WebdesignR
Junior Member
What is the name of your state? Colorado
Good day,
I have a rather complex situation and I_ve gone through the forum and I can_t find any similar case so I decided to ask for your wise opinions.
I am from Ukraine but I own a registered Delaware LLC company providing web design services and I_ve been registered with the state since 2004.
I contacted an American content provider (copywriter) from Denver Colorado about 7 weeks ago to do some job for my company. Initially, all went well the first 5 days and he turned in about 4 articles from a total of 100 he was initially contracted for (his initial estimate was a maximum of 7 days to complete the project which he imposed on himself not me!). Well, I was like fine with it because we planned for a total of 6 weeks for the whole process. In the course of the following days, we added some other project of which I always asked him a timeline and if he thinks this is something his company can deliver by the 28th of February of which his answer was always _Yes we can do it even faster_. We added 4 new projects bringing the total content to 500 articles of 600-700 words each. He made me believe all the while that he had about 6 employees which are highly trained and good at what they do and that he has over 200 of the articles done already but he just would not send them out without editing just to make sure they are to the highest standard.
About 18 days ago, I sent him a mail that he should please just send me all the content he has even without editing so I just know I_m not waiting in vain. He took offense in that and went ballistics threatening he would send me out of business and other stuff. He said I sent him too much jobs and now I_m asking him to hurry up. That statement rang a bell in my head that the guy was the only person in the company so I told him if I don_t get a minimum of 25% of the articles I_ll do a charge back.
He has been intimidating me ever since and kept sending emails to various agencies trying to make good his claim that he would put me out of business. He sent this to the Attorney General of Delaware some days ago (I_ll change my surname to X for obvious reasons):
_As it turns out, Mr. X misappropriated this phone number from an unsuspecting business owner in California: Kitchen Solvers of the Inland Empire. He simply took this number from its rightful owner as part of his scheme to open up financial accounts in the United States. By that I mean Mr. x simply is using this number for his own purposes on financial applications and the likes in hopes that no one actually will call the number. I have spoken this date to the owner of the business enterprise to which this phone number is assigned. He advises that he has also experienced unauthorized transactions involving one of his own accounts which he believes very likely is related to the fraudulent activities of Mr. X.
Despite the fact that Mr. X is holding himself out as a citizen and resident of the United States, with a business he is operating from the United States, he actually is a citizen of Ukraine and has established a shell company to mislead clients and service providers in regard to his national origin. The rationale behind this rests in the fact that people in the United States and in many other countries in the world looking to obtain and provide professional marketing services do not turn to Ukraine providers for assistance. Therefore, by holding himself out as an U.S. national, he is able to dupe people, he is able to fraudulent induce people to do business with him..
In reviewing my course of communications with Mr. X over the term of my business relationship with him, which lasted a couple of weeks, I have reviewed instances in which he requested my banking account information so that he _could pay fees directly into my bank account._ Fortunately, I did not provide him such information. However, and obviously, this is a tremendously large red flag, seen in retrospect._
And of cause I followed up with the guys at Inland Empire ( which happened to be the owner of our old 1800 number) that he claimed told him they suspect I was using their eBay account and it and this was his reply:
_I have not made a claim to an unauthorized transaction. The only problem was and is between you guys. Your company has corrected the error on your web site as requested. I only found out the phone number mistake from the guy in Colorado. This will be followed by a phone call in the morning to ask why this is being said about me. I am not in this dispute and don_t have the time for this.
Thanks_
I have all email correspondence and 100% certain that I never, ever in my life told any one I am an American, I have never in my life asked this guy or anyone else to provide me their account or banking information. In fact, all our transaction went through paypal and I never asked him to tell me his paypal account info aside from the email address needed to send payment. I always asked him to send me an invoice through paypal which I paid promptly.
Sorry for the long letter but there was no way to make it shorter without loosing vital information to help you advise me.
All our communication was through emails and I have a backup copy of every single mail from and to him.
It may be important to add that this guy turned out to have a criminal past as narrated here http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_20070115/ai_n17129075 (you can Google his name and you_ll see what he has been doing ever since he said he repented).
Why am I concerned? He has been spreading slanderous statement which he knows is untrue and is going to harm my business, reputation (I have 22 employees that all depend on this company with their extended family in some cases). It is already having a negative effect on me as I have been sleepless ever since and my blood pressure would not just get back to normal!
Where should I start?
