Calblog

Infotel Update

Justin is doing a series of posts on legal action against bloggers. No comments so I wil have to post later to respond to them. First, the update on the company that tossed me into a legal fray -- Infotel Publications. According to The Telegram, Infotel has changed its name to Vericom and changed its phone number. This info came up in my comment threads but the reliability of comments have been less than perfect (though more right than wrong).

Vericom/Infotel appears to be targeting the UK now although an acquaintance called me a couple of months ago to tell me that his sister was being harassed now in the US.

Infotel Raided

As longtime readers know, about a year and a half ago, I posted what I thought was a passing comment on Infotel Publications, which was demanding about $300 from my law firm. That resulted in a firestorm. I got not one, but two, legal threats and made significant news around the blogosphere. I invite those who contributed to the discussion to highlight their efforts in the comments.

There are some comments on the original Infotel thread that Infotel has been raided by the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and federal agents (of the Canadian government's Competition Bureau). I have confirmed that information through a story in St. John's Telegram. If you want to read the story, you have to search the archives and pay $3.95. The Canadian federal agency has not given out details on the raid yet.

UPDATE: I corrected the name of the police and the name of the newspaper.

Infotel and the Democratic Party

Make of this what you will (but share your thoughts if you like!). In 2003, the Democratic Party paid for an Infotel Directory.

Infotel Update

The motion, scheduled for today in Canada, is "suspended", which is the Montreal equivalent of "off calendar." I'd say it's suspended because . . . but I've practiced law long enough not to speculate on why the opposing counsel does anything.

Suspended does mean it can come back.

Infotel Update

I spoke to Mr. McConomy, Infotel's barrister today. He asked me to remove all infotel postings. Certainly not what the petition asks for. I invited him to have Infotel give me any information showing that the posts are false. If anyone reading this post has any contact with Infotel, please pass along that invitation as well.

All I know is that the identity information may be false. That could mean people are avoiding spammers or are in fear of retaliation from Infotel. How many of you want to put up with what I get? False identity doesn't indicate that the information is false.

Stopme if I've told you this

Ok we have to review a little. There was the original Infotel posts and the comments. Then someone called infolie said he posted false comments. I posted the letter and the uk comments I found. Since then I have gotten more email. In one, he claimed that he was responsible for other comments and listed a bunch of addresses. Since I had no way to guess whether those were or weren't his comments, I wrote back and asked him to instead post his note in the comments so that anyone reading could see his claim and decide for themselves what to believe. No response AND no post in the comments.

On Monday, yes, yesterday, I received this:

Hello,

(Hello Ted)

Do you SEE how annoying this is?

Infotel afternoon update

The law firm that served this motion, McConomy Liverman, does not appear to have a web presence.

I found some Quebec law, including this case, which suggests that there's no jurisdiction over me just for having a Website. I still don't know what statute we're proceeding under but I have paying clients to handle also.

I've sent opposing counsel a letter. We'll see where it goes.

Infotel takes legal action

Ted Franks has filed a petition in Montreal, Quebec, seeking the identity of various commenters on the Infotel thread. I was served by registered mail. I got the slip last night and picked it up this morning. The hearing is Friday. Did I mention in Montreal, Quebec?

The full petition is attached. I don't know if there's jurisdiction over me in Canada but my litigator's basic instinct says that I lose any right to complain of jurisdiction if I respond in substance. Plus, they want names addresses and phone numbers, none of which I have. So my immediate reaction is to not respond.

I'll see if I can access a basic primer on Quebec law in English and gather more info.

The story that will not die

For those of you still following the Infotel story, there's a new update on the original post. I have deleted some of the comments.

Infotel in the UK

I've created a separate category for these posts because there appears to be continued interest. Recent comments to the original post indicate that Infotel (and maybe this blog) were featured on BBC's Watchdog program and that some UK paper is reporting that Trading Standards is looking at them. I have been unable to verify those reports. If anyone has a link that they can provide me let me know. In addition, the sidebar on the main page has a link to my firm website with an address you can send non-virtual things to.

I'm being investigated

I received this email today.

Hello Justene,

My name is Jeff Cameron and I work for a Computer Forensics company called H+A Computer Forensics. I am currently involved in an investigation and one of my leads involves your website calblog.com. I was wondering if you could answer a couple of simple questions for me. I won’t ask anything specific, just a general idea of how your logging works. At that point, I will contact the clients and they can tell me how to proceed.

Can you give me an idea of the information provided by people to post messages and comments to your website? I can see that people post a user name and a hyperlink.

