legal help please

[T77911S]

first, we have called lawyers and tried to talk to them but they all want money up front. my wife just bought a scrapbooking store and it is not making enough to pay for itself yet so we dont have the money to spare, (also why the new 3.0 is sitting).
the lady she bought it from has been, among other things, harassing her. it started with an email from an "upset" friend of Kims (the old owner) that was just plain mean. kim used an email account other than the one we new so we would not realize it was her. we traced the email and it is registered to her.

the last thing she has done was to send in a friend (linda smith), with an 11 month old gift certificate for about $300 worth of product. this would REALLY hurt us. oh, there were 2 specific items listed on the gift C that kim was NOT a dealer for, so she would not of had them in the store. we have honored the smaller gift C's, $10-$20. my wife got her,lindas, number but told her to contact Kim about getting a refund, if she would not, we would try to honor it a little at a time...maybe. she went back to kim and kim sent us an email saying how mad the lady was and that she was going to contact the better business bureau (BBB).
we got a call from the BBB saying someone filled a complaint and they are sending a respnse package to us. my wife tried to call the lady and no one buy her name lives there. plus, the gift C's we honored in the past were on this carbon type paper, like a receipt book paper or something like that, the $300 one was on printer paper! my said kim did not have a printer in the store. my wife had been talking to her for a while about the store, so she new what was in there before we got it, not to say she could not of had a printer in there a year ago.

here is one option, maybe.
send an email to kim to tell the lady to come back in and we will SEE about honoring it. if/when she comes in, get the gift C and then ask the lady for ID to make sure it is her. if she will not show ID we keep the gift C and call the cops, or even if she does show ID and it is in her name we call the cops anyway for trying to pass a fake gift C.

im not worried about the BBB thing, we have enough info to get us out of that, but is there a way the BBB could help us?

this gift C thing has got to be illeagal in some way, whats to stop someone from making gift C's on their computer and using them on any new owner business?

a lady came in and told my wife that kim said she is saying we did not pay her for the store and that we are disshonest people, or something along those lines.

she has done other things agianst the contract about no compete, but the contract cotradicts itself (i think) in this matter. (our fault)
she was suppose to turn over an email list of all her old customers, we have quite a few peope come in and say they are not getting our emails.
kim has started to do classes again and is emailing people that we should have on our list but are not. so we think she gave us a bogus list or a partial list, mainly of non-locals.


the lady really has no money, peolpe are in line to collect from her. we would be happy if she would just go away and stop trying to hurt us.

[Dave L]

thats sucks, it "should" be easy to figure out if the GC is legit. Did the previous owner give you the books? If so you should be able to see if any $300 GC's were issued. It sounds to me that the old owner is producing GC's for her friends to buy supplies for her own new "business"

Perhaps a name change for the business is in order along with one of those fancy "under new management" signs.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by T77911S

first, we have called lawyers and tried to talk to them but they all want money up front.

Try again. Any lawyer should be willing to sit for a free consultation. Someone out there will.

[sailchef]

The BBB should have answers for you. Being that there are new owners and new management therefore a "new business" I don't see why you should have to honor a GC from the "old" store.

DaveL said it a little differently but still the same.

[KFC911]

What others said...new owners, new business, new game. Sounds sort of "scammish" from the PO if ya ask me. I wouldn't honor them at face value, but maybe "work something out" with the "potential" customer if they continue to use your store, and aren't simply looking for a "one time windfall" with the GCs. Just my .02...good luck!

[Jim Bremner]

$300, worth of goods =$180 ish in cost how much will the lawyer cost?

[KevinP73]

Many years ago I had a room at the MGM Grand Hotel in Vegas. While I was there they had a fire in a room a couple floors below the room I was in. They evacuated the hotel for a couple hours and the fire was extinguished. For my inconvenience the MGM gave me a certificate for a room of equal value anytime I chose to visit in the future. I went the next year (birthday tradition) and the hotel had been sold to Bally's. Bally refused to honor the certificate. They claimed they didn't have to honor any "Special Offers" from the previous owners.
There may be some parallel here in regards to the "Special Offers" of previous owners.

