court that your suit has merit but, in order to proceed with the action, you need John Doe's real identity.I thought the XXXX investigation service will find the evidence but unfortunately they didn't. I don't even know how to pursue getting evidence. I thought these sub poenas against "John Doe" on these websites such as google blogs and vimeo etc would force them to surrender ip address and remove my name from search results. Atleast thats what I was told. Thats the reason I went ahead with legal action. The attorny referred by this investigative guy works with them and now I know why I was referred. I didn't know what to do so I actually believed people who acted as if they will get things sorted out for me. I went on reddit and was scammed by some people claiming to find the culprit. I still believe that it is not that simple & easy for people to find evidence against online defamation. The process is very expensive & I wish people are informed in advance what they are getting into.
If your evidence of defamation is sufficient, the court will issue the subpoena, it will be served on the website and the website will comply with the court order by releasing the anonymous poster's account information. Prior to disclosing the account information, however, the website will notify the anonymous poster of the subpoena and the poster will have the opportunity to present to the court arguments why his/her identity should not be revealed ("quash" the subpoena).
Once you have the identity of your defamer, you can proceed with your suit.
Having an attorney who works with defamation law on a regular basis is generally your smartest option when considering a defamation lawsuit. Although the initial cost may be greater than with an attorney who is not familiar with defamation cases, the overall costs to bring a suit from start to finish will often be less.
But, yes, defamation actions can be expensive, especially when they involve online postings and when the posters are anonymous.
The decision as to what to do now is up to you.I need to have a back up plan before I do that. I am not going to make a decision in rush so that I get to pay two attorneys at a time. I am waiting for the results of the sub peonas. I need to know what course of action these websites take and then I will decide what to do.
You do not have to pay to file a DMCA notice. These notices are easy to create and submit using information you should have on hand. I am sorry you fell for any organization that charges for filing a DMCA notice. See http://www.copyright.gov and do a DMCA takedown-notice search. This is all free.One of the pictures was from my wedding and was copyright. Two others were facebook pics taken with my iphone. Once again paid $250 at XXXXX.com professional take down service and google refused to take it down. Looks like facebook pictures even though private do not constitute as copyright protected. The wedding pic was not even on facebook and it was shared with family members only.
I would say some things have a reason. Other things are unexplainable.Every thing has a reason. He is married to a woman for immigration purpose. My parents were unaware of it. I informed them and my mom had a heart attack because he is the youngest one and we usually do arrange marriage in our community. Mom got sick and my brother got pissed that I did this to him so he blamed my moms sickness on my actions. I guess he has really good friends who believed him and all of a sudden I am the bad guy. It is what it is.. Thanks for you advice.
Good luck.
Last edited by a moderator: