Chilling Effect: How A Behemoth Company Can Silence A Blogger
March 17, 2008 
The content of this article is a long overdue explanation to my readers about sudden disappearance of posts addressing one particular company, namely ePerks. If you are not familiar with the issue, you probably will be much better off to skip this post, because it is going to be a very long post. If you however interested in Chilling Effects, you might as well stick around. I believe I have a classic example how can a behemoth company silence a blogger.
If you are a regular reader, you may remember several posts on my blog addressing dealings of ePerks. These post have generated over 200+ comments. Majority of those comments were quiet negative to say the least. On February 13, I have received a Cease and Desist (see below) notice from ePerks attorney. The letter contains nothing but untruthful accusations. To write 200+ comments on my own posts would require my presence in 200+ locations across the United States in a span of very short time frame. The accusation that I am financially involved with ePerks competitor(s) is complete lie, because ePerks was the only company that I was financially involved with. In fact they paid me to write a review about their website. The only thing that did not go according to their plan, was the fact that many of my readers are real estate agents. This also taught me a difficult lesson about “paid or sponsored reviews” model of blogging. Needless to say I discourage you to ever write a paid review.
It was not easy decision to take the articles down. It felt like I was betraying all those who commented on my posts. But I simply wanted the issue to go away, because I was also tired of moderating my posts from false testimonies of ePerks fans, who would leave four or more “positive” reviews during just one single visit to my website.
So why am I publishing this post? It appears that many visitors and regular readers are still looking for those posts and I think they deserve an explanation:
Hi! My name is ***** and I am a real estate agent from *******. I have had an absolute horrible time with eperks…disputing unauthorized charges (canceled in Jan but still getting charged) among numerous other complaints! Filed with the BBB also. A link to your blog pops up when I search eperks scam, but I can never actually get to the blog? I was hoping you could help me out…would really like to read it.
Thanks!
I also hope that some of the leading real estate blogs and websites will notice this issue and will stand up for the freedom of speech on the Internet. I also have reasons to be concerned about my and my family’s safety.
So without further ado, here is the letter I received from Ronald J. Cook:
WILLOUGHBY, STUART & BENIN
A Professional Law Corporation
50 West San Fernando, Suite 400
San Jose. CA 85113
Phone 408 289 1972
February 13, 2008
Volodymyr (Vlad) Zablotskyy
Street
City, State Zip
Re: My Client: Eperks.com
Our File: 1805.10806C
Dear Mr. Zablotskyy:
I represent Barbus Ventures Corporation, the parent company for ePERKS.com. You are hereby instructed to terminate your ongoing efforts to unfairly disparage and slander ePERKS.com through the dissemination of false and/or manufactured information. Any resistence to our demands will be met with swift and decisive action.
As you well know, we are referring to your blogs that reference the name ePERKS, including such title as “ePerks- A Scam Or A Gem”; “How Much Does it Take to Take Advantage of a Realtor?”; “ePERKS- Putting The ePerks Saga to Rest”; and “ePerks- Three Critical Mistakes a New Startup Should Avoid”, amongst others. Your blogs create the false impression you are inviting comments from legitimate ePERKS customers, when the truth is your only goal is to cast ePERKS in a negative light for personal gain. In that regard, your blogs deceptively fail to inform the reader that you are motivated by an undisclosed proprietary interest in an ePERKS competitor.
Having researched the content of your blogs, we have come to conclusive proof that a substantial number of your postings are bogus, in that they frequently describe experiences that never happened and people who do not exist. Moreover, you are fully aware of these fals stories, yet posted them anyway. Your complicity of their creation is very serious matter.
Our research also shows that negative remarks are not only invited, but are posted without a challenge. Conversely, favorable remarks are met with hostility and belittlement, including demands that the posting party either prove they are participating agents, or do not work for ePERKS.
We have determined that our damages as a direct result of your activities are in multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such substantial money and brand name damages can no longer be tolerated.
