A Momentous Occasion? My First Threat of Legal Action.

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I knew the time would come eventually. I know from reading about other's experiences that I would get a threat at some point of legal action.

I didn't think it would happen so quickly because I don't have much traffic yet. The other interesting thing is that I just posted this review yesterday. The person must have a Google Alert and is notified when reviews go out.

Anyway, I received a note from 1&1, who my domain is registered with currently. This person went through my domain registrar and not even through my site? Not even sure what that's about.

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The subject line says: Legal Action Commencing Against (my web URL)

Dear Christina, I write with regard to your website: (my web URL) And specifically with regard to your "review" found on the following URL: (the review page) You have until Monday 19 November

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Then it gets cut off. I'm sure it says I need to take it down.

It seems like an empty threat, so I'm not too worried about it. Just looking for some advice here. Has this happened to you? What do you do?

- Christina

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Recent Comments

55

The comments below indicate that you should just ignore the issue.
I Don't Agree.

At the minimum, you should do a full backup of your site in preparation for your site to be shut down by your registrar.

Next, I would contact your registrar and determine if in fact this email was sent from them.
It sounds to me like you have a legitimate concern that this might cause your site to go offline.

I would transfer the site to WA hosting just in case.

The site is hosted at WA. I just have my domain at 1&1 for now until it's up for renewal. I'm going to keep an eye on it, but I think it's just the product owner trying to scare me off. I'm not too worried about it. I will do a backup of my site - just in case, and because I need to do that anyway!

- Christina

I would do nothing.

That's my plan!

- Christina

Like getting a letter from the IRS, sometimes it is just not real. Looks and appears scam. Legal action should come from a legal entity.

Yes, I get a lot of phone calls from the IRS telling me I'm going to jail. So I'm used to this type of thing. lol

- Christina

Some just don't like the truth, if your review is honest, straightforward and unbiased without any deformation of the company (which I'm sure it is) then you have nothing to worry about.

The fact that they couldn't even serve you a proper court summons letter says it all. This is a classic scare tactic, I call empty treats.

It does seem like an empty threat to me. I'm sure they're just trying to scare me off. I should tell them to let me test their product and if it works, I'll rewrite the whole thing. (But they would never do that because I'm positive that it doesn't work.)

- Christina

Since the email was not even completed, I would presume at this juncture that it is one of those 'naughty' emails. A real legal action should come from a legal firm and not directly from a person or a corporate.
Some of the signs of spammy email were there: incomplete, no specification on the subject matter, it's not from a legal firm (I presume). And it smells fishy :)

Do nothing at the moment. Not even reply the email.

Joe :)

Yes, Joe! I think you're right. It does smell fishy. That's immediately what I thought when I saw it.

- Christina

Sounds like scam...
Click nothing

Exactly what I'm going to do for now - nothing.

- Christina

Hey Christina,
Hope you are ok. I imagine that you got a bit of an adrenaline rush when you read that email, or a knot in your stomach, or your heart skipped a beat.
Hopefully it is nothing but an empty threat.
Please keep us posted if anything changes.

Thank you! I am fine. Hey, if their product was actually something good and legit, then I would have written a positive review and all of this would be unnecessary!

- Christina

:) sometimes the truth hurts...

Stay strong!!!

Wow! It has not happened to me but I definitely want to read the advice you receive on this! Good luck girl!

Thank you! I will likely just ignore this one for now. I'll keep you posted if I get any more threats. Should be fun. :)

- Christina

Congrats that is awesome and not even a real threat! I've had one of those, if they were really going to take legal action they would have contacted you.

If your domain contacts you just tell them that they need to contact you directly and since you have had no direct correspondence you cannot take the threat seriously.

That's what I did and I never heard anything again - that was about 2 years ago.

If you've been threatened you are making waves. Nice one.

Excellent! That's kind of what I was thinking too, Lynne. Good to hear from someone who's been through it.

- Christina

Please let the experienced ones say something. Sounds empty to me as well. You have until Monday to do what?

Hmmm

I don't know! I couldn't figure out where the message was located at 1&1. They didn't mention anything in the email. They just said to contact them using an alternative email address if I didn't want them to know the one connected to that domain.

I'm not going to respond. At least not yet.

- Christina

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