[AusNOG] *STOP THREAD* Re: Trouble with an ex-Customer

[Patrick Webster]

I'm sure the guys at http://2600.org.au won't mind.... AusNOG censorship
TCP/IP my why not?

Incidentally, the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_State_Super#Controversywent to the
Rocks LAC, which then referred it to my residential LAC, and
those guys knocked on my door. I believe it is referred from whichever LAC
the complaint is reported. It is somewhat unfortunate, because (no
disrespect), the local LAC guys with their glocks were struggling at http
colon slash slash. Fjear! Confused the hell out of me - had to give them
some business cards and brochures (once again, no disrespect) because I
wasn't really sure what they were trying to say to me, but at least they
knew where to find me.

As for the service etc, very much depends on fair trading and your T&Cs
etc. Sure you know this.

Re: locking out access from devices, I've personally experienced situations
where we are locked out so the almost slave labour 3rd would country staff
can "fix" what they themselves broke, and get like a $30AUD bonus to fix,
which is heaps where they live, and it occurs on an unusually frequent
basis. They went as far as terminating our remote admin sessions
interactively to prevent us looking at the device and logs. We had to get
them removed from the physical access situation unfortunately. What else
could we do? It was pretty much extortion, and they'd been doing it for
years.

Providing they haven't been locked out, who cares. IANAL but let the legal
team do their job and bill your client for your legal fees. They probably
won't pay anyway, since they haven't paid prior bills, so go for an
insolvency claim instead, seize their shiz and send the directors to the
cleaning house.

I wouldn't be too worried about the CyberCrime unit. They have their place,
sure, but little items like billing disputes should be so far out of their
radar, you're on another continent.

Don't rush to delete their information. There is a little thing called
shredding and encryption you know.

It is an offence to disrupt comms, but as you said they have access anyway
- heh whatever. You *must* remember, that police are /police/. Their job is
paramilitary and their sole responsibility is to charge and/or send humans
to gaol. Nothing more. They are not by any means experts at law, and they
make [often illegal] mistakes on a daily basis against the community.

Maybe you should just take out an AVO against the entity and
representatives. AFAIK there is no reason why you can't, and all future
communication must be through legal channels - whilst maintaining your
insolvency claim.

See how they like them apples.

-Patrick

On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 8:46 PM, Skeeve Stevens <
skeeve+ausnog at eintellegonetworks.com> wrote:

> I understand the request Gavin, but fyi, until I am arrested, it is not
> sub-judice and can be openly discussed.
>
> Anyway, the responses have been helpful.  I am not going to let this
> dickhead beat me. Hopefully I will be the last person he screws over.
>
> Thank you for the dozen private emails with very useful advice on how to
> deal with them.... some of those suggestions will be very helpful.
>
> Anymore helpful advice, please send off-list as not to upset the mods.
>
>
> ...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 ; linkedin.com/in/skeeve
>
> twitter.com/networkceoau ; blog: www.network-ceo.net
>
>
> The Experts Who The Experts Call
> Juniper - Cisco - Cloud
>
>
> On Tue, May 7, 2013 at 8:39 PM, Gavin Tweedie <gav at narx.net> wrote:
>
>> [*STOP THREAD* is a request by the list moderators for this thread to end
>> immediately. Full details announced @
>> http://lists.ausnog.net/pipermail/ausnog/2013-April/018219.html]
>>
>> This thread is not on topic and furthermore as police are involved this
>> is not the appropriate forum for this discussion.
>>
>> Gavin
>> (on behalf of the AusNOG Board)
>>
>> On 7/05/2013 11:20 AM, Skeeve Stevens 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 <mailto:skeeve at eintellegonetworks.com> ;
>>> www.eintellegonetworks.com <http://www.eintellegonetworks.com/>
>>>
>>> Phone: 1300 239 038; Cell +61 (0)414 753 383 ; skype://skeeve
>>>
>>> facebook.com/eintellegonetworks
>>> <http://facebook.com/eintellegonetworks> ;
>>> <http://twitter.com/networkceoau>linkedin.com/in/skeeve
>>> <http://linkedin.com/in/skeeve>
>>>
>>> twitter.com/networkceoau <http://twitter.com/networkceoau> ; blog:
>>> www.network-ceo.net <http://www.network-ceo.net/>
>>>
>>>
>>> The Experts Who The Experts Call
>>>
>>> Juniper - Cisco - Cloud
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> AusNOG mailing list
>>> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
>>> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> AusNOG mailing list
> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausno<http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ausnog.net/pipermail/ausnog/attachments/20130508/ad459f67/attachment.html>