Tech Help Needed

To the computer-savvy out there, I need your help. My girlfriend is in the process of breaking away from her business partners to go out on her own, and one of the partners has become rather vindictive about the whole thing.

He is technically no longer employed by the company, but he still has access to a Yahoo e-mail account that was established before their own company server was set up. The address of that account is their company name followed by “@yahoo.com”.

This partner is attempting to sabotage existing company relationships by sending Yahoo e-mails to customers and suppliers telling them the company no longer wishes to do business with them. This is a problem since my girlfriend is taking the company name with her when she splits and what he is doing could impact her future business.

So my question is this: is there anyway to stop someone from using a particular e-mail address? He’s changed the password and account info, so my girlfriend is unable to get into the account and disable it. The only thing I can think of is to sign that bastard up for every possible e-mail list I can find so his account is flooded with spam. But beyond that, I don’t know. Does anyone know if there’s anything else we can do? And, yes, kicking his ass sounds like the best idea, but that’ll come later. :slight_smile:

Thanks for any ideas.

Tyler

Get a lawyer.

Get ahold of yahoo, somehow, and tell them what happened and that you want your account back.

KILL HIM :slight_smile:

This is a legal problem rather than a technical one. Sue him back to the stone age.

Yahoo will not cooperate without a court order. Had a similar problem. She needs to file a complaint with the “high tech crimes unit” in her county and get a criminal complaint going. Computer crime is a felony in a lot of states.

If the .com domain isn’t already registered hurry and grab it, then set up an email server. Send emails to the existing customers from the @companyname.com address explaining that the other person is no longer affiliated with the company, does not represent the company in any form, and that you are persueing legal action for fraud and misrepresentation. Not sure how the company is structure, but have all of the officers sign the email if possible.

When they opened the Yahoo account they should have had to enter some personal info or password reminder info, you could try the ‘I forgot my password’ link when you log in and see if you can change it to something else.

You’ve probably already tried this, but try resetting the password. Your girlfriend would simply need to establish her identity (location, birthday) and answer a secret question to have it reset.

good luck.
In faith,
Sam

Stalk this dude…

Confront him about his misgivings and his shady activity. Ask him politely to cease and desist aforementioned activity. Should he agree to your request, simply draft a quick declaration that you and he can sign. (having it notarized isn’t a bad idea either)

If he doesn’t agree and acts like a little bitch then feel free to execute the following.

Say to him “thank you for your time, I must leave now because the person I represent likes to hear bad news immediately”

  1. Find out where he sleeps.

  2. Find out what his most prize possesion is or what he values most in his diminutive unworthy life.

  3. Cut off the head of said possesion and stick in his bed while he’s in slumber Godfather style.

I’m not saying that you play the goon role right away, but it is an option.

B.

Thanks for all of the feedback everyone. I especially like your idea Brad… although I’m not sure the hood of this dude’s car would fit in his bed. But I’m gonna try, dammit!

We’ve looked into the “I lost my password” deal at Yahoo, but we don’t know his personal info, nor do we know if he changed the alternate e-mail address (the one where Yahoo would send the forgotten password). I’ll see if she can dig into it a little more and get any of that info. As for the lawyer ideas, yeah, that’s a road to go down, but my girlfriend has been dealing with lawyers throughout the entire process of breaking away from the other partners (the last four months), and she is hesitant to go back to that… although if dickweed pushes this any further, we will be looking into it. Money is also a big issue, so we’ll see.

At this point, she’s considering establishing a new company name just to sever any-and-all ties with this guy. While there are a few relationships that he could get f’ up, the company is relatively new and the bottom line is always money when it comes to customers and suppliers, so she should be ok.

The most important thing right now is to keep business moving forward. We would rather have him go away for right now and deal with him later, so I was hoping there was some trick to disabling his e-mail address. We’ll keep trying, but we also don’t want to antagonize him so he’s compelled to fuck with us even more. Not to say we’re afraid of a fight, but we have enough stress as it is and want to make sure this transition goes smoothly. Besides, revenge is a dish best served cold.

Thanks again for the replies,

Tyler