[Sebb767]

We used a product from a company (I'd prefer not to name them) and received an official letter from them that on of our customers had more than 10 million in revenue, which in turn would require us to buy a larger plan from them[0]. They cited the companies (inofficial) RocketReach page as a source and demanded 30k USD (iirc).

They only retracted the thread after we could prove (via Google Cache and archive.org) that the page was very recently modified to show such a big revenue and threatened to report them for fraud.

We probably could've deflected the case since the company was public and therefore its revenue was also public, but, as a very small company, we had neither time nor money to spare for an useless lawsuit. And we assume that this was their bet. We switched to a competitor after this, obviously.

[0] It later actually turned out that this AGB change was after our purchase and not yet affecting us, but we didn't know that at the time.

[tomxor]

Sounds like that company was as shady as rocketreach... someone who threatens their own customer in bad faith (or negligence) just for 30k is likely to be more trouble and of less value to you in the future if that's their focus of increasing revenue.

Good call ditching them.

[edit] speculative aside...

What if they were intentionally feeding rocketreech miss-information? it might seem far fetched but these personal data collecting companies like rocketreach or even equifax obtain their information from a variety of untrustworthy sources.

I was a victim of this through my own foolishness a couple years ago:

I was using a car insurance comparison site and guessed one piece of the required information I couldn't completely remember - a speeding ticket date - I couldn't remember the exact year. Turns out I entered it exactly one year off, and it was so long ago anyway that it had no bearing on the quotes.

After continuing with my existing insurer, a few months later my insurer sent me a demand for a rather large quantity of money... that's right, they attempted to backcharge me for 5 years worth of insurance over an extra speeding ticket they had "discovered". Obviously there was no way I would pay them but it was extremely difficult to convince them to stop harassing me for this money even though they had no proof. Even after demanding they provide evidence of their discovery which they refused.

It's scary how easy this is to do, and I wasn't even trying.

[Sebb767]

> someone who threatens their own customer in bad faith (or negligence) just for 30k is likely to be more trouble and of less value to you in the future if that's their focus of increasing revenue.

Yes, that was really strange. We though they might need quick money, as this was right at the beginning of the corona crisis. Still, not acceptable.

> What if they were intentionally feeding rocketreech miss-information?

That's possible but quite strange. This information is public in our country, so there is a known reliable source and they should've known better.

> Obviously there was no way I would pay them but it was extremely difficult to convince them to stop harassing me for this money even though they had no proof.

Yes, this is quite usual. We were seriously lucky we discovered the change; but, given that they backed up so quick after calling it a fraud, I'm seriously assuming it was.

[cutemonster]

Thanks for explaining. (How surprised I would have felt, when first getting contacted about sth like that and a lawsuit)

[Sebb767]

Yes, we were shocked, too. Luckily one of us is a bit experienced in law and directly dug into this while keeping his cool. I saw our doors closing already, to be honest.