Reelkandi.tv’s Legal Threats after our Video Player Publisher Review and Bad Business Practices Examination were curious to say the least. They actually dared to threaten a lawsuit over a contract we completed that they reneged on. Can you imagine it? The unmitigated gall of such a bullying maneuver. You have never seen a litigious email performance like this before, unless you previously entered into a contract with Reelkandi. This was bravery, comedy, and spin on a whole new level. It was a few other things as well.
King Osric in-capsulizes my feelings on Reelkandi’s legal threats (pay attention to the end of the video):
When I began receiving their threats, they were just what I needed (imagine a thirsty fire in need of an accelerant).
Leonardo DiCaprio Woohoo Django Unchained
I already examined Reelkandi.tv’s business ethics here: Reelkandi.tv Video Player Publisher Review: Deceit, Non-Payment: Pt: 5 but perhaps a deeper examination is required into the nature of Bad Business Practices.
What are Unfair or Bad Business Practices?
Unfair business practices encompass fraud, misrepresentation, and oppressive or unconscionable acts or practices by business, often against consumers and are prohibited by law in many countries. For instance, in the European Union, each member state must regulate unfair business practices in accordance with the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, subject to transitional periods. Unfair business practices may arise in many areas, including:
- Tenancy matters
- Matters involving the purchase of products and services by consumers
- Matters involving insurance claims and the settlement thereof
- Debt collection in cases of default
In addition to providing for the award of compensatory damages, laws may also provide for the award of punitive damages as well as the payment of the plaintiff’s legal fees.
At common law, individuals were not entitled to attorneys fees or punitive damages for wrongful acts committed by businesses in most states. Most often, laws prohibiting unfair business practices require consumers to send demand letter to the business prior to commencing with a law suit. If the business fails to make a reasonable offer of settlement within a specified period of time, and is subsequently found liable in court, it may be liable for punitive damages and the injured parties reasonable attorney’s fees under many statutes. In some instances, the statutes provide for prevailing plaintiffs to recover double or triple the actual damages against non-settling defendants.
When statutes prohibiting unfair and deceptive business practices provide for the award of punitive damages and attorneys fees to injured parties, they provide a powerful incentive for businesses to resolve the claim through the settlement process rather than risk a more costly judgment in court.
“Debt collection in cases of default.” Now that is very interesting. Reelkandi.tv is based in Europe. That is even more interesting.
The Better Business Bureau
All of these wonderful facts bring to mind the Better Business Bureau.
On the Better Business Bureau:
The Better Business Bureau (BBB), founded in 1912, is a nonprofit organization focused on advancing marketplace trust, consisting of 113 independently incorporated local BBB organizations in the United States and Canada, coordinated under the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) in Washington, D.C.
The BBB collects and provides free business reliability reviews on more than 4 million businesses to over 100 million requests from consumers in 2012, helping make the BBB’s website rank among the top 500 most-visited websites in the United States. The BBB serves as an intermediary between consumers and businesses, handling nearly 1 million consumer disputes against businesses in 2012. The BBB also alerts the public to scams, reviews advertising, and assists when donating to charity.
The Better Business Bureau alerts people to scams. That’s interesting. The Better Business Bureau seems to be a name that people can rely on and trust.
How to Report Bad Business Practices to the Better Business Bureau, Ripoff Report, and the Attorney General’s Office
The Better Business Bureau, Ripoff Report, and the Attorney General’s Office make it easy to use their services.
1. Go to the Better Business Bureau website and fill out a complaint against the company that your are accusing of bad business practices. Write a detailed report of what happened and why you are not satisfied with the company’s actions. Be precise and descriptive with the details about the bad business practice and why you are dissatisfied with the company. Categorize the company correctly and make sure you use the correct information so that the complaint can be processed quickly and the company can be contacted immediately.
2. Go to the Rip-Off Report website, which is a website that works similar to the BBB but is more liberal with its information and makes the details more public. Click on “File a Report” in the upper left-hand corner and follow the instructions to file a complaint.