You are hereby instructed to promptly do the following: (1) shutter and prevent access to all blogs with any ePERKS reference or content; (2)remove any record of their existence; (3) terminate any links pointing to any blogs that reference ePERKS; and (4) cease and desist from any and all current and future digital, print, Internet or verbal reference to ePERKS.com or Barbus Venture Corporation. This includes closing down your January 28, 2008 bog that continues to direct readers to your previous remarks and postings. We demand that you complete these actions immediately, and in no event later than five days of this letter. Your failure to comply will result in prompt legal action, including, but not limited to, a claim of money damages and appropriate restraining orders.
We will be closely monitoring your activities. Barbus Ventures Corporation continues to reserve any and all rights under the law, including the right to pursue any and legal remedies against you, your employer, your clients, and/or your web host. Should you have any questions or comments about the contents of this letter, please contact the undersigned.
Respectfully,
WILLOUGHBY, STUART & BENING
Ronald J. Cook
I also would like to say thank you to at least two bloggers for offering their support and help. Although if it only meant to take links to my blog down: Paying bloggers to say nice things and Eperks commercial.
Posted in 
content rss
“The letter contains nothing but untruthful accusations.”
Then why remove the posts? I understand that it can be very scary to get threatening letters from attorneys. But have you consulted an attorney yourself?
You are asking that “leading real estate blogs and websites will notice this issue and will stand up for the freedom of speech on the Internet.”
And I suspect they will. But you didn’t stand up yourself…
Talk to Joe at sellsius. (http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/) He may have some ideas or connections.
Jay,
I am standing up for myself now.
“Why remove the posts?”
Well I don’t know…. How about facing a behemoth company that spends zillions on TV commercials?
At the time of receiving the C&D I had no attorney….
Is it too late to stand up for myself now?
P.S. the posts including all the comments will be republished soon.
….Vlad Zablotskyy, author of the “Go Beyond MLS” blog has received a Cease and Desist letter from ePerks — a company that signs up agents (and others) to offer discounts to consumers…..
……..Well, it seems we’re not so far removed from the days of the schoolyard bully. Today, Vlad Zablotskyy, author the blog at Go Beyond MLS……..
Wayne,
If you are following this, I have deleted one of your comment by accident…. while installing new spam protection plugin… I did however link to your post…
Sorry about that.
[…] Chilling Effect: How A Behemoth Company Can Silence A Blogger These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
Just an update I am allowing the access to “ePerks- a Scam or a Gem” once again. The comments there are closed for obvious reasons. However you can decide if I acted fairly when I questioned self promotion by certain individuals who I suspect are/were connected to to the company.
Also not every one had left their websites while commenting and it is fine by me. Look what happened! I do however think you need a wild imagination to accuse me for writing all the comments. I hope Mr. Cook knows what IP address stands for. I literally would need to be in several locations across US in span of 15 minutes.
http://www.seoemperor.com/2008/03/17/when-paid-blogging-goes-wrong/
The above is a trackback that was accidentally caught by my older spam protection plugin.
No problem, Vlad! BTW, here’s another story that shows you you’re not alone in the David vs. Goliath arena:
Opera Tower, LLC & Tibor Hollo Sues Me for $25M
As promised, I forwarded your post to a few real estate bloggers and also posted it on Digg, Delicious, Tumblr and StumbleUpon, and even on my Facebook page. I sincerely hope you and the other blogger are vindicated in the end.
All my best,
Wayne Harriman
Oops, my apologies to all for linking incorrectly to the Miami law suit blog post. My HTML is VERY rusty! The link, albeit badly done, will still take you to the right place!
Wayne
That’s ok Wayne,
I fixed it. Now need to “nofollow” links here on my blog.
Thanks Vlad, you da man!
No problem Wayne.
Thanks for the support.
[…] really care about your so called “constructive criticism”. So when I received Cease and Desist letter, I definitely felt the chills going down my […]
Are you fighting this? We’ve had these dipshit letters in the past, but all we do is laugh at the jackass lawyers. You have a first amendment right to say what you want. As a public persona, ePerks would have to prove that your statements are not only false but were intended to cause them harm. They cannot meet that test and they know it.
If you want BloodhoundBlog’s help, say so.
