Take a look at another real estate 'professional' who stole some of my very own customer testimonials to use on his website. Notice the second testimonial where it still has my name in it! The person who did this to me is David Miller of the Miller Realty Group in Wellesley, MA. He owns bpo-success.com and on top of everything he is a licensed real estate broker! Read more to find out what I've done to combat him infringing on my copyrighted material...
I first learned about David's website at the beginning of October. Just so you know within his website, he offers very similiar BPO products to mine. He is a reseller of the products that he offers, and is not reselling any of my products but instead is reselling another one of my competitors items. (To make things worse, I've also had an issue with copyright infringement also with this competitor as well as a handful of others).
So this is what I did to try to correct this HUGE ethical problem. I researched to find out who owned the website and got all of his information. I tried to contact him by phone two times right away to let him know I knew and require that he take down the offending material from his website. He was not available and didn't return my phone calls.
I also send David a 'Cease and Desist letter' which is addresses what he is doing wrong, as well as my copyright certificate number and date issued. This letter is proper etiquette when dealing with someone who is infringing on your copyrighted material. I still have received no response to date from him.
I decided to take it to the next step without hiring an expensive copyright attorney (been there, done that). I filed a complaint to the Division of Professional Licensure in MA with their Office of Investigators. I would also have filed a complaint against him if he were a Realtor with his local Realtor Association, but go figure he is not a Realtor! That makes sense with his lack of having much ethics, morals and even consideration for my copyrighted content that I worked hard to get from some of my satisfied customers.
After checking up with them today after almost 1 month has passed since filing my complaint, they said that they have received it and still need to assign it to an investigator. Although it may take a few more weeks for them to investigate and address how they are going to handle disciplining David, my content is still active on David's website and he is still infringing on my copyright privileges.
The saddest part is that this is not the first time someone has infringed on either the content on my website, on my eBooks or on copy that I wrote to promote my products on eBay as well.
In my next blog I'll give you an indepth history of all of the people who have infringed on me since I wrote my first eBook "All You Ever Wanted to Know About Broker Price Opinions, " in January.
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