[AusNOG] Trouble with an ex-Customer

Tue May 7 20:36:46 EST 2013

I feel your pain, have been involved in similar before and heard plenty of
horror stories.

Firstly regarding that law and the detective, I'd imagine they'd have had
to put on a real show (which by the sounds of it wouldn't have been hard...
fit over you expecting him to read his email? wow), so regardless of the
actual finer points I'd suggest it is just an intimidation tactic without
much teeth (i've got similar stories from my dad and such). Having said
that, you should probably treat it as if you'd just hacked into and broken
ASIOs routers, given your lawyer has been contacted by a detective, who can
arrest you no matter how little he knows about computers and/or how stupid
he is to believe the song and dance.

Having said THAT, I bet when you said you'd be deleting their information
they misunderstood and jumped to a massive conclusion, probably involving
seeing that detective earlier today. I could certainly picture one or two
of the clients I've had to deal with going off the handle like that and
freaking out to that degree, completely understandable in computer/internet
illiterates.

Secondly, just be aware of the potentials in discussing an on-going
investigation, especially criminal. It doesn't sound like they've actually
proceeded to charge you yet, sounds like the detective just wanted the
other side of the story, but yea..

Thirdly as others suggested, if it isn't a great deal of money just leave
the ship and run. What they've already done proves they are hysterical and
the track record of reaching any sort of satisfactory conclusion when
dealing with people like that is not good. It sounds as if you are already
doing that, and they are just trying to drag you back in with the anchor
over this impairment nonsense, but maybe have the lawyer ask for their
'demands'.

Good luck!

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 8:20 PM, Skeeve Stevens <
skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:

> So,
>
> This is a new one for me.... and I'd like to know what the community
> thinks about this situation.
>
> Background first...
>
> We have an ex-client, a micro ISP who has been very hard to deal with over
> the time we've been involved with them.
>
> Basically, They've been a customer for over a year, but only on a minimal
> basis.  We offered them a higher level of service - even offered to let
> them try it out for a couple of weeks for free before signing up to the new
> level.  They seemed happy, and at the agreed upon date we asked them to
> sign the agreement and can we issue the invoice.  They agreed to the
> issuing of the invoice and then we sent the paperwork to them a little
> later.
>
> Life goes on for a couple of weeks, and we're getting no response to
> questions about the agreement or to overdue notices - while still
> delivering them the service.  They request a meeting, and we agree... The
> customer has some new staff who were quite arrogant, abusive, and question
> everything we've ever done - even though they have no idea about this
> industry or how it works.
>
> We don't appreciate being abused, so we say we'd rather not do business
> with them anymore and suspend their support services with us the next day
> due to the non-payment of their account.  All good and normal.
>
>
> So a few days later they come at us with legal letters claiming we've
> locked them out of some devices - which we haven't - we ceased doing any
> work for them immediately.  We explained that we would help them with
> whatever they needed - if all they did was pay their overdue invoices.
>  They could do anything they needed themselves, but they are just clueless.
>
> Now, this has been dragging on for a few weeks with letters between
> lawyers, with them claiming all sort of bizarre things.  My stance is that
> 'without paying their invoice, we're not doing any work for them at all...
> no handover, no anything'.  I am not in the habit of being bullied into
> doing work for people - nasty letters or not.  They also threatened they'd
> gone to the NSW Police Cyber Crime unit... who I called, and they just
> basically shrugged their shoulders and said they'd received nothing yet but
> will let me know if they do.
>
> Today we informed them that we will be deleting all information that we
> hold of theirs in a few days (all documentation, etc).  I don't really want
> to put us at any further risk by having access to their information -
> whether it is still current or not.  We're completely within our rights as
> we have no legal requirements to keep anything for them.
>
> So, an hour or so ago I got a call from my lawyer.  He was contacted by a
> detective at the Kings Cross police station.  Apparently they ex-customer
> has gone to the cops and made some claims and a detective seemed to think
> that their claim may be valid under Section 308E of the NSW Crimes Act<http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s308e.html>
>
> The reason I am posting here is to draw on the communities experience of
> these kinds of things.  I've not heard of the NSW Police getting involved
> in these things, especially at the local station level... but it seems they
> are.  I think that they are just using the Police to attempt to intimidate
> me into doing work for him... but I won't tolerate that.  I am more than
> happy to let them arrest me and let the DPP figure out how to prove their
> case against me.
>
> Firstly, my lawyer agrees that they can't compel us to do work for them
> without paying.  I also believe that under the Act above, that we haven't
> "impaired" (by the Act's definition) anything by not giving them any
> information or knowledge we have.  The lawyers agree.
>
> My view here is that they are free to go to any consultants anywhere...
> hire who they like, but I am not going to be pressured into doing work for
> them without them a) paying any unpaid invoices, or b) paying for any new
> work they want, such as handover, etc.
>
> This is a frustrating situation as over the time we've been involved with
> this customer he has been abusive and used very violent language in his
> dramatic outbursts about completely bizarre things (like us expecting him
> to read his email).
>
> I am sure some will say I shouldn't be discussing this here, but this
> bullshit of going to the cops because I won't do work for him without him
> paying his bills, is a new depth of stupidness I didn't think even they
> would go to.
>
> So I am wondering if anyone else here has had these sort of intimidation
> tactics used against them in this sort of context.
>
> If you have advice, but want to send it off-list, feel free.
>
>
> ...Skeeve
>
> *Skeeve Stevens - *eintellego Networks Pty Ltd
> skeeve at eintellegonetworks.com ; www.eintellegonetworks.com
>
> Phone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeeve
>
> facebook.com/eintellegonetworks ;  <http://twitter.com/networkceoau>
> linkedin.com/in/skeeve
>
> twitter.com/networkceoau ; blog: www.network-ceo.net
>
>
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