
Bonus - Sich gegen Internet Abzocken wehren
Inhaltsverzeichnis
ERSTER TEIL In Deutschland (.de Webseiten)
I. Rechtshilfe
II. Behörden
III. Beschwerdestellen
ÜBERGANG In den USA (.com Webseiten) - Einleitung
ZWEITER TEIL Internet Rip-offs: Self-Defense, American Style
I. Siren Songs of Charlatans & Con-men
II. Fighting back!
A. Six Official Resources
B. Nine Battles to Win the War
C. The Gorilla
ERSTER TEIL
In Deutschland (.de Webseiten)
I. Rechtshilfe
Erstens lassen Sie sich von der IHK bzw. einem juristichem Forum beraten. Mit Google können Sie mehrere Möglichkeiten finden. Beispiele sind:
- IHK München: www.muenchen.ihk.de/de/recht/Erste-Hilfe-bei-Rechts-und-Steurproblemen, tel. 089 5116-1150
- www.helpster.de/rechtsfragen-im-forum-stellen-so-geht-s-online_33961
- www.123recht.net/
II. Behörden
Zweitens gibt es etwas an dem Anliegen (z.B. unvollständiges Impressum bei E-Mail), das man bei den Aufsichtsbehörden anmelden könnte? Für die Adresse der Behörden, vgl.
www.baden-wuerttemberg.datenschutz.de/links/aufsichsbehoerden.htm
Hamburg scheint der Primus inter pares zu sein.
Hamburg
Aufsichtsbehörde
Der Hamburgische Beauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit
Klosterwall 6 (Block C), 20095 Hamburg
Tel.: 040/428 54 - 40 40
Fax: 040/428 54 - 40 00
E-Mail: mailbox@datenschutz.hamburg.de
Internet: www.datenschutz-hamburg.de/
Bayern
Aufsichtsbehörde
Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht
Postfach 606, 91511 Ansbach
Promenade 27 (Schloss), 91522 Ansbach
Tel.: 0981/53 - 13 00
Fax 0981/53 - 53 00
E-Mail: poststelle@lda.bayern.de
Internet: https://www.lda.bayern.de
III. Beschwerdestellen
ÜBERGANG
In den USA (viele .com Webseiten)
Einleitung
Dieser Fall wird ausführlich auf english unten in "Internet rip-offs, fighting back" besprochen. Da wird ein Kriegsplan für neun Schlachte durchdacht, ein Vorgehen, das man durchaus auch in Deutschland verwenden könnte.
ZWEITER TEIL Internet Rip-offs
Self-Defense, American Style
Contents
I. Siren Songs of Charlatans and Con-Men
II. Fighting back!
A. Six official resources
1) Better Business Bureau
2) Federal Trade Commission
3) Postal Inspection Service
4) Attorney Generals Office
5) District Attorneys
6) Internet Crime Complaint Center
B. Nine battles to win the war
C. The Gorilla
I. Siren Songs of Charlatans and Con-men
Virtually everyone in business is influenced by the Internet. Where else can a company go from start-up to 500 million customers in 3 1/2 years? That is the performance of Facebook. The song of the Internet is ubiquitous. As more songs get sung louder, the number of siren songs increases correspondingly. On its Odyssey, the Strategic Q-Ship needs carefully to navigate between the six-headed monster of global competiton, Scylla, and the whirlpool of corporate transformation, Charybdis.
Ulysses and the Sirens, John William Waterhouse, 18911
You are confident this warning does not apply to you, of sober judgement, or to the modern enterprise. Why, the strategy ship above is so old-fashioned sails alone are not enough. It has to be rowed. It is probably delivering outdated parts, destined for some antiquated firm in a rustbelt (Detroit?). You could never mistake screeching harpies for attractive EBOs (Emerging Business Opportunities).
Realize that if one of the corporate ships (sbu's) has sunk and you, the captain, have barely made it to shore, a siren can be more seductive than you might think. John William Waterhouse (1849 - 1917) also painted a siren who has made a serious effort to appear at her very best. She is particularly seductive for those of the unemployed who are drowning in a sea of debt.
2
II. Fighting Back!
The serious criminals for identify theft, invading bank accounts, industrial espionage and securities fraud are often moving targets. The U.S. ones have IP addresses, which they change weekly, in Russia - or Timbuktu. In turn, the Russian ones have IP addresses, which they change weekly, in the U.S. - or Timbuktu. (Actually Timbuktu is free of Internet crime. It is a small city, population 50,000, in the west African country Mali.)
The issue here is rather that of buying a bad, sometimes completely worthless, product and not getting a refund. Recourses vary from country to country. Those available in the U.S. will be covered here for three reasons. First, it is a major source of Internet products. Second, there is a lot of criminal energy in the U.S. Third, several of the remedies can be applied (appropriately adapted) in many other countries. Below are the steps one can take. The emphasis is on consumer (B2C) transactions, but similar steps can be followed for B2B ones also.
A. Six official resources
Inform the authorities. In the U.S. the main ones are:
1) Better Business Bureau (BBB) The BBB forwards your complaint to the company, and gives it 30 days to reply. The organization has a good reputation and many companies prefer to stay in its good graces. Therefore the statement on its website is credible that a good 70% of customer complaints are resolved after the BBB gets involved.
