[lancewiggs]

Under this scenario you 1: either laugh at them or keep quiet, but have new understanding of how much the problem is worth to them, then 2: offer to fix it with a project - priced at a number that reflects both your inconvenience and their need. Whatever that price is, it will be a lot cheaper than lawyers at dawn against someone who has no ability to pay. Meanwhile the acquiring company should have done their Due Diligence on the software and these sort of loose ends would have been tidied up or deliberately ignored as part of that process. I do not believe in contracts for small gigs - but an email chain is good to have. If you then perform work, send invoices and they pay you there is a good enough contract in place.