[Superman]

Originally Posted by Jim Bremner

$300, worth of goods =$180 ish in cost how much will the lawyer cost?

Arguably, this is not the point. Kim is out there actively trying to trash the business she sold. The lawyer's first job would be to send a letter to Kim requesting the real customer list, and clarifying that there will be a lawsuit if she continues to interfere in the business.

[T77911S]

Originally Posted by Dave L

thats sucks, it "should" be easy to figure out if the GC is legit. Did the previous owner give you the books? If so you should be able to see if any $300 GC's were issued. It sounds to me that the old owner is producing GC's for her friends to buy supplies for her own new "business"

Perhaps a name change for the business is in order along with one of those fancy "under new management" signs.

first, thanks to all of you. this has been real upsetting to my wife, especially the first email. i will try to post it later. she is doing better with this, but when something new pops up like this it gets to her at first, even though we know what type of person we are dealing with.

your right. she was/is trying to get product for her use. but how do i stop it. we have a sign up stating that we will not honor any old GC's, which we had up beore. but, trying to make new cutomers, we did honor 3 or 4 for less than $25, but they were not printed on printer paper.

do you think i should try to get her to bring it back in so i can get the fake GC for prosecution? and do i need a lawyer to prosectue? its got to be fraud or something like that.

lawyer fees are not doable now. i dont think she will try another $300 GC with another person. from what some one said, it is really pissing her off that she is not getting a rise out of us, thats why i think she went to the BBB, or maybe that would encourage us to honor the $300 GC.

[Zeke]

Call the police and talk to an investigator. You're not going to get free legal advice. If something is not right, they will know the path to take. Just having an investigator involved may make this go quiet real quick.

And never be bullied by the BBB. Throw their **** away. They can't liable you and they won't w/o investigating both sides. Refer them to the police for the other side. Then never talk to the BBB ever again. They're bigger crooks than Kim.

[T77911S]

im not really concerned about the BBB, how many people actually look at the BBB. besides, we have enough info to negate her claim.

[asphaltgambler]

I understand your situation is tough but talk is cheap and good advice is priceless. Try to obtain good., legal counsel that specializes in retail. You need to stop all the trains at this station NOW. Don't let this ***** ruin your wife's chances of becoming sucessful. Find the money. Find a good attorney. Get this resolved.

[911Rob]

great advise here, sorry to hear about this and I hope it goes better for you soon.

stop honouring any GCs imo, tell the people you can't becuase of POs fraudulant behaviour.

[T77911S]

here is the last email concerning the GC.
if nothing else, all this drama may entertaining for you.

a little background:
when my wife talked to her about buying the business, they were discussing a price of around $10,000, but, we were to pay her each month. when my wife went in to sign, kim had other ideas. she wanted my wife to pay this $4000 hotel bill for the retreat she (kim) was putting on. kim told her she would get more than enough in preregistration for next years retreat that my wife would put on. ( we also bought the retreat business too) well, only one person signed up. later we found out kim was now putting on another retreat scheduled for the same weekend the next year but under a different name! the actual bill was $5200. when my wife confronted her about this, kim said the people there did not like my wife and that is why nobody signed for her retreat.
we had taken out a loan of $8000 to put into the store. so between the $5200 and us having to restock the store, because kim let the stock run down to near nothing, we had no money left. my wife told her at this point, because she changed the way we were to pay and she wiped us out, she could give us the $5200 back and we will walk away or she can accept the $5200 as full payment. she came back and accepted the $5200 as full payment.
as for the order she is talking about, kim placed an order for product, about 3-$400, so she, kim, could have product at the retreat. she says that we owe her for the product. this order was placed by kim for her retreat and my wife did not know it was placed until after kim did it.
we do have some of the product in the store and my wife sent kim an email saying she can have it.

anyway, here tis.
notice that kim says she will be willing to accept the cartridges FOR linda as payment