2) Federal Trade Commission (FTC) The FTC is the nation's consumer protection agency. On its landing page it mentions econsumer.gov3, where one can submit complaints about companies that are outside the U.S. A nice feature of the site is that it is in seven languages, including German.
3) U.S. Postal Inspection Service If you received any product shipped by the U.S. mail (not by, say, Federal Express), you can submit a complaint of mail fraud. That is a federal crime with severe penalities.
4) The Attorneys General Office The link is to the National Association of Attorneys General and lists each state's attorney general with complete contact information. You would want to submit the complaint both to the attorney general of the home state of the company and, if you are a U.S. resident, to the one in the state you live in.
5) District Attorneys The link is to the District Attorneys of the U.S. Department of Justice. They serve under the direction of their state's Attorney General. The U.S. Attorney is the chief federal law enforcement officer in his jurisdiction. There are (2011) 94 of them in the U.S., including those for Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
6) Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) IC3 is a partnership of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National White Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance. They are unlikely to be interested in your (by their standards) inconsequential "storm in a teacup." However no-one is keen about being brought to their attention.
B. Nine battles to win the war
Beware of Pyrrhic victories and of MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction. However if you do decide to fight a David versus Goliath battle and are prepared to waste endless time and considerable financial resources, than here is a battle plan.
1) Follow-up your telephone calls with E-Mail (E-mail lasts forever) and registered mail. See if you can find a cooperative attorney willing to send off a letter on his stationary for a nominal fee.
2) Continue, now mentioning that you are starting threads on the scam forums on the Internet. Among them are:
www.saltydroid.info (rather garish, tending towards ranting)
IM Report Card. IM's reports of the gurus are not particularly incisive. In fact some of them appear whitewashed. The product reviews tend to be more reliable.
Each time you increase your efforts, let the company know of your action. Remind the company of the concept of "lifetime value of a customer" and of the power of the negative referrral. Bad news is indeed more memorable than good. Just ask any newspaper editor. Be sure to ask the company what it thinks the lifetime value is, in terms of lost sales, of a scam report on the Internet, which never goes away, year in, year out.
Suggest you really would rather have a refund. That would be better for everyone in the long run. It would save them money on lost sales, and save you further effort. You will not be going away any time soon.
3) Get serious and go social! Twitter about it. Start groups on Facebook and LinkedIn relating your progress, of course with links to the scam reports. Find Internet forums and blogs where the story is a good fit. These activities will make a fun project for a student intern who has social media savy.
Do not become hysterical, as some of the scam reviews are. Stay factual, as if you were making a professional accident report. Let the facts do your talking for you: names, dates, times. Include screen shots as appropriate.
4) Get ambitious and make a short video about the situation! The best practices benchmark for a complaint video is "United Breaks Guitars" on YouTube, which went viral with over 10 million views by midyear 2011. (United was scrambling to fix the problem long before 50,000 views.) The video series is now used for instruction about customer service, both at business schools and companies.
Your own video does not have to be that sophisticated! Bad news sells well, and people will watch stories of consumer woe. Make sure the video is adapted for easy viewing on smart phones and link it into your social media actions as well.
5) Find a computer maven to link your social campaign and video to the firm or guru you became a victim of. Then a Google search for that firm or guru will also show your story.
6) Now there is enough in place to interest your local newspaper and radio station. The media are always on the look-out for some kind of disaster story. Local press coverage gives you content for your social media campaign as well.
7) You can suggest arbitration or mediation at some point, in which case you would want re-imbursement for the time and effort you had to spend on this matter. Demand to be paid for your social media campaign attacking the company!
8) Litigation is usually a poor option, "throwing good money after bad." The exception is if you feel many customers have a similar complaint for a product with substantial sales. In that case you might be able to have an attorney threaten a class action suit.
9) Lastly, for those who have deep pockets and are truly enraged, you can hire a Public Relations firm to launch negative publicity at your target. In the U.S. the PR firms that have prepared smear (muckraking, mud-slinging) political campaigns have considerable experience in this area.
To control costs, you might have the PR firm prepare for you a plan of attack. You then implement the attack by outsourcing it to India or the Philippines.
C. The Gorilla
The 800 lb. gorilla of the Internet is Google. If you can figure out a way to contact the right people at Google to take action on your behalf, you have a powerful weapon indeed. The precedent is copyright, in which Google has, in fact, played a role in pursuing violations.
Internet entrepreneurs are always nervous about the dreaded "Google slap" vaporizing their businesses. Therefore a "friendly suggestion" from Google to resolve the dispute may well have more impact on someone than his being served papers by a District Attorney. After all, hiding from a District Attorney is going to be a whole lot easier than trying to hide one's Internet activities from omniscient Google.
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1 & 2 "Ulysses and the Sirens" and "Siren" © John Willima Waterhouse (1849 - 1917), photographic reproduction of original art, public domain, age, Wikipedia 2011.
3 The site should not be confused with econsumer.com, which (in German) gives helpful links for making consumer purchases.
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