So the past couple days I have been super busy with contacting several offices about an issue that happened to me a couple day ago. As you may know my twitter account got suspended. Which is beat! I was like nooooo! But in any case I filed a support ticket with twitter to find out the reason and ofcourse to get it activated.
I then found out a site that was spamming twitter using my name and my LLC to promote a stolen digital product. I was piss! The site contained several other marketers to make it seem credible I guess. At this point I didn't really know what to do. I started emailing people I know and to see what I should do next. I also started researching on Google to see what the next step would be. I even contacted a friend which is a lawyer, to see what he recommends..
So what I basically did was filed a complaint with blogger.com as well as a DMCA with blogger, as that is where the site was hosted. I also contacted Paypal to have the account frozen. I was recommended to file a Cease and Desists but did not have the full information to mail one out, which I was hoping to have within 24 hours.
I even contacted several marketers that were on the page as well.
So what were the results? Well the site has been removed from blogger and I am waiting for my twitter account to be reinstated, which it should since I have been in contact with twitter support on this and have kept them up to date on the situation. ...cross fingers...
The reason my twitter account was suspended is because they assumed the person was an affiliate and since they are spamming twitter, they hold the users on the site responsible. But I explained to them that the site was unauthorized to use my name and my LLC as proof to sell a stolen product.
So I hope they understand my issue and I had no part in this situation to get my twitter account active again. So this was a big lesson learned for me and I know next time what to do when someone uses my name or LLC to try to be me and gain credibility from my brand and my name.
So with this happening to me for the first time, I was kinda surprise it did happen to me. I would not think it would ever happen to me. I honestly did not think something like this would ever happen to me online. Guess I was wrong. It is a good thing I have copyright notices on all my active sites.
If you ever been in a situation where you or your company name is being used illegally without permission. You can use these sites below to help you as they did for me.
- File complaint with PayPal if they are using Paypal as a shopping cart - you will get an immediate email back with a pdf file in which you fax over to them.
- Contact Paypal Acceptable Use Policy Department
- Contact Blogger on Issues if the site or illegal action is on Blogger
- Create and send a Cease and Desist letter without counsel. Sample
These are the steps that I took when I handled my issue, I hope this will help you if this ever happens to you and in which I hope it does not. So definitely research the issue but these are teh step that happened with my specific issue and teh actions I took.
...lets just hope my twitter account gets activated today...