3. Go to the attorney general’s office in your area or to the attorney general’s website for your state and fill out a consumer report in order to file a complaint against the business that did you wrong.
4. Keep a copy for your records in case the company wants to rectify the situation and you need to refer to the report.
5. Wait for the company or bad business complaint organization to contact you about your accusations.
*Note: I am not telling or inciting the reader of this article to take any of the actions in the above paragraph. That information is for educational purposes only. The natural extension of discussing bad business practices is talking about the reporting of said practices.
The Reelkandi.tv Legal Threats Letters After our Video Player Publisher Review was Published
I know you have been dying to see them. Here they are in their totality (some were redacted because of the nature of the sensitive information. Where information was redacted is marked “[deleted]”).
The first legal threat:
Email Subject Line: Remove blog forthwith
Date: Tue, March 12, 2013 7:39 pm
Dear SIr,
I strongly recommend you remove the post from your blog forthwith, within 24 hours. Tomorrow morning, we will be sending you a response detailing the illegal nature of your post and the misinformation provided. While we try and resolve any miscommunications, both sides, we cannot Coe to any agreement while this post remains. This is an explicit instruction to remove the blog with immediate effect. Failing to do so will cause immediate legal action for any damage caused in terms if loss of goodwill. If you so wish to resolve this matter, we would expect you to act forthwith. Furthermore, please supply all contact details and address soca communicate in a legally acceptable matter. We have not been able to trace your name or corresponding address and may have to contact the web provider that carries the blog to identify your real name and contact details.
Reelkandi legal team
Notice the spelling errors in that legal threat. This is coming from an individual and a company that wants to be taken seriously.
The second legal threat:
Subject: LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
Date: Wed, March 13, 2013 3:43 am
Dear Sir,
as you have failed to take down the offensive blog article on the following website https://promovieblogger.com/reelkandi-tv-video-player-publisher-review-deceit-non-payment-pt-1/WE WILL NOW BE TAKING LEGAL INSTRUCTION TO CLAIM FOR DAMAGES CAUSED TO GOODWILL.
As follows and without prejudice, we will be claiming the following
1. unauthorised use of our logo’s and assets in a discriminative article without our permission, based on a trademarked assets. This alone will incur fines of $25,000 for “inappropriate use of our trademarked assets”, that being of our logo and video player.
2. A screen shot (provided below) had critical data removed from the axis and could have been doctored to hide critical claimed information by you, which was used on the premise of a [deleted] per month agreement. you will be required in court to show the actual access of this data and on what basis it was calculated”. We will contest that our own count of player instantiations, which normally are one player to one page, were 10% of your statistical count provided therefore making the premise of the fixed cost per month invalid against highly unaligned datasets between the two companies. The emails clearly state that “on the basis of correct information and our count” it is on that basis a fixed amount was shown.
3. the blog uses negative language that now available to the public shows our company to be in a bad light, which we will prove causes damage to our good name and reputation. We will highlight lines such asReelkandi.tv Video Player Publisher Review: Deceit, Non-Payment – Pt.1
Something no webmaster should have to endure.
blatant deceit and non-payment on a flat rate contract for services rendered (deceit is a very strong word)
There is no webmaster class that you can sign up for that will teach you to be weary of what I stepped into.
I forgot the last part and Reelkandi was able to steal 37 days of free advertising from me. Reelkandi’ advertising thievery has redefined how I look upon advertisers and deal with them. This was the one positive to come out of Reelkandi’s treachery.
my cantankerous dealings with Reelkandi’s publisher management department. (there is no proof of anything being cantankerous, we obliged through dialogue all the way, until our stats disagreed with your original claims)My case is not singular when it comes to working with Reelkandi or hosting their video player. You will learn that there are other publishers that have had “difficulties” recouping payment for hosting Reelkandi’s video player.Please tell us in the comments (showing no substantial evidence, so claim without evidence). (note: this line alone is Inviting others to testify against the company and offering a platform for their comments)
4. The website on which you write this blog is not the website you represented in our dealings and we do not recognise this website in any of our previous dealings.