Greg,
Thank you so much. I would not mind if you can write up a post about this.
And yes, I am going to fight it. They were leaving defamatory comments on forums in regards to my posts. They even started a blog specifically aimed at discredit me:
eperks.wordpress.com
There was an entire paragraph dedicated to me but today that paragraph was taken down.
[…] Chilling Effect: How A Behemoth Company Can Silence A Blogger, by Vlad Zablotskyy. […]
Good on ya!
When you see childish behavior, take screen shots. They’re probably within their first amendment rights as well, but nothing pops the pus out of their pimples like public scorn.
Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can make some noise.
Thanks to Marlow Harris for pointing this out.
Yes Marlow is great!
Some one posted a link to my blog on one of the Marlow posts. So after I received this C&D letter I was simply scared so I asked her to remove the link.
I saw she posted on her blog today. I guess that is how you found my post.
Yes, what they had on their blog was silly and I wouldn’t even bother. What happened was I really started to jerk their lawyer around by demanding to take down the paragraph that mentioned my name and my blog. He initially replied that ePerks have nothing to do with that blog. But today after posting this post I saw the paragraph mystically disappear.
Screen shots are good but one can photoshop them. I think I will just wait for the next update over at archive.org. They will not be able to modify anything there.
Greg Swann is not a lawyer. He does not even believe in occupational licensing. Seek counsel from a licensed attorney, not a real estate blogger. Greg Swann will not pay your legal fees when you are sued and have to hire an attorney. The guy is as likely to get you in hotter water the way he shoots off his mouth. Just my opinion.
Thanks Joe,
Welcome to my blog.
Wayne advised me to get in touch with you but I have not been able to locate your e-mail. Do you mind if I e-mail you?
Sure Vlad. My email is jf.sellsius (at) gmail [dot] com.
[…] But wait. There’s more. Instead of ignoring criticism on what is (sorry, Vlad) a low-traffic weblog, instead of asking itself “What would David Gibbons do?”, instead of engaging the enraged while retooling the chokepoint like Homegain.com’s Louis Cammarosano, ePerks.com chose to do the stupidest thing any corporation or government can do in the Web 2.0 world… […]
I have posted on this. I’m subscribed to this comment thread, but do not hesitate to call on me if there is anything I can do. I despise coercion more than anything in the world. I will do anything in my power to resist it.
Joe, I sent you an e-mail to your g-mail.
Vlad: This is so silly. It is just amazing that http://www.wsblaw.net/ronald_c_cook.asp would want to get into a Web 2.0 food fight by attacking you at http://www.go-beyond-mls.com on behalf of his lead peddling client http://www.eperks.com with a C&D letter. If http://www.eperks.com were indeed a high integrity outfit, delivering high quality leads to their clients, they wouldn’t have to call out the the lawyers to attempt to stifle your first amendment rights, would they?
Thomas,
I also think it’s silly. Especially in view that my blog is not even that known. Did you hear about me before???
Sorry for keeping your comment in moderation…. You placed three links and whenever that happens the comment goes into moderation.
Thanks for stopping by.
[…] publishing the infamous Cease and Desist notice, I was asked by fellow bloggers few questions that I cannot ignore. But before I start, I need to […]
The latest news is that eperks Compliance Director- Ramesh Birla under whose license eperks.com operated has resigned due to partnership/contractual non-payments. Mr Birla who was the second in Command at Brabus Ventures Corporation was not available for comment at 925.209.6393.
From my understanding there is a class action suit being brought upon eperks.com so maybe that is why one of there key board of directors has resigned.
I think Ramesh Birla may have been t he biggest victim in this scam, look at the dre.ca.gov search below which shows him as the Broker Of Record of
Brabus Ventures Corporation, and numerous other companies in California.
