Former employee with our mailing list!

Hi, i'm just an employee, so I may be over stepping my bounds by asking for advice in this matter, but I figure what the hell, makes me look a bit better around the office if I can actually suggest something sensible to resolve this :44:

Basically an employee left mid way through last year. Attempted to sue the company for his dismisal, failed, attempted to bring charges against us, failed and ended up with a 6 month restraining order.
Thats ended now and he's sending emails containing malicious falsehoods to contacts on our mailing list...

I've suggested my boss pull out his old contract and highlight select passages and save them as an email waiting to be sent to the person in question should this escalate any further. Then simply report him for spam to spamcop (since he appears to be sending out bulk unsolicited email) and raise a complaint with the legal department of his webhost, pointing out that as a UK company they are somewhat liable for the actions of those they host.

Basically Im just wondering if anyone on this fine forum could suggest anything else? (they don't want to take any actions as yet because he seems to be the sort of person to hold a grudge, but it seems thats a bit of a moot point if he's sending out damaging emails to our former customers)
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Oh for fcuk's sake. You aren't a lawyer, nor is your boss, nor am I. You've already been through legal process with this guy. Why not go back to the lawyers you've already been dealing with, and continue? There may also be a criminal aspect if he's in contempt - but again, YOUR LAWYERS THAT YOU ARE ALREADY WORKING WITH are the right people to advise you. Not BHW.

Someone did get fined in the UK for spamming if I recall correctly but that is as far as my expertise on the subject goes

Thanks to the FFS guy, that was a really helpful post

At no point did I say we want to get a legal recourse going on, I was asking if there's any other simple methods (like contacting their host or Spamcop) that we could follow before taking it to the legal stage.

(at the second poster, thanks for adding something constructive! )

I may have used "FFS" but I was absolutely serious. Don't forget that any actions you take upon youself may in the end be used against you.

Yes, fully accepting that point, but Im not looking for any expressly underhanded techniques, I'm looking for simple actions which will cause him some grief, without us having to go through the courts once more.

For instance, we were informed by a few friendly customers about his emails, we could simply request they report it for us to spam cop and his host, at the very least he'll think twice before doing it again, and if we go to court we can now point to registered complaints against him from customers.

I get what you're saying, but I'm not going to be suggesting we do outright attacks on the site lol.

If you or the company don't want to take drastic action then don't bother. Spam cops only go after prolific spammers. The worst thing they will most likely do to him is get his account canceled.

As mentioned above, if you want to stop him then talk to the lawyers again. Sounds like he stole company customer contacts, which illegal in itself. Stop playing around and nail this guy the legal way.

Wrangler, great way to present yourself. You sound like a class A guy. Douche. The guy comes and asks for advice, and you leave those comments. I would punch you in the mouth if you talked to me that way.

Some people on BHW ARE LAWYERS. So instead of being a general a-hole, just don't leave a comment at all and move on.

Anyways, back to the OP -

Inspiration, the best thing to do would be to send out a C & D order. If he has any brains he will stop what he is doing. If this doesn't stop him, then have you lawyer send out a C&D. If that doesn't work, you can definitely sue him and have him thrown in jail for stealing your companies IP (intellectual property).

Cnotey said:

Some people on BHW ARE LAWYERS.

Click to expand...

And no lawyer worth his salt would dare leave an opinion on what to do
without all the facts.

Cheers to those who posted advice.

As I said in the original post its not my company so I don't mind overly, but its difficult to get work done with my employers preoccupied with this.

I think they're trying to mediate it through a mutual contact now, which seems a bit odd to me, like one of the posters said, what he's done is illegal (and considering his business is creating databases and offering IT support it would effectively render him unemployable I would have thought), so going through the police or courts would make more sense. In their defence the police down here don't seem to have a clue about things outside their scope, first time it was reported the officer seemed to think it was perfectly legal for a former employee to take someone elses data and distrubute the content...

Anyway thanks again to all responders

Definitely report him to the police. I'm no legal person either, but seems pretty clear he is breaking a number of laws, theft of your companies data, unsolicited email being the main ones.

Would also suspect he could be persued for a number of civil matters (i.e. sue him) as he is in breach of contract (assuming there are relevant clauses about interlectual property which most contracts have) and depending on what he is sending out in the emails possibly slander etc as well.

Out of interest, you don't work for an email service provider company that works with a large online media/electronics retailer that ryhms with 'yay' do you?

haha nope nothing as interesting as that

Sounds like he's made a bit of a cock up though. The restraining order was placed on him by the police, and he's automatically assumed it runs out after 6 months. However, according to the friendly policeman my bosses have been consulting with that isn't the case

(Don't think my employers are willing to go whole hog with it, but I don't see how you can deal with someone who's willing to lie low for 6 months and start up again the second he thinks he can get away with it)