5. you do not provide your real name (or proof of it, your address, or indeed reference to the [deleted] website the discussions we had previously, this we class as “decieving the public” of information. We also note you do not even provide a link to your actual contact details on the blogging website.Overall, we will be claiming personally from you a total of $35,000 exclduing legal expenses for the damage this article will have done with a breakdown in court of how this amount has been attributed.Please note, our legal council will be advising us suing you in both your local and our local court, now we have actually obtained your personal details.Thankyou.Andrew Superreelkandi.tvEVIDENCE(Stats according to our 3rd party ad server technology)[deleted]
So far everything sounds reasonable. We need to find out how much you will pay us per month for the widget being on our website.These two widgets seem like the best choices:
1 showbiz news (centered around film stars mainly)
2 movie newsThe visits (from Google Analytics) you requested (Dec 14, 2012-Jan 13, 2013):
[deleted]
Our flat rate fee contract was based on hosting the Reelkandi.tv video player for 30 days, not on impressions (hence the business term “flat rate”. A flat rate is “a pricing structure that charges a single fixed fee for a service, regardless of usage.”). That service, in this case, was hosting the video player. Any and all other stats, besides the length of time the video player was displayed on our website, are irrelevant.
Justin Timberlake Carey Mulligan Smiling
*Snickers.* He tried to “switch” the terms of our contract within his legal threat then use his new creation as leverage, knowing that I have his original emails (hence our contract) on file. *Snickers.* Who was he trying to fool? This is something Rachel Maddow would report on and lampoon during her show.
(Drying my eyes as the spasms slow) I needed that. Back to the article.
Any claims to the contrary regarding the type and details of our contract are fallacious. Don’t believe me? Here are his emails attesting to the components, duration, and terms of our flat rate contract.
The Proverbial Nail in the Coffin
If you do not wish to click the above link and read his emails in context (with all the other emails that were sent back and forth), here are the specific contract emails:
On January 15, 2013 at 6:54 pm, Andrew Super emailed:
I don’t have an issue with one flat rate, however, the player still needs to be at least 50% above the fold and if it’s under recent articles (based on she that section is right now) we would be well below the fold. Our brand sponsors wouldn’t allow for that, that’s the issue.
Andi Super
CEO
Reelkandi.TV
Contract Point 1.) We established that we were proceeding with a flat rate contract.
On January 16, 2013 at 3:59 am, Andi Super emailed:
In order for us to agree we need proof of decembers stats from independent source as we cant agree to a fix fee withou knowing what we are paying for
Andrew G. Super
Group Commercial Director
Reelkandi.tv
On January 16, 2013 at 9:10 am, I emailed:
No problem.
You will find the numbers attached (Google Analytics).
Attached to the email were [deleted]’s Google Analytic pageviews for December 16, 2012 – January 15, 2013 (entitled: [deleted] December 2012 Stats – Audience Overview – Google Analytics.png ).
On January 16, 2013 at 10:43 am, Andi Super emailed:
[Deleted], thanks for that.
so we are prepared to pay $[deleted] fixed rate for being on the site on all key pages, (i.e. the whole site) to which we can pay paypal. we will pay 30 days from invoice each month.
Are we good to go?
We gave Reelkandi all the data (Google Analytics) their representative requested. He was clearly satisfied with what we sent him and even told us “thanks.” He then suggested that we move forward with the flat rate contract. Does the above sound like a person dissatisfied with the data he received from the website in question or Google? (Tip: Always keep and store your business emails on and offline. You never know when you might need them.)
On January 16, 2013 at 11:30 am, I emailed:
Yes.
Please pay through this Paypal link: https://www.paypal.com/…
Once you have paid, send us the HTML for the video player.
If you can color match it to our site before sending the HTML, that would be great. Thank you.