——————————————————————————–
License Type:
BROKER
Name:
Birla, Ramesh Kumar
Mailing Address:
8796 FELIZ WAY
TRACY, CA 95304
License ID:
01301364
Expiration Date:
06/09/10
License Status:
LICENSED
Broker License Issued:
06/10/06 (Unofficial — taken from secondary records)
Former Name(s):
Birla, Ramesh Kumar Jr
Main Office:
8796 FELIZ WAY
TRACY, CA 94566
DBA
Birla & Associates Realty
ACTIVE AS OF 08/21/2006
Branches:
NO CURRENT BRANCHES
Affiliated Licensed Corporation(s):
01825903 - Officer Expiration Date: 09/18/11
Action Realty Group Inc
01818017 - Officer Expiration Date: 08/06/11
Brabus Ventures Corporation
01522498 - Officer Expiration Date: 07/12/10
Rescal Realty Inc
OFFICER CANCELED AS OF 11/30/07
Comment:
NO DISCIPLINARY ACTION
07/27/02 - CONDITIONAL LICENSE SUSPENSION. EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS NOT FILED.
11/27/02 - CONDITIONAL SUSPENSION REMOVED. EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENTS MET.
>>>> Public information request complete <<<<
Congrats Vlad on setting the stage for a lot of heat.
You know they say in show business that bad PR is better than no PR. I think it funny that ePERKS is getting the publicity out of this. I had never even heard of them before now.
I can’t say from one side or the other as I have not used the service, but I can say as a fellow Realtor that (in the video) hitting a Realtor with a truck is no better than blogging about a service. One is defamation and so is the other.
Dan,
I am not sure there will be any heat. As I mentioned elsewhere. I needed to do this to be at peace with myself. I moving pass this. There are so many better things to write about.
What an amazing amount of bollocks! there is no way that even in the USA that even a fraction of that could stick. I’d slap the law firm back with an anti-harassment cease and desist and a follow up to the eperks themselves. Then, yes, I would blog about it.
Does your blog platform support closing comments on a per post basis? It sounds like some of those older posts needed a line drawn under them.
Anything they want to accuse you of they have to prove both here in the UK and in the USA. If they make claims against you then you can always demand in a cease and desist that “you are advised to demand proof of these claims” - there are plenty of templates for that sort of thing ont he web.
Don’t let them bully you.
Matt,
This only part of the story. I can’t even begin to describe here how low this company is prepared to go…. But not to worry, I am going after every single ass involved in all of this.
Just in case any one subscribed to the comment on this post. There is a good write up on Inman News. Make sure to read it:
http://www.inman.com/news/2008/03/26/real-estate-rebates-and-referrals-with-a-twist
Just wanted to point out that I have updated the above post. In the paragraph where Mr. Cook has listed the titles of the articles they have demanded to be taken down, you will notice the hyperlinks to the original articles.
Some most recent revelations about this company’s tactics to disparage my name made me convinced more than ever that I have done the right thing by publishing this cease and desist notice.
I am glad that body of the same cease and desist notice had serve the purpose of becoming anchor text for the links to my articles.
Look for tomorrows article describing how low this company is willing to go to disparage and defame me.
[…] I received cease and desist notice from ePerks lawyer, I had a gut feeling that my problems associated with this company were far from over. I was not […]
[…] is still reeling from the bad publicity for paying bloggers to write about their company. (Even now when you Google Eperks, most of the […]
[…] of criticism. One round of criticism took place on my blog. Which, as many of you know, lead to cease and desist notice which eventually misfired- my blog ranks #2 on Google for the term […]
Thank you for all your posts. I was considering signing up for eperks and came across this site (and others) complaining about poor results while on the phone with the eperks sales guy.
I was interested in 2 zip codes to buy exclusive rights. That was $259/month. I asked how many agents are currently listed in those zips with non-exclusive rights. He replied, “about 20″. My next question was, “So how many deals have closed in those zips (through eperks) in the last 6 months.”
The sales guy said he didn’t have that information, but even worse said that he couldn’t/wouldn’t get it because…(insert BS here). Then he said maybe if we were discussing a bigger account they might be able to do that type of research yada yada yada.
Then I found this site and hung up on him!
I should add:
This was not the only place I’ve heard negative information about eperks. I also posted an agent 2 agent question on trulia and 3 out of 3 responses had negative experiences.
