Lesson learned. Always close a bank account attached to a suspended Stealth

[Kelly441]

Yes, it'd just one account, the account that was getting SmAmazon disbursements. They other accounts are fine, but I have already started moving money out and will go to the bank to remove more. However, I can't just take everything out because I buy my products via PayPal. I will however change banks too for my PayPal. However, if they can freeze any account from any bank I'll be screwed. I cant just have cash and do money orders, there is no way I can run a business that way. I could use bank business accounts, but the problem their is when I have to pay myself. I heard it's a bad idea to pay for personal things with the business account and that the IRS can say you are no longer a business. Going to talk to the attorney tommorow. Won't get any sleep tonight. Worried

[trosky]

My question is if they went through a judge and all the paperwork in which name is all that paperwork under? ⊗⊗⊗⊗ name? Wouldn't the name on the bank account and any judge papers have to be the same so that judge knows it's that person's account? Or they didn't care and out the freeze either way, or found your real info, and if so how?

Also on another note, how much did you sell of their products for them to go through all of this trouble?

[Kelly441]

According to the website court info, it said Waco versus MY⊗⊗⊗⊗ Amazon name and vs My amazon store name. So I'm thinking legally the judgement was against the ⊗⊗⊗⊗ name and the judge just approved the freeze on the account, wether they are able to also go after the bank account owner too I don't know, but your would think they would have to actually sue me to do that. Will talk to attorney on morning

[Dmshark25]

It's just something that needs attention to, it could be as small as just that $700 they froze and that's it, the important thing is to find out, you could call your bank and they will give you a number to call also

And when you call they will,just tell you how much you owe, and if it is a small amount like only that $700 just pay them the money and that's it, they will need to send something to the Bank saying the Debt was paid and than the bank will wait until the dead line and than get an order from the judge to free up the funds in your account


If it is some huge outrageous number than u may want to get your lawyer involved, but either way call the bank they will tell u what happened and give u the number to call

[jeffweico]

Originally Posted by Kelly441

They said they issued the summons by mail, can they do this? It was a ⊗⊗⊗⊗ name so obviously Joe Blow couldn't have signed for it. Can a summons be given via certified mail. The address they had was some strip mall and I just added a suite number.

2/7/2014 Summons(es) issued via U.S. Postal Service as to defendant(s) Applebox, Martin Balog, Bethtown Store, Bing Bang Boom, Buy at Wholesale, ChargeWorld, Deal With Us, Inc., Yonathan Englard, Mu Wen Juan, Shaanan Lett-Smith, Victor McDougal, Miele's, Rachelle Owens, PK Ventures, Ralph Popham, Quaver, Xu Rui Rui, Kulap Simonis, Simulstore, Specialty Warehouse, TechWave, Simon Trent, Truncate Home, Jeffrey Winton, gotUcovered. (DJ) (Entered: 02/07/2014)

In some jurisdictions, yes. It all depends on the local court rules

[jeffweico]

At this point, you REALLY need to speak with an attorney. Seriously, I'm not kidding.

I do not know if they can go after you personally for the judgment. It all depends on whether any fraud or crimes were committed and what your state law is.

If they CAN hold you personally responsible, then they will probably send an inquiry to the bank (it is called different things in different places) asking for any accounts with your name and SSN on them. The bank will have to respond, because this goes through the court, it is not just them asking as a private company.

At this point, I would not be as worried about getting the $700 back as I would be of them turning this case over to public prosecutor. Forgive me if my assessment is wrong, but it sounds like this company thinks you were selling counterfeits of their products and decided to sue you and some other Amazon sellers.

If the judgment was for copyright infringement, then I would have to imagine it is MUCH higher than the $700 they are holding. Selling ONE counterfeit can result in a $250,000 fine. If you sold a lot of these, the judgment could be in the millions of dollars. It all depends on what the judge in the case allowed.

They may or may not have gotten your bank account information from Amazon. There are companies that specialize in finding bank accounts for attorneys. Or, maybe they DID get the information Amazon had on file - it is POSSIBLE that they have your account number, but not your real name.

Freezing a bank account is easy. It is the next step, where they go to court and ask for the funds to be turned over that gets harder. The court MAY ask for a verification letter from your bank (they have to respond to the freeze with a notice advising how much money was frozen) and it MAY include your personal information. If the names are a mismatch, they could start digging. If they think you are selling their items on other accounts, be they at eBay, Amazon or anywhere else, they could go after them as well. They could also try to convince a government prosecutor to take the case as a criminal matter. Whether or not the government prosecutor would take the case, that I do not know.

But you DO seem to have landed yourself in a bit of trouble here and I recommend talking to an attorney to minimize the damage and protect yourself as much as possible. One thing is certain, they know you have money since they were able to freeze the $700, so they are NOT likely to go away.

Also, I just want to mention that just because money is frozen, it does not mean that it will be turned over. In most areas, there is a "personal exemption" on the funds in your bank account. It ranges from $500 up to $5,000 or more. In Cook County, Illinois, it is $3,000, to give you an example. If you or your attorney go to court to contest the turnover, you can claim your personal exemption and have the funds released that way. But again, the trouble you are in at the moment is bigger than the frozen money, so an attorney is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

[Kelly441]

I'm so depressed and upset, my life could be ruined. I will talk to the attorney in the morning.

[jeffweico]

Keep all of this in perspective. Are you in a bad situation? Yes. Are you in the worst situation that anyone has ever been in? No. Just talk to your attorney (be honest with them, they can't be very helpful if you lie) and see what they say. This could all blow over if handled properly. That is why you want an attorney.

Don't go out and buy that bottle of AstroGlide just yet...

[user3657]

Originally Posted by Kelly441

I'm so depressed and upset, my life could be ruined. I will talk to the attorney in the morning.