On January 16, 2013 at 2:51 pm, Andi Super emailed:
[Deleted], sorry but I said previously we would never pay upfront without a credit check on the business and sufficient track record financially. At best we can pay end of a month of activity
Andi Super
CEO
Reelkandi.TV
On January 16, 2013 at 5:08 pm, Andrew Super emailed:
[Deleted], I have spoken with our CFO and we can only pay after pages have been served at the end of the month. We don’t pay upfront for any global publishers, I hope you understand.
Andi Super
CEO
Reelkandi.TV
Contract Point 2.) We established that the flat rate contract would be paid at the end of every month (30 Days).
On January 16, 2013 at 7:50 pm, I emailed:
Mr. Super:
let me see if I have this correct.
You want us, at the end of every month, to email you for our payment ($[deleted]) instead of everything being automated?
Do I understand you correctly?
On January 17, 2013 at 5:34 am, Andrew Super emailed:
Yes
Andrew G. Super
Group Commercial Director
Reelkandi.tv
Contract Point 3.) We established that I had to email them (Andrew Super and/or Reelkandi) on the thirtieth day of hosting for payment.
Now that you have read the totality of our flat rate contract, here is Reelkandi’s third and finale legal threat:
WITHOUT PREJUDICE – DEFAMATION NOTICE, MISREPRESENTATION, REFUSAL TO DISCUSS SETTLEMENT
Date 2013-03-14 02:25
DEAR SIR,After two requests (dated 13/03/2013 & 14/03/2013) to remove all content that will cause goodwill and financial damage to our organisation, you continue to ignore both our client’s offer of discussion to determine settlement & removal of all editorial descriptions that involve Misrepresentation of the terms of the business carried out, Implied dishonesty (removing provocative words do not remove implied intention) & you are liable for the article and its damage caused under the laws on copyright, defamation and misrepresentation according to UNITED STATES OF AMERICA LAWS & THE LAW COURTS THAT RESIDE UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT.Furthermore, the following further information will be taken into account. Below we have shown a screenshot of your website inferring with a title of the negative affects of a person and his company (see below) where it states Reelkandi tv’s CEO is a magician beware of falling for his tricks pt1. As our legal department stated yesterday, we will looking to sue you personally at your business address and personal address for the sum’s of1 unauthorised use of our logo’s and assets in a discriminative article without our permission, based on a trademarked assets. This alone will incur fines of $25,000 for “inappropriate use of our trademarked assets”, that being of our logo and video player.2 continued refusal to address settlement and remove offensive articles forthwith, in effect causing goodwill damage to our US and UK trading business, to the sum of $10,000 at present. This sum will increase $3,000 a day from today’s date, until the article is removed.Currently, we will seek no less than to obtain the following:1. Forced closure of your website [deleted] and all associated blogs you write upon.2. Admittance of your real name and not to operate under an alias3. To work in co-operation with our partners in major film companies and studios in removing all material that is not approved for use on your website.4. To sue you under the laws of Connecticut for misrepresentation, defamation, copyright misuse & refusal to settle with reasonable means the matter in hand.We have already suggested the remedy is to remove the article forthwith and discuss settlement. Until this has been carried out, we will continue to take legal action & have now built a case around your company and personal trading.We also note, 3 separate copyright infringements on your site involving privacy laws in the United States of America & material that has been provided without permission.This will be detailed in our article.Furthermore we also note you continue to use our assets illegally in posts (see screen-grabs below) as further proof of your disregard for the laws on copyright and defamation,We also note a separate article you have published with 16 references that fall under defamation and misrepresentation. See below:
As you can see from the old email dates, these legal threats were pure bloviation and mere Paper Dragon posturing, nothing more.
Model Scary Face
Nothing has happened. Nothing can happen. Nothing will ever happen.
Its all braggadocio.
I am completely in the right and Reelkandi.tv’s CEO and legal team know it. I have the proof of my position written in the CEO’s own hand.
My Reply to Reelkandi’s Legal Threats
I responded to their entreatments and threats the same way they responded to my numerous payment requests.
