Interesting Call I received today...

[Todd W]

I get a call at 8:15am this morning from an "indian sounding" guy... I didn't recognize the number (LD) so I let it goto voicemail.

What I could make out was my site was using his (C) template and I needed to take it down. Wondering what he was talking about I called back. He said my site xproxysitex was using his design and it even said (C) his company at the bottom!

I told him that this was the phproxy template that came with the site just modified the css slightly and I added some google ads and that NO WHERE on the site did it say (C) anything... this guy kept telling me it said (C) his company and the site and images were his. He then said "well if I goto xproxysitex.com and don't put index.php?etcetcetc I don't see it".

Some one can probably guess now, but he was viewing his own site through my proxy from google. After 10 more minutes he finally understood this. He was telling me he was worried because my site was ranking better than his in google for his own site, and he didn't want it to hurt his site in SERPS anymore.

I told him sorry and that I'm not hosting his site, copying it or anyhting of the sort.

I wish I could have understood his name, company name, and site then I would have more info in results of where I rank vs. his site.

Anyway I thought this was pretty funny.

[Chris]

Thats like people calling to complain about you selling knockoff products on your site... and all you have is an affiliate link to amazon. Yes sir, Amazon is selling that product, not me, go bug Jeff Bezos.

Seriously though, this guy was a webmaster, he should have atleast known better.

[Todd W]

Thats like people calling to complain about you selling knockoff products on your site... and all you have is an affiliate link to amazon. Yes sir, Amazon is selling that product, not me, go bug Jeff Bezos.

Seriously though, this guy was a webmaster, he should have atleast known better.

Yeah

What really got me was when he kept asking why parts of his site were not working/showing correctly... he didn't seem to understand that the user can disable javascript, images, headers, etc... Not the sharpest tool in the shed. And then went on to tell me he doesn't want my site to hurt him in google, etc.

If he's that worried he could just block the proxy's IP

The call did remind me I need to change the # and addresses on my domains to my business info still.

[GeorgeB]

He's not a webmaster, he's "a guy who built a site". Probably with frontpage...

[roseau]

I had a similar incident happen a few years back - I was promoting some catalogues on my wedding website and one of the links was with a catalogue company with Linkshare - anyway one of the companies who had a catalogue "ended" their contract with the catalogue company.

I had taken down the link of course but the image was still showing in the search engine searches and was the link previously on my site.

He phones me up and leaves all these abusive msgs on the voice mail -this goes on for days on end - then one day he gets my elderly mother on the phone and calls her all kinds of names.

NOW remember all this in an effort to protect HIS company's reputation because I stole his image.

So then he sends some cease and desist order - C&D what????

So finally the catalogue company calls me up asking if this guy has been harrassing me - they said they would handle the guy - I never heard from him again.

But you really do have to wonder about the mentality of people and the nerve to phone????