Can people post different comments, using different user names every time, and they never register on a more permanent basis?

When a comment in posted to your database, does the program log the IP of the user?

This information would be contained directly in the database tables and may not be viewable through the web interface. It is a fairly standard practice and I was wondering if you knew how it worked. If you are not sure, or can put me in contact with the person who coded your website, I would appreciate it.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I would be happy to speak with you.

If he were in the US, I might think it was related to some political appointment. He's in Canada though. I wonder who it could be.

Your Infotel Update

I have returned home and reopened comments on the original post. Well, I tried to do that. With luck, they'll be there when you read this.

Despite rumors to the contrary, I have not been sued yet as far as I know. Nor have I been contacted again.

So all's quiet on the western front. When I know something, I will post it.

Infotel

In my travels, I maintain pretty good email contact, though very little other contact. So I told the Infotel lawyer to email me. He's called my office twice. The first time he spoke to my partner, the second time my partner didn't return the call. When I got my update from the office, I wrote him again and asked that he email me. Still nothing. So that's where we stand boys and girls. I'll be more proactive when I am back from the mystery trip. All of the blogosphere support has really helped me focus on the fact that I want to defend free speech even though it's tempting to give in. After all, before the threats, Infotel was about 1/10th of 1 percent of the posts here and not very important to me.

An interesting development

Despite the fact that I tend to be very careful about what I say here, this post has apparently upset the subject of the post. I suppose they did not see this post, which is slightly more positive.

They have not contacted me, but they have contacted my web hosting service to complain. I suppose they thought it was easier to find the address of my host but the link to the firm website, complete with contact info, is pretty obvious. My host has been very reasonable (and pleasant!). The site and the posts aren't going anywhere yet.

Infotel Update

This was an interesting little foray. I explained the problem here. Our letter telling them to stop calling (which they are required to do after notification under the Fair Debt Collection Act) seemed to do no good. They continued to call. I got good comments and an interesting email from a Canadian reporter who has been following them.

My complaint to the Attorney General's office got me a form letter and an FCC handout on phone scams. The handout told me that, if it was a scam, I didn't have to pay but not how to stop the calls.

Finally, the NH Better Business Bureau did the trick. Someone form the company called and resolved it right away. Interestingly, they took it off because the person they had down as making the purchase was my receptionist, who does not have authority to purchase such things. No telling how far we would have gotten if they had the name of someone who did have authority.

Infotel Publications

Has anyone else had this problem? Having no idea of who they were, we started receiving bills from them. We called to complain and they insisted that we had told one of their telemarketers that we would buy a listing in their publication. Numerous calls and similar discussions later, one of the attorneys here wrote a letter, the kind we write for clients when there's a dispute. In response, we received another collection call. Previously, our letters always stopped the calls to our clients. Why won't it work for us? At this point, I'm sure they're thinking we'll pay the $300 to be rid of them.

UPDATE: This thread gets a lot of traffic. I believe that most of the readers of this thread do not visit the rest of this blog. So first, let me say, this is my personal site. I would prefer that commenters not attack each other or engage in namecalling. I won't allow any more "personal information" beyond names to be posted. It's very easy to go to blogspot.com and get your own site.

My comment policy -- which is to not edit comments -- will be lifted for this post. If you wish to edit any of your own comments, email me. In particular, I will not allow the posting of personal info of Infotel's owners or employees.

If you ordered a directory from Infotel, you must pay for it. If you did not, contact the Better Business Bureau. The BBB has no enforcement powers but is willing to deal with Infotel for you and try to reach a resolution. When I contacted the BBB, the matter was resolved QUICKLY and the person who called to resolve it was VERY NICE.

If you believe that you were the victim of a scam, whether by this company, or any other company, you should contact the attorney general. The attorney general tracks complaints, will not get your money back, and will only investigate a company if they receive a lot of complaints.

UPDATE: Comments are turned off while I am on the road.

UPDATE: I've created a separate category for these posts because there appears to be continued interest. Recent comments to this post indicate that Infotel (and maybe this blog) were featured on BBC's Watchdog program and that some UK paper is reporting that Trading Standards is looking at them. I have been unable to verify those reports. If anyone has a link that they can provide me let me know. In addition, the sidebar on the main page has a link to my firm website with an address you can send non-virtual things to.

UPDATE: I received the following email.

Hello Justene,

Infolie

As a result, I am deleting the comments that I was able to attribute to this email address and the posts purportign to be from UK and discussing Watchdog.

UPDATE: Commenters should visit this post.