The “Brilliance” of A Reelkandi Lawsuit
The CEO of Reelkandi has no idea what my economic situation is. I could be destitute, I could be typing this very article on a free computer in a public library. He has no idea how much money I have in the bank yet he threatens a lawsuit. He has no idea if he will even get his lawyer’s fees back from me not to mention what he is seeking. This is a blatant example of someone that has not done his due diligence. He could sue me, win, and end up in the hole $60K in lawyer and court fees. His lawyer and the court would demand their fees in full within a year. He possibly would not get his full winnings from me (even with leans on this or that) for decades (hypothetically speaking). Maybe I’m flush with cash. The point is: Reelkandi.tv’s CEO has no idea. He is willing to roll the dice and risk owing his lawyer and the court in the hopes of prevailing against a wronged enigma.
I say this: Know your target before you put them in your cross hairs. Better still, know what they are worth.
The CEO doesn’t even know if I graduated high school or not. He could be threatening to sue a dropout living in a YMCA.
The Reelkandi.tv Practice and Misanthropic Community
After the Reelkandi Video Player Publisher Review was published, many people got into contact with me, people that want to remain anonymous. Some of these people are former employees that weren’t paid by Reelkandi and who wanted to tell me that I wasn’t alone. It had happened to them a well.
Two webmasters that displayed the Reelkandi video player wrote to me and asked me not to print what they wrote without getting permission first (I would have had to redact many things).
This former employee offered a wealth of information on the back-end of Reelkandi:
I’ve just seen your posts regarding your interactions with Reelkandi and Andi Super.
I “worked” for them as a [deleted]. After [deleted] of work I still hadn’t received any money, and finally tracked down Andi Super to tell him I was leaving and starting court proceedings against him. It took me another [deleted] and letters from a solicitor and the threat of court proceedings until I got paid. I was contacted by some other [deleted] I had worked with there, who also hadn’t been paid [deleted].
If you didn’t know it already, reelkandi are now trading under the name willowgold ltd, after theatre 247 ltd was dissolved. If you are still chasing money, this is the company to approach via a solicitor or debt collection service. Also, I can tell you their various different departments are actually non existant. It is a strictly one man and his dog set up. All email accounts go to Andi Super. The only other real “employee” is his brother in law, who works out of a tiny cupboard they call a studio in holborn.
It’s a pretty shocking story. There are a lot of people who have never been paid, and some who have been left in real hardship as a result. [deleted] the fraud office [deleted], and this is also ongoing.
My advice generally to [deleted] is to credit check all new employers….agree a payment schedule including a commencement fee and to join bectu, who publish an “ask first” list and who will chase non payment for you via solicitors. Anyway, I just thought I’d share this with you, for what it’s worth. Sorry you had such a bad experience.
As you can see, some of the letters were very enlightening.
Preemptive Apology
I would like to avoid a court room scenario with Reelkandi (though such an absurd and already-won case could only be brought to trial on Htrae). With that in mind, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to Reelkandi and its CEO.
1. I’m sorry I fulfilled my end of our flat rate advertising contract.
2. I’m sorry I gave you all of the information you asked for before the contract was struck.
3. I’m sorry I tried to establish a mutually beneficial business arrangement between our two organizations.
4, I’m sorry certain business schools do not have ethics integrated into their curriculum.
5. I’m sorry I trusted you and took you at your word.
6. I’m sorry I gave you a month of free advertising on my website.
7. I’m sorry that you tried to change the terms of our flat rate contract when payment was due, past due, and in your legal threats.
8. I’m sorry you and your “employees” ignored a multitude of my emails.
9. I am sorry that you have done this to others.
I sincerely hope that Reelkandi and its CEO accept my apology because it is sincere and I mean ever word of it.
The ‘Casino’ Legal Arena
If Reelkandi and its CEO still feel the need to sue me over a contract I completed and that they intentionally defaulted on, have at it. All of our emails (our contract) are printed out (every last one, with the IP addresses they were sent from) and I am standing by.
I challenge the CEO. Sue me. Roll the dice. I’m ready. Are you?
Source: Ehow, Sbinfocanada, Wikipedia (1, 2)
