Fraud Alert: Protect yourself

Fraud Alert: Protect yourself

Integrity is the most important characteristic for all of us.

Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one’s actions.

As an individual, and particularly as a business owner, your integrity is on the line every day. It is challenged daily by our actions and decisions we make with employees, vendors and customers. It needs to be a guiding principle and top of mind at all times.

Unfortunately the Internet provides a platform for others to post things about you that are sometimes fraudulent. These posts can be very damaging to the integrity we are building our entire lives. In fact, there is no way to respond to these website posts or have them taken down unless you are willing to pay money either to the poster or a lawyer. Be aware and careful, and protect yourself.

Here is Dave Walens’ tale of caution:

In 2006, Dave Walens was cold-called by a stranger trying to sell him on SEO research for his websites. The stranger, who said he had researched Dave Walens, knew about the various company websites Mr. Walens owned and insisted he could help. Not needing this service at the time, Dave Walens repeatedly turned these services down.  Yet this man, who claimed to have extensive expertise, persisted in calling Dave Walens over the period of a year.  The self-proclaimed “expert” on all of Dave Walens’ websites insisted he could guarantee his work and that Dave Walens’ websites would be first in search results organically as a result of the vendor’s SEO research and strategy. This expert sounded like he knew what he was talking about and his philosophy was simple: research the keywords, write copy for Walens’ websites and use the proper metatags to ensure Dave Walens’ websites would be first in organic search results. After a year of this sales pitch, Dave Walens finally decided to give it a try, but only as a limited trial for one of his websites. Walens agreed to pay the man a flat fee of $1,200 for this experiment.

In providing SEO services for the selected website, for one of Dave Walens’ textile companies that manufactures custom rugs, Walens’ newly hired SEO vendor used simple terms such as “rugs” as keywords.  Then, approximately two weeks later the newly hired SEO vendor showed Dave Walens the results of his test research. All this showed Dave Walens was how many searches were done for various keywords. (See attached report.) That did not impress Dave Walens. Of course, Dave Walens is a man of his word and he paid the flat fee of $1,200, but did not want to hire this SEO vendor for any additional work.

In the end, however, the now-fired vendor submitted a bill to Dave Walens for three times the amount originally agreed upon. The vendor ignored the initial contract and felt Dave Walens owed him more because the vendor’s experiment — which he himself proposed — had taken much longer to research than he had expected. This was unfair and not agreed upon. So, as a good and ethical businessman, Dave Walens paid the money agreed upon for the project, but refused to pay any additional cost.

Dave Walens expected that would be the end of it. Unfortunately, however, it later came to Walens’ attention that someone had falsely accused him of not paying a debt.  The anonymous poster attacked Dave Walens’ integrity and honesty and clearly was seeking to harm his profession reputation. Dave Walens was shocked to discover that a person could attack his character and reputation anonymously on the Internet without him knowing anything about it.  Dave Walens learned about this only when he was contacted by an attorney in another state with a client who had also been attacked, apparently by the same “anonymous” poster. The poster was ______ and he obviously didn’t explain the whole story. Instead, by omitting any mention of a contract dispute the poster created a false impression that Dave Walens was a deadbeat rip-off artist who refused to pay his debts.

At best this was a contract dispute between two businessmen, yet this particular SEO vendor did not seek to sue. Instead, he took revenge by publicly attacking and tarnishing Dave Walens’ character and professional reputation anonymously on the Internet.

Dave Walens consulted his own attorney for advice, but ultimately decided that the expense of a lawsuit was not worth it. It seemed the best way to handle the situation was to ignore it and it would go away. Indeed, like many of us, Dave Walens was taught early on in life that “sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me.” As Dave Walens learned, however, this adage does not apply to the modern web. On the Internet, your online reputation is not necessarily related to reality. Anonymous posters can harm your reputation in an instant without you even knowing what has been said. Online you are a stranger to many potential customers or business contacts who are reading and judging you based on false information and impressions. This was the case for Dave Walens, who has now learned that the false information does not disappear. When he started Googling his name, he found that the first thing people would see was the anonymous poster’s malicious post.

Dave Walens sought the advice of Cynthia Counts (http://www.lawcounts.com), an expert in libel and privacy law. Ms. Counts explained the difficulty of suing the poster, even though it was fairly obvious who the anonymous poster was, and advised Dave Walens on the applicable law and the parameters for best practices for defending his reputation online.

Dave Walens learned that to sue for defamation or libel, you must file your lawsuit within one (1) year from the date that a defamatory statement is posted. Also, the law is well settled that a claim for defamation or false light cannot be based upon the contention that a report omitted information and thus “did not tell the ‘whole truth.’” [Jim Walter Homes, Inc. v. Strickland, 185 Ga. App. 306, 309 (1987); accord, Cox Enters., Inc. v. Bakin, 206 Ga. App. 813, 817 (1992) (contention that omission of information “create[d] a false impression” about plaintiff “will not support an action for libel”)].  Of course, an upset customer or vendor has a constitutional right to complain, but there is no right to “misstate[], distort[] or arrange[]” facts in order to convey a false impression, which Dave Walens believes occurred in this situation.

Even if there had not been a statute of limitations problem, Dave Walens would have spent a great deal of money to prove that this man’s omission of important facts was intended to convey a false impression that would not be considered protected “opinion” under the First Amendment. Also, the judicial process is slow and the posts would remain as Dave Walens spent money fighting to prove the falsity. In the end he might not even prevail because of the strong constitutional protections that protect even false speech.  Worst of all, it was too late at this point for Dave Walens to sue even if he wanted to because the statute of limitations had expired.

So, what was Dave Walens to do?  Ms. Counts suggested he combat negative speech with his own speech, saying that Dave Walens could and should tell his side of the story.

Dave Walens is now telling this story to help others. These websites and posts can be damaging and can happen to anyone. He thought he was doing something good by allowing this person a chance to help both parties. Instead, he was taken advantage of and unfortunately was hurt in return.

Be careful and always remember to protect your integrity, but know that this is no longer enough. Dave’s advice is to Google your name and seek to proactively protect your online reputation. What you don’t know can certainly hurt you. If you find you are a victim of an online assault, seek expert legal counsel in the field of libel and privacy immediately. You may not choose to sue, but you will be better equipped to protect yourself.

All the best,

Dave Walens