Am I Being Sued By ePerks?
May 21, 2008 
Call me stupid and I absolutely deserve it. The believe that every one deserves a second chance had sucked me into sort of “negotiations” with ePerks. I have never planned to draw so much attention to the issue on my blog, which of course resulted in some nasty posts elsewhere on the internet.
Anyway, tomorrow I will be speaking to my legal council and may not be able to post on the issue again in the near future. Here is what I have received from e-perks in the e-mail:
Vlad,
I have no idea what you just did but clearly your mind shifts like the wind. I have now made my effort to work outside of the legal system and have no regrets with the suit that we will file shortly, which will stay in California for various reasons you’ll be made aware of by the way.
At this point any and all of your activities are being recorded by the watchful eyes of our legal team for use in assessing damages.
At this point I am ending your conversations on proposals, as this avenue and conversation are now over.
Regards,
____________________Ben Behrouzi
President & CEOBRABUS Ventures
There are few ways that you my friends bloggers can draw attention to this what looks like inevitable court case. I will appreciate any an all help I can receive. If you have ever received any solicitation e-mails from ePerks please forward them to vlad@go-beyond-mls.com - but not just copy and past the text of the e-mail, froward it with the headers because they may contain very important information about networks and IP Address used to send them.
This entire thing has brought much damage to me and my family. But I will not cease to defend myself until the end. Again thank you in advance for your support!
Update: I have written the above post rather in a hurry, but I am extremely grateful to those who have responded already. There seems to be a need to clarify what this “negotiation” was all about. Since Mr. Behrouzi was the first to reach out to me, although with a threat, I have decided, against my better judgment, to see if we can work out some differences and in return gain his cooperation to bring to justice the person who posted on Yahoo! Answers, because I believed that person has connection to ePerks. Our agreement was that I would blog search engines from indexing every post on my blog about ePerks and in return Mr. Behrouzi would cooperate to find the real person behind “Jaffar S” from Yahoo! Answers.
As I started to work on my part of the bargain, some of you may have even noticed that few the posts on this blog went “password protected” for a short time, I received and e-mail from Mr. Behrouzi additional demands. I was to delete (or ask other bloggers to delete) posts that I have never written. Here are just a few of them with brief explanations why I could not accept Mr. Behrouzi’s demand:
- http://lordmatt.co.uk/item/1085/ - Matt, a blogger from UK, had picked up on the story and had written a post without me asking him.
- http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=2798 - Greg of Bloodhourdrealty.com- also had written a follow up after I published the infamous cease and desist letter.
I may have asked Greg to take a look at my post but his article was voluntary, and I have no right to ask him to deleted it.Update: Looking through some records I did ask Greg to write about the issue, however he was free to write whatever he wanted. Not that this makes any difference now, just keeping the record straight. - http://lydiaplayer.blogspot.com/2008/01/eperks-commercial.html - Lydia, wrote her post completely independent from me. While I commented on her blog, I had asked here to remove my comments, because of the cease and desist letter. Asking Lydia to delete her post is absurd.
- http://wallingfordwired.blogspot.com/2008/03/eperks-to-vlad-i-gonna-pound-you.html - Wayne, has also linked to my blog post that featured the cease and desist letter from ePerks attorney. I did not ask Wayne to write this post.
I find it absolutely ridiculous to demand from these well respected bloggers to delete their posts. Bad enough I was willing to make them look bad, as the visitors from their blog would end up on pages that where either password protected or made private.
During our chat (via Google Chat) I have also provided Mr. Behrouzi with the following range of IP Addresses (76.206.0.160 - 76.206.0.167) as many comment authors leaving “suspiciously positive” comments shared the IP Address with Mr. Jaffar who posted those disgusting posts on Yahoo! Answers. Mr. Behrouzi assured me that he forwarded those to his “team of engineers” so they can investigate. While examining the logs, it became apparent to me that the “team of engineers” were snooping on my website and share the same range of IP Addresses. After discovering this, I have sopped any further negotiations. In fact I believe Mr. Behrouzi had made his mind about legal actions against me long before he reached out to me. And this entire “negotiation” was there to sniff out how much information I have.