Anybody can sue for any reason.

When I was younger I created a mini youtube site way before they or google exisited. You could download all the newest music vidoes from my server. I had 3 cable modems coming into a FTP server into my home LOL.

I changed the password every week and the way you would get the password is by signing up for one of my sponsor links. I would take a screen shot of the last page of the offer once you are confirmed to have signed up, blank out 2 words and that would be the user/pass for the server.

Well one of the advertisers found out and flipped the ****. My parents had no idea what I was doing untill they received a demand letter for 100k.

The main company involved said I was the cause for ⊗⊗⊗⊗ leads that hurt their relationships with their partners.

Besides not wanting to come home for a month nothing ever came out of it. My uncle was a lawyer and talked to them a few times but we never heard anything else from it.

I would not sweat it yet. you never know.

[yankee]

So far they froze $700.00 That may or may not be a lot of money to you BUT it is only money.
Don't worry about what you don't know. It only robs the joy and most things we worry about NEVER EVEN HAPPEN.
Keep cool and find out the details tomorrow.

[jeffweico]

Originally Posted by user3657

Anybody can sue for any reason.

When I was younger I created a mini youtube site way before they or google exisited. You could download all the newest music vidoes from my server. I had 3 cable modems coming into a FTP server into my home LOL.

I changed the password every week and the way you would get the password is by signing up for one of my sponsor links. I would take a screen shot of the last page of the offer once you are confirmed to have signed up, blank out 2 words and that would be the user/pass for the server.

Well one of the advertisers found out and flipped the ****. My parents had no idea what I was doing untill they received a demand letter for 100k.

The main company involved said I was the cause for ⊗⊗⊗⊗ leads that hurt their relationships with their partners.

Besides not wanting to come home for a month nothing ever came out of it. My uncle was a lawyer and talked to them a few times but we never heard anything else from it.

I would not sweat it yet. you never know.

I agree that he should not panic. But he needs legal advice at this point. They are not merely threatening a lawsuit, they have a judgment. So, he needs legal advice, not forum advice.

[Kelly441]

I really appreciate your guys information and trying to console me. If I was not on this forum I would not have done anything and just assumed they could only get that one bank account with $700. Please pray for me guys, my marriage could be over if this gets bad. I can not do this anymore, I am only going to stick with products I know for sure are legit.

[MICKY H]

Kelly, let get in in perspective.

Wacom have sued a company/person and many others by the sound of it from information amazon has given them.

The company that you are behind does not exist so therefore Judgement is worthless, they have frozen the bank account from information from amazon, they have not frozen $700, if there was $100k in there it would be frozen, its the bank account frozen.

My advice would be do nothing, in time they will try a secure the funds, this will go before a Judge who will look at the account name on the bank and the company being sued. He will dismiss their application as its mis matched.

If you start hiring an attorney at this time you are drawing attention to who the real owner is.

I would say Wacom a little chance of suing you personally as they have no evidence who the real seller is.

[jeffweico]

The attorney MAY advise that he do nothing. But if he does not take steps to protect himself, he could be in for a world of pain.

Trust me, the attorneys can find out who the real owner is easily enough. It would NOT be difficult to convince a judge to subpoena the bank records in this case. Everyone knows that if you want to find out who is responsible for something, you follow the money trail. Which leads right to Kelly411 at this point. Just because they do not have all of the pieces of the puzzle today does not mean that they will not have them tomorrow.

These people have a bank account that is attached to his real name. They sued him in court and obtained a judgment. It is dangerous to assume they will simply stop, regardless of whether or not the judge allows the funds to be turned over. The judge is probably NOT going to scrutinize the order to turn over the funds anyway. If nobody shows up to contest it, it is pretty much a rubber stamp process from there on.

Companies are becoming more and more aggressive when it comes to enforcing their IP rights. Nobody believes me until they get sued. Trying to hide and hoping it will simply all go away is not the best way to handle this.

[MICKY H]

The hearing for funds being handed over will more than likely be ex-parte decision.

Yes they could get a Judge to force the bank to hand over information, but if they know there is only $700 in the account are they really going to spend more dollars, maybe.

Yes, they can follow the money trail and then they have to start again with litigation, this is when you get an attorney involved IMO

[Kelly441]

I told my attorney my concerns about calling them and giving them anymore info. Micky, what you say makes sense, it gives me hope. It would make sense that they would have to issue a summons for a new suit if they are going after me because the judgement was for a fictional name. Even if they hot my llc info from IRS they should have filed it against llc.

I will continue to consult with an attorney, but right now I am thinking it would be better to move everything over into my spouses bank account and just close all personal bank accounts.

[GreenBean]

What you need to do is stop talking IN PUBLIC to a bunch of unqualified strangers.

jeffweico is correct.

You are in a bad place.

You need to resolve how to get out of that by consulting with a professional.

I hope you can consider this.

[Gamefreak]

i think this thread in general needs to be move to private section to protect kelly. this is searchable in google and can easily be found, no?

[GreenBean]

Originally Posted by Gamefreak

i think this thread in general needs to be move to private section to protect kelly. this is searchable in google and can easily be found, no?

Been reported with this very request.

[MICKY H]

Originally Posted by Kelly441

better to move everything over into my spouses bank account and just close all personal bank accounts.

Be careful with this as your then moving in money laundering and involving your wife. The funds can be classed as proceeds of crime. Anyway this is the UK name for it.

[MICKY H]

Originally Posted by Gamefreak

i think this thread in general needs to be move to private section to protect kelly. this is searchable in google and can easily be found, no?

and now Kelly cannot see the replies.....

[Gamefreak]

well we will soon have another paid subscriber if he wants to see the replies. honestly its for his own safety as the info on here is touchy