"The most amazing thing here is that... we have a party who attempted to intentionally defraud us of our fee, who hires a litigator to attempt to put conditions on that overdue fee."
"I'm the one who has the legitimate legal claim - that of being defrauded of my fees, yet Trey Harris' lawyer (Reese Boyd III) is harassing me with numerous, unwanted phone calls, claiming he only wants to pay me. What's wrong with this picture?"
"And this happens AFTER Reese Boyd III agrees to an unconditional full payment."
"It's so rare that the stars line up so perfectly. We have a perpetrator who is loathed by many, who didn't pay us, who defied our gracious warning of the coming SEO recourse, and now has a problem with the truth showing up in the search. Meanwhile, we continue to get more urls ranking, and to top it off, we now have a lawyer intervening on behalf of the perpetrator. The perfect excuse to create massive push back from the search."
"Truth to power should not be confused with the power of truth - but they both get the job done. SEO enables us to push back on the evil of petty crimes committed by unethical business owners that would normally go unpunished."
"It's a public service to make bad behavior visible to all."
Bob Sakayama has been promising to talk to us on the numerous ethical issues he confronts when dealing with discovery and remediation of Google penalties. During our interview, Bob suggested a better story, and after hearing it, I agree. The original interview topic will run in this space at a later date.
2009-12-28
Rev Sale: Happy New Year! So you've got another fabulous bad behavior SEO story to share.
Bob Sakayama: As my wife says, I live a charmed life. This started out as an unpaid invoice story, but has since become way more interesting. It's morphed into a compelling Google news item involving the dreaded Google penalty, a fix, and attempt to defraud, and a demonstration of the power of SEO in obtaining ethical recourse. And it's not over.
Rev Sale: Alright - Google penalty stories always get traction around here. OK, let's name names...
Bob Sakayama: That's the point of ethical SEO recourse. The primary ethical problem is with Trey Harris (Claude O Harris) & Chris Crowl of DSLmarketing.com, MyrtleBeachNow.com, and their litigator, Reese Boyd III.
Rev Sale: Three against one. So what's happened so far? You didn't get paid - so far boring - that's happened to everyone.
Bob Sakayama: Yeah, but did the person who owed you hire a lawyer to pay you? Because that's what happened here.
Rev Sale: Why do you need a lawyer to pay your bills?
Bob Sakayama: Why do you think?
Rev Sale: I smell intimidation.
Bob Sakayama: Big time attempt, but major legal blunder. Everyone should go and read the bogus contractual document Reese Boyd III prepared. That's what motivated this whole second offensive.
Rev Sale: Getting ahead of the story...
Bob Sakayama: Sorry. So we unwound a trademark suppression penalty for MyrtleBeachNow.com in early 2009. Then we were commissioned to further optimize their environment. But we didn't get paid. After 6 months, I sent them a message saying something like, "it appears that you intend to default on the payment of this unpaid balance. If that is not true, please pay asap. This is the last request for payment before we seek ethical SEO recourse," and included a link to OneInAmelia's famous post on recourse via seo. When I get no response, we followed through on the recourse. This involves getting urls up and ranking for the parties names with the truthful telling of the dispute.
Rev Sale: SEO recourse from a high level source could be pretty damaging. Why would they even risk that by not paying. I read the article on your site, and it's not something any smart person would invite. So they didn't like the bad pr...
Bob Sakayama: Actually they first thought that I caused their site to crash in the ranks again. At least that's what we've concluded from the document linked above. That language about "undoing" whatever I did to their system - that's all very revealing. They got this whole thing screwed up from the beginning, because there's no understanding of how things work either by Trey Harris or Reese Boyd III. The sites probably got re-penalized for the same stupidity that I fixed for them, and then, 6 months later, thought that because I threatened SEO recourse, that I triggered the rank failure.
Rev Sale: That's what I would have thought.
Bob Sakayama: We have issues not only with Reese Boyd III's document, but with the motivation behind his entry into this affair. Since we have not received payment as he promised, everything Reese Boyd III does on behalf of the his client, who attempted to defraud us, we now view as complicitous with that attempt. We know we have an ethical and possibly legal misstep here and we're going to start pushing it.
Rev Sale: So wait, you think they thought YOU crashed the site's ranks as punishment for not paying you. What a riot.
Bob Sakayama: Yeah, and they tried to force me to speak to them about it. Trey Harris and Chris Crowl left me many messages, and when I emailed them that we don't speak until I get paid, they first tried to use the money as a lever. When that didn't work, they went to Reese Boyd III, thinking a little legal intimidation was in order. Trey even emailed me, right after Boyd's office emailed me the bogus "contract" smugly thinking I would be intimidated, and suggested that perhaps we should now speak to avoid future lawyer fees - pathetically transparent behavior. We're posting all those emails so everyone can read.
Rev Sale: So they originally brought in the litigator to intimidate you into speaking with them?
Bob Sakayama: Yup. Reese Boyd III kept telling me he was asked to intervene because the dispute had escalated to a point where his client was unable to communicate his position. But if you read the emails, he had already communicated his intention to defraud me. To top it off, that "contract" that Boyd created really got me angry. Can you imagine, criminalizing my behavior as well as attempting to impose conditions on his clients unpaid debt? You can see my response at re1y.com - OneInAmelia has the entire email thread posted in the journalist's archive. We can see interest in this story just from watching the traffic to those threads.
Rev Sale: I read them and Boyd agreed to pay you with no conditions. Then what?
Bob Sakayama: The promise to pay was 21 November 2009. One month later, I start getting messages from Reese Boyd III. I've been told to refer to those calls as harassment, since they were intended to attempt to add further conditions to payment. Got at least 5 phone records from his phone. I even called him back twice after his first 3 tries but his voice mailbox was curiously full both times.
Rev Sale: Did you speak to him?
Bob Sakayama: Yes. Had a 15 minute courtesy call on 23 Dec 09 - have been told that this was a mistake - where my suspicions were confirmed. Reese Boyd III told me this great story about how they had always intended to pay and how the check was even dated 24 November. It was just about to be sent to me when Trey Harris discovered one of our many sites, and decided not to send the check. However, the check would be sent if only I would then take down the sites.
Rev Sale: Uh oh. Will you take them down?
Bob Sakayama: We usually do when we get paid. However, in this case, if we did that, then there would be no consequence for the bad behavior we have been victimized by. Right now, at least one of the the Fraud Report websites ranks #1 for "Claude O Harris" and has page 1 ranks for their trademark/personal names terms.
Rev Sale: I read that you want to be sued for this?
Bob Sakayama: Wouldn't that be amazing? Being owed money and end up being taken to court because of the SEO we did to publicize the dispute. What a story! I kind of doubt they would be that stupid, but I would definitely welcome that. We could get this in the Times if we get sued. Pretty sure that Reese Boyd III is not that reckless, but so far have not seen any smart moves. So light some candles.
Rev Sale: We can only hope. Thanks, Bob.
Bob Sakayama: Nice job, Rev. Thank you. Happy New Year.