Again thank you for your support. It’s a costly lesson for me on many levels, but it may be a necessary one.
Posted in Blogging, Real Estate News
Related Posts
- Mr. Behrouzi Assured Me That He Or His Company Has Nothing To Do With Idiots
In Plano, TX AreaOperating From IP Range 76.206.0.160-76.206.0.167. I Am Having Hard Time Believing Him. - What Do ePerks and Reply.com Have In Common?
- More Threats?
- How Far Do You Go To Silence A Blogger And When Does It Become Too Far?
- ePerks Pulls The Trigger: I am being Sued.
- And The Question Remains… Why?
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Thanks for topping by.
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What a big p****
I am sorry for you Vlad that you ever talked with person and actually tried to help.
I am a blogger and am furious about this!
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talking to them. But as the say live and learn. This entire thing could have
ended long time ago, I have never planned nor do I appreciate raking on
search engines because of the keywords associated with this company.
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take a look at the Digg example too
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I hope that there is a way to find the writer of the yahoo comment, then sue them for liable - although there is more expense, I know. Expense of money, time and heartache.
I am deeply concerned about this situation. Morally and ethically this is disgusting behavior. If nothing else we all get what's due us. Karma can be beautiful or not.
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I appreciate your support. Yes, it is going to be expensive to bring whoever
is behind these posts to justice. Again I wish it never came to this point,
but what choice do I have if not fight back and defend my reputation?
Thanks for stopping by.
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really sorry for the agony this must be creating in your life.
Vicki Moore / Realtor / RE/MAX Dolphin Real Estate
san mateo real estate blog / agent genius
T. 650.888.9268 / F. 650.355.2973
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The support for blogger like you means more to me than words can express.
While Internet may be a save harbor to all these faceless cowards, it is
also the place where the goodness of other people can shine brightly.
Most, no strike that... ALL of the bloggers who offered me their support
have never met me, yet are willing to step forward when they see that
injustice being done. For that I am grateful.
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I am enraged by this shoddy and slimy form of intimidation:
>all of your activities are being recorded by the watchful eyes of our legal team for use in assessing damages.<
Mr. Behrouzi is whizzing into the wind.
This will be making the rounds at about every real estate company meeting in the nation--and rightly so.
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I think serious company would consider the criticism and go back to the drawing board and if necessary begin from scratch. The worst possible thing in todays world of viral marketing to bully some one. Word gets around quickly these days.
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Perhaps others who see this will blog about their attitude and scam nature and/or will report them through the various social network ranking tools.
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I don't know how and if it worthed to go any further. I was handing them a golden opportunity to move past this issue. They are pissed that my blog is on the first page of Google for "ePerks" they claim they are loosing tens thousands of dollars because of that. I prepared to fight legally. So far I have not received anything. But it has been only two days, so maybe they need more time to actually file a suit.
I also think the company was "over-pimped" at the start up as multi million venture that will sweep every on away.
This issue can be put to rest. Every threat they issue will be published on my blog, and then probably republished on dozens of other blogs.
In today world of viral marketing and social media they have zero interaction with their audience. I hope they would finally wake up and opened their eyes. At least Mr. Berhouzi's former company (Reply.com) is interacting with their users via blog.
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Just as well.
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Thanks for stopping by Doug
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Now there are constantly agents and others that expose them for what they are, and one of the largest companies Trulia has hired a smooth nice guy to make comments on posts that are negative to Trulia and even though we all know the truth, Rudy is a good PR guy and does his best to make his employer Trulia look good. That is how any smart business would run their operation.
Then on the complete opposite of the spectrum is eperks. They do not understand the power of Blogging and how by filing a lawsuit against a Blogger for basically exposing them for what they are will put them out of business. Not that they have much of a business to begin with because the way they have treated agents has already sullied their name to the point it is all over the net.
I understand this owner is starting another similar company, probably because they already ruined this name. We as a group of nationwide Bloggers will be watching for that company as well.
We are all watching to see how this turns out Vlad. This company has made huge mistakes since its inception and it doesn’t seem like they have changed their ways.