To all and whomever: STOLEN WEBSITE!
June 13, 2009 12:00 Noon.
I must report an operation of a business by a former customer, in what appears
to be an illegal and unethical manner. I am sad to have to do this but I
feel I must follow through at every opportunity in order to protect my business
and my clients from a scam. Thanks to client Munsif Fadhil for spotting the
apparent plagiarism and tipping us off. Well done, sir!
It has come to our attention this week that our website content has been stolen.
After spending about seven years working to create our website, collect and
offer the best products and working diligently to bring our websites to the top
of the search engine listings, our home page with many of the links to other
pages in our dozen websites intact, has been copied and the alleged thief's name
and e-mail injected to the copy. The offending party is:
GEORGE LOZANO
2330 EAST ASHLAN AVENUE
APARTMENT 212
FRESNO, CALIFORNIA 93726-3104
TELEPHONE 559-288-5431
HIS ALLEGED BUSINESS NAMES ARE/WERE "FRESNO EXPRESS", "FRESNO
TAXI METER" AND PERHAPS "FRESNO TAXI".
Lozano is operating a website under the URL "WWW. FRESNO TAXI METER. COM
and using the e-mail LOZANOS@FRESNOTAXIMETER.COM. He has applied his e-mail to
many of the e-mail address locations on our website www.TaxiCabElectronics.com.
If you will go to our site, and then look at his you will see the flagrant
plagiarism. His work is so obvious since he has allowed all the product numbers
which we have assigned to the toplights and other items to remain intact, as
well as numerous links to other of our pages. Our telephone, address, even
photographs are still in place on many of the pages his site references or with
which they link. Another possible e-mail for George may be "fresnotaximeters@hotmail.com"
It is especially sad to think that George Lozano has contacted us many times in
the past and we have helped him to understand problems and solve them, often
without charge. He repays us with this apparent theft of our site content.
Further upon checking with the various authorities, we have discovered the
following items appear to be true.
All of these items are subject to further verification but here is what we
understand at this moment, subject to correction;
GEORGE APPEARS TO HAVE NO BUSINESS LICENSE IN CITY OF FRESNO.
GEORGE APPEARS TO HAVE NO TAXI OPERATORS PERMIT IN THE CITY OF FRESNO.
GEORGE APPEARS TO HAVE NO CALIFORNIA STATE LICENSE FROM DFA, DEPT OF MEASUREMENT
STANDARDS.
GEORGE APPEARS TO BE UN-LICENSED BY THE SAME DFA/DMS AGENCY AS A SERVICE AGENT.
WE HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO DISCOVER A STATE SELLER'S PERMIT UNDER HIS NAME OR
BUSINESS.
GEORGE IS OFFERING TOPLIGHTS, METERS AND OTHER PRODUCTS WITHOUT DEALERSHIPS WITH
THOSE SUPPLIERS.
George has made no request to our company, Fred Stock Electronics or
www.TaxiCabElectronics.com for permission to use our website content, or to
represent our company in any manner. It appears he has decided to try to divert
our hard-earned efforts and clients to his own selfish and probably illegal
ends. If in fact, all the statements above prove to be correct, and he sells a
single item without being authorized to collect sales tax and without a business
license, it would seem he has broken a number of laws, regulations and rules. He
apparently is not licensed to sell, calibrate or certify taximeters, and has
offered to the internet purchasers products which he is not authorized to sell
and cannot procure. Buyer beware!
We intend to press forward with this until he has withdrawn all stolen content
from his website, and published a public apology to our firm, the manufacturers
of the products he has apparently illegally offered, and to the general public
for his apparent fraudulent efforts. We hereby state that he is 1) not
authorized to use our website content in any way, 2) not authorized to sell any
products or services which have been taken from our website, including all of
the educational content which has been available to the users of our website for
years in most cases and at least months for all of it. (See column 8 on the
homepage of our website under "FREE STUFF"). Let it be stated here
clearly, that our product lines, for instance our toplights, are manufactured by
several quality companies, and the catalog listings we show are under our index
numbers. They have been stolen directly from our site with our coded material
still intact! Brilliant!
We have contacted many of our suppliers and alerted them to the situation, and
none of them has indicated to us that he has a dealership under their
organizations. He is not authorized to sell any of the equipment shown in the
stolen content on his website under our dealerships or banner.
We also understand that there is a new avenue for our recourse, under the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 17 USC (512) which may help the ISP get
this straightened out. We intend to follow that trail as well as state, county
and city governmental channels which may apply.
This memo has been forwarded to you for your consideration, and to alert you to
an apparently fraudulent activity. Thank you for taking the time to read it. Any
information you can forward to us regarding this matter would be greatly
appreciated by us and our professional services.
Blessings,
Fred Stock - www.TaxiCabElectronics.com
PO
Box 12492, Palm Desert, CA 92255-2492 USA
Telephone 760-345-4347 Compu-Fax 760-345-6947
e-mail: Fred@TaxiCabElectronics.com