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theartfuldodger

This has happened to me several times, I have never taken it seriously or put much effort into responding.

I usually would go straight to the throat and very personal.

Publish their letter on the domain they seek, capture all lawyer and company details and publish to site.

Use opsec for phone numbers, call them at terrible hours ( at home) to discuss offers of payment.

They are trying to bleed you with superior resources so guerrilla tactics are best ( legal of course)

They act different when they realize they are exposed and you don't care about normal processes.

Lol, I should make my own David v Goliath service.

Depends on the size of Goliath. No one scary came for me and a few 2am calls led to crickets.

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This is the type of comment I come to HN for. I try to explain to my partner there is always alternative ways to handle matters, and going with "the process" has inevitable outcomes. Probably good they work at a bank and I well... Don't

Can you further elaborate on your story I am very curious?

> Use opsec for phone numbers, call them at terrible hours ( at home) to discuss offers of payment.

IANAL, but if your goal is to give the them additional grounds for suing you, you may be off to a good start.

I think the idea is that it's plausibly someone else calling, since you made the documents containing contact info public (which is legal I hope?).

Sounds absolutely ruthless and I quite like it. Don't think I'm bold enough to do it myself but I'm always surprised how much being persistent gets you when you're talking to companies.

If one was short of time, one could always put out a tender so that several (hundred) different independent agents could speculatively contact them in order to conduct negotiations, then present you with offers that you could compare. If those agents were in turn having trouble establishing contact, they could farm out this effort to others who had more time and expertise in this area.

This. If it is legal, you should at least consider escalating as far as you are comfortable. You are now at war, whether you like it or not. Never back down, never surrender.

> call them at terrible hours ( at home)

This is a really nasty idea. You’ll be bothering their family who have nothing to do with it. Sounds like you’re advocating harassment of people’s families.

They're already harassing you under the guise of a legal process. A clock punching attorney won't be emotionally invested in the details of a matter, but the victims of such nastygrams are - the main goal of such letters is to make you stressed and worried so you just cave - hence the corollary of hiring a professional who will handle it impersonally

Two wrongs don't make a right, and it certainly may be imprudent to escalate. But there's no moral ground for them to stand on here - they're in the same category as any other spammer. Furthermore nowhere did OP advocate deliberately expanding the scope to their family. If phone calls at inconvenient-to-them times end up bothering their family as well, it's because they didn't do the work to separate their family from their ugly business.

In general I don't buy into the idea of declaring some times as off limits for phone calls, since society has never given me the same courtesy in the early morning. I'd much rather get calls at 10PM than 10AM, and yet it's somehow acceptable for businesses to return an afternoon call at 9AM sharp and pretend they're doing their best to communicate.

A lot of words to justify that you know you’ll likely be impacting someone who did nothing against you.

I'm sure many more words have been written by legal nastygrammers justifying their own actions of unsolicited aggression.

Shouldn't we aim to have better moral standards than them when dealing with third parties?

I'm just absolutely dumfounded that someone is seriously suggesting harassing a wife and children over a business relationship and repeatedly trying to justify it.

In general? Sure. When dealing with hostile unwanted contact? Not particularly.

Nobody here has advocated harassing someone's wife or children. That's a straw man you created.

> If phone calls at inconvenient-to-them times end up bothering their family as well, it's because they didn't do the work to separate their family from their ugly business.

Real ‘nice family you have there, shame if someone would scare them with a few calls at 2am’ vibe there, and you know it.

It's more like don't harass people and then expect having a family will shield you from the repercussions.

These nastygram shakedowns deliberately cause personal stress to their victims (there is little other reason to send baseless legal demands), and so escalating the situation to be personally stressful for the attackers seems like an appropriate response.

As far as I can tell you're arguing that it's one thing to harass people during "business hours", but there is some greater principle whereby harassing them back at off hours is wrong because it might bother their personal associates.

If you don't want to get phone calls at inconvenient times either don't be a shithead in the first place (so that people calling you respect your schedule), or figure out how to silence your phones.

> escalating the situation to be personally stressful for the attackers seems like an appropriate response

I'd morally disagree with that. Shouldn't deliberately cause someone personal stress, no matter what they've done to you.

> I'd morally disagree with that. Shouldn't deliberately cause someone personal stress, no matter what they've done to you

So if someone robs you, then you shouldn't call the police on them? That's a direct implication of your statement here.

This whole "conversation" has been you quibbling using half-baked one-liners while avoiding any substance. I'm done.

> So if someone robs you, then you shouldn't call the police on them? That's a direct implication of your statement here.

No the opposite. You should call the police on them and let them deal with it. You shouldn't attempt to put any pressure on them yourself.

> avoiding any substance

Don't harass people. Use proper procedure to resolve disputes instead of calling them at their home.

> Use proper procedure to resolve disputes

That's really the depth of your thinking here? Sheesh, why did I bother?

Here's a practical reason if moral reasons don't work for you.

If calling them at 2 am for some reason doesn't get the business result you want, and you have to go to court, the court'll ask you what reasonable steps you've already tried to resolve amicably, and the judge will think you're in the wrong when your opponent brings out a log of your 2 am calls to their residential address. Suddenly it'll look like they were just doing legitimate business and you were threatening and harassing.

Even if you aren't a moral person, it pays to do things properly.

From my very first comment:

> Two wrongs don't make a right, and it certainly may be imprudent to escalate

The root of the hacker mindset is looking at alternative solutions that go against the common narrative. It sounds like this method worked out for OP, so it is worth considering. I don't think I personally would go down this path due to possible complications, its utter pettiness, and the fact it is very easy to silence phones at off hours. But depending on the situation, maybe it would make sense.

I am a very moral person, hence having thought these things through. You're the one taking the shortcut of assuming anything done through "proper procedure" is moral. In my book, calling the cops on someone is most certainly escalating the situation and causing them personal stress. Deferring to the system is not an absolution from moral reasoning.

This is what worked for me a few times. It is painful for a bit but better than spending money on a lawyer. I would also suggest to try and find a lawyer in your network willing to help at below their retail price. Despite the bad rep, lawyers are humans and are very eager to help good people

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