Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

It seems like whatever actions you take on the criminal law and civil law side will strongly impact what you do on the PR side. What are you doing on the criminal law side? Has your lawyer deemed this a crime? Has a DA confirmed this could be a crime? What are you doing on the civil law side? Has your lawyer determined this is a slander case or ??

Point being, on the PR side, you can report what is occurring on the legal side, such as the DA is investigating the matter or ??

Also consider how much attention you want to add to this matter. How much additional readership will your own PR activity create. Is the press likely to report on this matter? You will need a response if they do. I would consult with excellent crisis management PR firm, I think there are several such folks as members of MarketingProfs.

(disclaimer, I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice)

Some recent articles that may of interest:
https://www.businessweek.com/small-business/how-business-owners-counter-onl...
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/removing-false-and-slanderous-informatio...

As for your website - don't draw any attention to the others. Now's a great time to focus on your SEO to ensure that your website outranks theirs.

Aggravating as it might be, the best PR approach might be to just stick to your knitting and do what you do as well as you can. Anything you say publicly about the situation is only going to call attention to the matter and plant the seed in [potential] customers' minds.

You might make reference to "the original, don't trust imitators" in your copy, but that's as far as I would go. Include testimonials from satisfied customers, and underscore your professionalism, honesty, reliability, etc.

It's tempting to defend your hard-earned reputation in the press, but that's not likely to stick.

Life isn't always fair. Sorry to hear of your situation.

What isn't clear to me is how much this fake site and the work they are doing is gathering attention? How well do they show up in Google searches, etc?

I agree with the others that the right PR action right now may be nothing.

If you take him to court and win, then a PR blitz would be good. This would counter his fake words and show that he was wrong (not just your word against his, but you have a court verdict to prove it).

But until then, it is your word against his. If he is not doing a good job of actually getting the word out (and as many of us have seen, just making a web site doesn't mean you will get traffic), then your PR blitz right now would actually give him the audience he wants.

See what your lawyer says about sending out cease and desist letters to them. Perhaps the best solution is to scare them. You won't be paying them off, and they will be facing a lawsuit they will have to pay to defend.

I would also report it to the authorities. Blackmail is illegal, period. If you have documentation of how this party is doing it to your business, you'll have the evidence for the law to take it down -- and likely punish the person who is threatening.

Ask your current satisfied clients to provide testimonials and post them on every bit of marketing that you do. Also, emphasize and reemphasize YOUR website domain everywhere and like someone said above, include a "do not trust imitators."

If anyone comes and questions you, whether it's a potential client or media, tell the truth. You may even have to submit a Letter to the Editor to your local paper and/or website to state your case if your company is big and hugely affected, but again, don't do so unless it's a public hinderance, now. Honesty is always the way to go. So is providing spectacular service to clients who already trust you.

************ NOTE ************

I am not a lawyer and this is not to be considered or construed as legal advice.

******************************

PR is one thing, a violation of federal law is another.
You are being extorted and your lawyer may be an idiot.

If you are based in the USA, this link may offer valuable help. The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).

https://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx

Seek appropriate advice from this body without delay.

Ditto the disclaimer. But someone who is slandering you and asking for money to stop isn't legal in anyone's book Keep a log of all contacts If you think civil isn't an option-- think again, you'd be awarded court costs. Depending on the assets of the jerk, you could get a lawyer to do this on a contingency basis. Your lawyer may not have experience in handling these kind of situations, you need to find someone who does. Follow the advice of contacting the FTC. Research if this may fall into identity theft. I can't imagine a lawyer not advising a "cease and desist" order. Imagine if this was any larger company and someone creating this havoc.

As far as PR, defending your good name is the main way to show you care about your name and reputation. I'd do a campaign, often imitated, never duplicated. List a "Be sure" you are dealing with the right company" and put some identifiers on your site.

You give into this $3K, mark my words, the next attack will be 10K to take it down.

Ah, this might be a bit brutal, but most truths are:

does this person's right to freedom of expression offend you?

Yes, as harsh as this may be, in a true democracy, you must support another person's right to free speech, even if it is VERY offensive to you.

Now, keep in mind, I said free speech. SLANDER is entirely another thing. Your lawyer may have reviewed this other person's comments, and may have found that there is not enough to lay charges of slander. All justice is financial, it may cost you a lot of money in legal and lawyers fees to press your case (and point).

I assume you have this person's demands for money in exchange for taking down his web sites in writing? If not, you only have hearsay, and no proof to present.

Now, if you DO have proof of this person's blackmail demands, you might be able to fight fire with fire. You might want to consider making a website called: person'snameblackmaildemand.com or evilpersonextortionletter.com (insert actual name of your blackmailer) and post a screen shot or scan of the extortion letter.

Use a tool called www.domaintools.com to look up the owner of all the domain names of the web sites this evil person has made, Again, take screen shots of the search results, and post the images on your extortionletter web site.

The point is, you will post all the information you can find about this person and their despicable unethical practice. While you may not be able to stop the person from being an unethical douche bag, you certainly can make a counter case demonstrating this person's unethical actions.

And remember, one person's negative review, or even a few 'revenge' web sites may not be enough to kill your business. There are all kinds of negative and poor reviews on www.yelp.com and www.urbanspoon.com, and many a business has withstood negative press. Stick to the high road. Collect testimonials from your satisfied customers. Get permission to post satisfied customer's comments on your web site. Perhaps even ask your satisfied customers to act as references for your business, including taking reference checks from prospective customers. Nothing builds confidence in a company like quality testimonials and references. At least it will forces your opponent to up his efforts even more to try and discredit you. Your opponent will tire eventually for there is little reward in a concerted effort to tear someone else down.

Keep your chin up, and focus on serving your other customers and building a better business. Remember, you can't please everyone, every time, and; not everyone is destined to be your customer.

Good luck.

Darcy Moen
Customer Loyalty Network and Reputation Management

I am not an attorney, and please do not interpret my advice is legal. To me, it seems up to make recommendations without knowing about your product and service and target market. Do you make a limited number of really large sales, or lots and lots of small ones? Are you working in a small geographic area, or nationwide, or worldwide? Do you market and sell in person, or through channel partners, or only over the Internet? do you have an established brand, or are you in the process of introducing yourself to your target market? Since I don't know that much about your situation, I'm shooting in the dark. But I would suggest that in addition to whatever you do to try to preserve your existing name, you might also consider marketing your services under a new and unblemished additional name.

In a worst-case scenario, this would allow your business to continue to make sales.