8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}
8 {{ upvoteCount | shortNum }}

Should I help this customer?

by traceye
7 replies
I had a customer contact me for help with his ebay classified ad which I agreed to take a look at for him.

The ad was fairly boring but I wanted to give good feedback so I signed up to his newsletter to see what a customer would see.

I was sent to a landing page reviewing several products for the weight loss niche - but the site is a DIRECT COPY of one of my review sites for the dating niche - same images, same table background, same layout etc only the wording has changed. (yes he used the same happy smiling couple images from my dating site for his weight loss site)

I'm fairly sure he wouldn't have realised that the images and layout he stole was one of my niche sites so it's ironic that I get sent to his site.

Either way I'm going to tell him to remove my images but my question is whether I should still help him with his classified ad or to tell the loser to go jump?

Tracey
#customer
  • Profile picture of the author ECS Dave
    Karma?

    At the end of the day, after you've asked them to remove your images, and
    if you've helped them, will you feel better?

    Be Well!
    ECS Dave
    Signature
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[159811].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author ibringjoy
    I think letting him know that he can't just steal stuff from other webmasters is enough help for this guy.

    Kathryn
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[159877].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Peter Bestel
    He's a thief. He stole from YOU!

    Should you help this customer?

    That's a rhetorical question, right?

    Peter
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[159960].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Sandor Verebi
      Hi Tracey, If you will help this thief then I think he will to get carried away with your other products, too. Stop help him, he deserves a trashing rather than help.
      Signature

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[159979].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author tim_buchalka
    Originally Posted by traceye View Post

    Either way I'm going to tell him to remove my images but my question is whether I should still help him with his classified ad or to tell the loser to go jump?

    Tracey
    I'd help him.

    He may be a fair clueless and perhaps doesn't realize your not meant to copy images, etc. I've had SEO sites who have flat out grabbed articles from another site to use and seemed quite surprised when I told them they should not be doing that.

    In the offline world I had an interesting experience from back in the day when I ran my ISP with a competitor flat out copying my cinema advertising (parts of it anyway).

    Interestingly enough I decided to have an open mind about it and discussed it, and he turned into one of my biggest customers for about 5 years when I sold the ISP.

    So who know this could be the same situation. They may not realize what they have done.

    If I were you I'd confront them (in a nice way) and play it by ear.

    Of course with all that said they may just be a thief as well, but I guess you'll find that out soon enough.

    Best of luck with it.

    Cheers
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[159983].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author traceye
      I have decided to tell him to remove the images and then I'll leave it at that. There is no point me spending any more energy on him.

      I think I was most annoyed because I had offered to do him a favour by helping him with his ad (I wasn't getting paid - just doing it to be nice) and then discovered he is nothing more than a copycat (and not a very good one at that).

      Thanks for all your advice!

      Tracey
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[160066].message }}

Trending Topics