If instead of threatening lawsuits they would get their game cleaned up a little maybe there would be less agents hanging up on them.
Interestingly enough, when the controversy broke on my blog some “fans” of this company would say that no one should expect results first month or two… yeah right at the cost of $250 a month???
Thanks for stopping by and sharing.
Open and Honestly … jennifer.plankenhorn@eperks.com … new employee …
Wow, I never knew there was so many mixed feelings about ePERKS. I JUST started working here 2 days ago (I have not even hit the phones yet) and I definitely want to make sure my team manager is aware of this and I will inquire about the class-action lawsuit and cease and desist blogs. (??? C&D, honestly … who thinks they can silence people like that?!?)
Many of my co-workers are a bit less customer service savvy and more “get it now” type attitude. However, that is the attitude they want us to take because we do face a lot of rejection and in order for employees to not feel like complete failures, they want us to toughen our hides. I think this could contribute to poor service. I want to improve it.
In all honesty, this method of generating business is going to work for some and not for others. Whether it is simply the lack of business in zip codes that are chosen or if people aren’t willing to really invest time into marketing themselves in many additional outlets instead of just waiting for the phone to ring, it just depends. Everyone’s experience is going to vary.
How I see it, not only as a new employee, but as someone who takes what I do personally and wants to help as many people as possible, I think it overall is a product that is valuable and makes sense but might not be right for everyone.
Unfortunately, people who do not hold themselves to standards like I do may burn valuable bridges. I used to work for ELOAN, until they laid off 500+ people and I loved them too, until I was let go for a bogus reason to avoid being paid severance. And do I have a bad taste in my mouth from that? Hell YES I do. Does that mean that ELOAN is a bad choice for everyone? Not in the least.
What I can say is the job looks like it is going to be really hard, and there is a high turnover even for people who have early success. I want to be successful there so I am trying to know as much as I can from all angles. They have told me that the cancellation process has been crappy because of the way it has to be done and some employees aren’t clear to their agents how to do it. Agents are calling to cancel WITHOUT SENDING WRITTEN EMAIL CONFIRMATION to clientservices@eperks.com (OMG I will TOTALLY make sure this is the right email, I still haven’t had my work station 100% set up!!!) I’m sure that plays a part in miscommunication about payments and unauthorized charges.
Wow, this is long. I tend to do that. If you ever hear from a Jennifer from ePERKS, I won’t ask you to give me any special treatment, but I am driven to be better than anybody else, and will make sure ROI gurantees are fulfilled on agents I sign up and that if they need to cancel for whatever reason that it gets DONE. (my referral ID: jp10) ^_~
I can’t make the same promise for my co-workers, everyone has a different ethical sense.
I hope things work out for people who give ePERKS a try. If they find it doesn’t, I hope they don’t try to rain on anyone else’s success and be sure to follow through on cancelling the service as completely as possible. If it works, share great success with others! I tried recruiting tons of collegues to ELOAN while it was riding the wave. ePERKS is NEW NEW NEW only since July 2007! They already have commercials running (although I didn’t like the truck hitting the lady one at all!) but still, it’s got to mean something.
I am going to stop typing, I promise, I seriously try just way too hard to say everything I want in one shot! This is one of my “tasks” to overcome at work coincidentally, as well as the homework I have to do tonight. So good luck everyone, and I am going to make sure I know all about these incidents before I hit the phones tomorrow. Thanks for reading, I’ll keep checking back and see how things go.
Thanks Vlad for your desire to help others. That is really all we can do in life or why bother with the freedom we are given here?
-jen-
Jen,
Good luck with your position at ePerks. I hope to see you here an leave comments a week from now. If I were you, I would not inquire about this cease and desist letter, if you want to keep this job. I am serious about it.
Unless of course you are just here to create more hype for this company.
Best of luck!
Jen,
While you at it, could you also ask who posted following on Yahoo! Answers?
http://www.go-beyond-mls.com/silencing-a-blogger-with-discusting-tactics/
[…] matter how hard I want the ePerks issue to go away, it just doesn’t. It looks like I am faced with bunch of imbeciles trying to to […]