Who ya gonna call?

A competitor has hacked my site & disrupted my business-who do I turn to?

[mrblond]

I own an e-commerce b2b business. I sell widgets to businesses in bulk that are "embellished" with the customer's own information. Sometimes customers will want to see samples of these items in advance, and that's generally OK.

A competitor, who I used to be friendly with, did the following last night:

1) Posted my site as a FREEBIE site to about 6 popular bulletin boards
2) Hacked my vonage account and redirected calls to him
3) Hacked parts of my site to display his graphics and contact info

I've covered up all the holes, and fixed all the redirects, but the damage has been done.

Do I have any recourse? Do I call the cops? He's in a another city/state, which cops do I call? Or is this a civil thing. At the least he's guilty of "restraint of trade" but it may be more than that.

Any tips or advise is greatly appreciated.

[Raymond]

Call the cops. Never tolerate things like this. This is a Federal offense.

[bobothecat]

Contact the F.B.I.

[mrblond]

Figured this out a little while ago. My local cops are small time, and don't get the internet fraud thing.

Likewise, his little suburbian cops in another state are the same.

Thanks gang.

[trraju]

You have to escalate these kinds of issues ... You can also contact vonage for reimbursement...

[jomaxx]

FBI, his ISP (one he hacked into your site from), your ISP, Vonage, a lawyer, the list goes on. Save all logs and records.

And ask yourself how he hacked into both your server and your Vonage account.

[malachite]

At the very least, a lawyer. Sue the pants off this guy for loss of business, defamation of business, damages and anything else you can think of from a civil perspective.

A competent lawyer (probably not your small-town guy) will also advise on the criminal offences he's committed.