Thanks for your time.
Good day,
I have a rather complex situation and I_ve gone through the forum and I can_t find any similar case so I decided to ask for your wise opinions.
I am from Ukraine but I own a registered Delaware LLC company providing web design services and I_ve been registered with the state since 2004.
I contacted an American content provider (copywriter) from Denver Colorado about 7 weeks ago to do some job for my company. Initially, all went well the first 5 days and he turned in about 4 articles from a total of 100 he was initially contracted for (his initial estimate was a maximum of 7 days to complete the project which he imposed on himself not me!). Well, I was like fine with it because we planned for a total of 6 weeks for the whole process. In the course of the following days, we added some other project of which I always asked him a timeline and if he thinks this is something his company can deliver by the 28th of February of which his answer was always _Yes we can do it even faster_. We added 4 new projects bringing the total content to 500 articles of 600-700 words each. He made me believe all the while that he had about 6 employees which are highly trained and good at what they do and that he has over 200 of the articles done already but he just would not send them out without editing just to make sure they are to the highest standard.
About 18 days ago, I sent him a mail that he should please just send me all the content he has even without editing so I just know I_m not waiting in vain. He took offense in that and went ballistics threatening he would send me out of business and other stuff. He said I sent him too much jobs and now I_m asking him to hurry up. That statement rang a bell in my head that the guy was the only person in the company so I told him if I don_t get a minimum of 25% of the articles I_ll do a charge back.
He has been intimidating me ever since and kept sending emails to various agencies trying to make good his claim that he would put me out of business. He sent this to the Attorney General of Delaware some days ago (I_ll change my surname to X for obvious reasons):
_As it turns out, Mr. X misappropriated this phone number from an unsuspecting business owner in California: Kitchen Solvers of the Inland Empire. He simply took this number from its rightful owner as part of his scheme to open up financial accounts in the United States. By that I mean Mr. x simply is using this number for his own purposes on financial applications and the likes in hopes that no one actually will call the number. I have spoken this date to the owner of the business enterprise to which this phone number is assigned. He advises that he has also experienced unauthorized transactions involving one of his own accounts which he believes very likely is related to the fraudulent activities of Mr. X.
Despite the fact that Mr. X is holding himself out as a citizen and resident of the United States, with a business he is operating from the United States, he actually is a citizen of Ukraine and has established a shell company to mislead clients and service providers in regard to his national origin. The rationale behind this rests in the fact that people in the United States and in many other countries in the world looking to obtain and provide professional marketing services do not turn to Ukraine providers for assistance. Therefore, by holding himself out as an U.S. national, he is able to dupe people, he is able to fraudulent induce people to do business with him..
In reviewing my course of communications with Mr. X over the term of my business relationship with him, which lasted a couple of weeks, I have reviewed instances in which he requested my banking account information so that he _could pay fees directly into my bank account._ Fortunately, I did not provide him such information. However, and obviously, this is a tremendously large red flag, seen in retrospect._
And of cause I followed up with the guys at Inland Empire ( which happened to be the owner of our old 1800 number) that he claimed told him they suspect I was using their eBay account and it and this was his reply:
_I have not made a claim to an unauthorized transaction. The only problem was and is between you guys. Your company has corrected the error on your web site as requested. I only found out the phone number mistake from the guy in Colorado. This will be followed by a phone call in the morning to ask why this is being said about me. I am not in this dispute and don_t have the time for this.
Thanks_
I have all email correspondence and 100% certain that I never, ever in my life told any one I am an American, I have never in my life asked this guy or anyone else to provide me their account or banking information. In fact, all our transaction went through paypal and I never asked him to tell me his paypal account info aside from the email address needed to send payment. I always asked him to send me an invoice through paypal which I paid promptly.
Sorry for the long letter but there was no way to make it shorter without loosing vital information to help you advise me.
All our communication was through emails and I have a backup copy of every single mail from and to him.
It may be important to add that this guy turned out to have a criminal past as narrated here http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4179/is_20070115/ai_n17129075 (you can Google his name and you_ll see what he has been doing ever since he said he repented).
Why am I concerned? He has been spreading slanderous statement which he knows is untrue and is going to harm my business, reputation (I have 22 employees that all depend on this company with their extended family in some cases). It is already having a negative effect on me as I have been sleepless ever since and my blood pressure would not just get back to normal!
Where should I start?
Thanks for your time.