Hi Guys,
First off, thanks Mr. Matthew Chan for the great forum. Tons of valuable info. I'm new on here but have been following and reading a lot of the posts over the last year, as I'm in a similar situation as most on here.
The calls/e-mails/harassment started about 18 months ago. I was very clear with them and told them I wouldn't be paying them a dime. They left me alone for a long while, and just recently are back at it again. They've threatened to file a lawsuit against me and blah blah blah.
I've read a lot of the posts on this forum, and feel really bad for the folks that were intimidated into paying large chunks of money. As you guys know, they rely on fear and intimidation to extort as much as possible from victims.
I connected with 1 individual who was in a similar situation with Higbee, and he left them a very detailed 1 star review on one of their Social Media profiles. The harassment stopped soon after in addition to an apology from the firm's owner.
My situation aside, I really hate what they're doing to hard working folks. We live in a fast-paced world and at the end of the day.. we're all human. Mistakes happen. It's possible to overlook a tiny disclosure on a website (done intentionally IMO), save and upload an image that came up via the "Labeled for reuse" filter on Google. I think some sort of penalty/fee/punishment is realistic, but when they're seeking $5000+ for a single image that goes for maybe $10.. I think that's just ridiculous. There should be limits, like anything else in life. I believe 100% that they're entrapping people and purposely mislabeling their images and confusing folks online so they can later try to reel in as much as possible after using fear tactics on the victim.
I believe some of these suspicions are difficult to prove, but can be done with the right attorney/research and time. When I look at small details such as the WHOIS for Nick's website(s), how the law firm demands payment, robots.txt blocking Wayback Machine, etc... I think it's clear there's something shady going on.
I, one man, can't do much alone. But there's power in numbers. The Class Action in this post's title is just an idea, but me personally, I'm not interested in any money. I just want this abuse to stop. I would imagine there's good folks on this forum that share that sentiment and would love to kick back and fight fire with fire. Even if the laws that allow these lawyers to do this don't change, maybe just simply getting these photographers to label their images properly so innocent people don't fall into this trap. I would imagine there's some sort of solution. There's hundreds or maybe thousands of websites that offer free images via Creative Commons, but we keep hearing about the same 1 or 2 photographers.
I'm part of a Facebook group with several other victims, and would love to invite anyone else that would like to be part of the discussion. Again, there's power in numbers and I believe we have tools/resources at our disposal. There's the State Bar of CA, there's the press/media, legal counsel, and other avenues.
Please feel free to message/e-mail me or comment on this post if you would like to be part of the discussion, as we collectively figure out what the best strategy is.
Any comments or feedback are welcomed
Thank you for your time!
Topic: Higbee & Associates Class Action? (Read 9356 times)