Rayann,
I have stressed and prayed over writing this letter to you. The tension that is between us is not good for either one of us or for your business. I feel as though you wronged me when you did not pay me for the Notions order that I placed for you in January. It is one thing that "you decided that you had paid enough money for the business", but the order had nothing to do with that. I would never had placed it if I had knnown that you were not going to repay me. I have spoken with my pastor and my attorney and they both agree that I should be compensated for the product.Like I said, I have prayed alot over this and I am willing to accept the Sizzix Big Shot and 2 Cricut cartridges and a set of Expressions mats that Linda wanted for her gift certificates. I will tell her that you ordered them and that should make her think better of the store. Her Mother spends a lot of money in there. It would be ashame to loose her business or other business because of this. This seems like a good solution since they feel so strongly about this. I think that you should put a very visible sign that says " We no longer accept gift certificates purchased before Jan. 1, 2009. That protects you. Then, maybe offer anyone that has one, a free class. Chances are if they take it, they will spend money.
Please pray about this.
Kim

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by sailchef

The BBB should have answers for you. Being that there are new owners and new management therefore a "new business" I don't see why you should have to honor a GC from the "old" store.

DaveL said it a little differently but still the same.

Yep, put a sign above the counter that says "New management, sadly we cannot honor gift certificates from the previous ownership group, as we have no way of verifying their authenticity."

[T77911S]

here is the email before the one above. i forgot about this one.
i cant figure out the route. i think it was meant to look like a forward from kim (scrappyangles) but it lookls more like a reply from an email my wife sent her. my wife is scrapbooksbythesea.
i guess she could have cut and pasted linda's message


Subject:
Re: March Retreat
From:"Scrappy Angels"
Date:Fri, 6 Mar 2009 14:47:44 -0500
To:"ScrapBooksByTheSea"

Rayann,
I sent out info the other day to the girls. Unless it comes back to me, I assume that they received it.
I will be sure to tell them not to bother you.
Also, here is a letter that I got from Linda.


Hi Kim,
I am not sure if you remember me, but I shop with you when I am in the area. I have two gift certificates that were given to me for my birthday. They expire May 1, 2009. I went to the store today and was shocked to see that there was a new owner. I was even more shocked at her attitude. She doesn't have a clue about customer service! She said that you would have to honor them because you were paid for them. I certainly DO NOT expect you to do that since she now owns the business. I would never let you do it, even though you offered. I have contacted the Better Business Bureau. I am writing letters to the Chamber of Commerce in Myrtle Beach and Georgetown and I am letting everyone in my online groups know about her. I have heard that other local scrappers are unhappy with her. It is ashamed because everyone loved you and Nick and felt so welcome there. I don't think that she will be in business very long. If you forward this to her, do not give her my email address. If she decides to do the right thing and honor them, then she can let you know. Does she not know how much money my mom spends in there? Of course she will not be doing it again.
Stay in touch.
Linda Smith




----- Original Message ----- From: "ScrapBooksByTheSea"
To: "Scrappy Angels"
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 12:23 PM
Subject: March Retreat


> Please email your attendees with your information. They are all
> emailing me regarding the retreat.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rayann

[T77911S]

here is the very first email we got from kim. this came thru the web site and i cant find it. all i have is the printout so i have to type it.
read slow, i type slow

i hope your classes improve. from what i heard, my 5 year old is more creative.
also, you should not talk negative about Kim or artful legacey in your store or in public.


not much there but it made my wife cry.

[T77911S]

i was just looking at the GC's my wife had honored. 2 were for $25, the third, now get this, was brought in by kim for $50! it was supposed to be from someone in viginia and kim was going to send it to them. my wife only gave her $25 for it. this happened when we first bought the store and we did not know what/who we were dealing with.

you know the saying, a sucker born every minute, 2 minutes here.

anyone got some citibank stock they want to sell, ill give you twice what its worth.

my wife is a very nice person and very trusting. i guess she/we are just easy to be taken advantage of.

[dad911]

When we sold our business, we disclosed outstanding gift certificates. They should come off of the price, as payment was received by prior owner.

In our case, we had a list, and did an adjustment a year later.

[RWebb]

Did you buy the business? Or did you just buy the storefront or something.

Normally, when you buy the whole business, you have bought not just their assets (goods, stock, etc.) but also their liabilities (i.e. outstanding gift coupons and other debt).

An atty will need to read the entire sales contract and see what is what.

Did you change the name of the store? Legally change it I mean, not just put up a new sign.