Devious People Using Alts to Steal Products and Ideas

A person (let's call him 'Mr Arsehole') contacted me about a month ago and wanted to openly integrate his products into one of my products. I respectfully declined due to the fact that my products' development is still on-going. Well, it turns out that Mr. Arsehole came to my shop as one of his alts and purchased the product.

I know that it was Mr. Arsehole because he unknowingly revealed himself to me and everyone else who can read.

Next thing you know MR. Arsehole goes and re creates or duplicates my product and sells it to the public. I know that there is a such thing as friendly competition and had I not figured out that this person had bought and studied my product, I would not be concerned. But they even went as far as to ask me how this works and how that works, etc after purchasing it (The alt not Mr. Arsehole himself).

So is this a matter that can be AR'ed? I was told to AR it, but the feeling that I get from the general populaion is that LL does not really care or doesn't have the time.

Some people copy other peoples work and profit from the ideas of others unintentionally. This was obviously intentional. I am not sure why he did it, or where his motivation came from but it affects me and I would like to know what LL can and will do about it. Do I ned to do more than AR it? What do I need to do?

Just had to get that off my chest (No pun intended). I feel better now...but not really.

Using an alt sounds like a pretty low and sneaky way to go about it, MadamZ! :\ If you've documented it, which it sounds like you have, the firmest legal way we've got to go about it is to file a DMCA form (link should work again by the time you read this, I hope) to have the rip-offs taken down.

I would also recommend sending an AR, yes. Sounds like you have a lot of details, so please include them all. Often, it's sad when there's a problem but relevant info isn't sent to our Abuse Team, so we can't do more to help without knowing.

Sorry to hear what happened to you. *hug*