aibanter.com.au/ I'd like to draw attention to the fact that the website which is linked here says that: ...the only problem is that the owner is not very well spoken of and has been involved in some very dodgy dealings... (my emphasis) It seems that I have been sent here because I am mentioned on one of the comments as having sent that link to people at school. That is probably why I got this - I don't know - and it's very much an unrelated issue. A question from the other side to anon above: The person you sent your link to is the one who got in touch with you. This should be OK, it was not a breach of the terms of service, as far as I can see. I don't think it's likely that this was related, but let me know if there is any reason why you'd feel uncomfortable about sending more info to him. It would be very helpful if you can provide more information to aksamat101, so that people here who don't know him don't think that it's okay to attack him. I really have no idea what the connection is between the comment on the internet site and the email to me which was supposedly "from the owner", but it must be something pretty big for my name to come up in both those contexts. I can't imagine where a post on an anonymous blog would be linked to me or my house, and it doesn't really matter, either, since this is getting ridiculous. It is true that I was involved in the management of an investment property, including selling the house for the seller, and that person did in fact fail to pay the rent, but it is not because of anything illegal or even unethical, just because he wasn't able to keep the property well enough for prospective buyers to see it. He was not involved in the sale of the house, and only stayed there for a few months, so it had little to do with the previous landlady, and any information I would have, or didn't have, is completely unrelated. As you can tell, that little bit of internet research has cost me several hours of my time, as well as losing a sale. Does anyone have any idea how I can make this end? I'm not sure if it's worth pursuing, but if I have been wrongly accused of something it would be nice if someone would take me at my word and take whatever action they thought was necessary to find out what the truth is. I am happy to answer any questions that you would like to put to me or provide any evidence that you feel necessary. Thank you, Toby It's good to see that someone has finally done some research. It might have been more useful to you if you had been given the chance to be a little more involved, instead of getting your name slapped all over the place. The "evidence" that you provided above should actually help you clear your name, as well as give you some free publicity and the opportunity to make money with the help of this discussion. If there was a serious breach of copyright, as you suggest, this is where a good lawyer could help you (or perhaps they'd help a colleague/friend with your "problem" for free?). If anyone thinks you are making something up then the most recent poster to the forum would be the first person to receive the benefit of your experience. I did not know of your involvement with that property but, if it's in my own state, I could probably help sort something out. I'm curious. If you have some proof to share then that will help as well. I'd certainly be interested in hearing more. Thanks for your interest. I wish it was as simple as a good lawyer can solve things like this, unfortunately that's not the case, and if you've ever been involved in a business dispute, you know what I mean. If the person who wrote the blog post contacted the estate agent about my situation then there is a serious breach of privacy and a confidentiality breach - a big deal, not just something which happened long ago and has been forgotten. I'm sure this is not the first time that this issue has come up. I am not in any way interested in helping out anyone who uses these methods. The issue is not whether my name is attached to something online - it's the fact that the person or persons in question has had my name attached to it and used that as a reason to avoid me. I don't want it used for this purpose. When it comes to using someone else's data as a basis for a claim, it is often an easier and quicker to use what someone else has written and published than to do it yourself. When I was an undergraduate, in what used to be called the "real world", someone who worked on my team was caught driving a car which they claimed belonged to a supplier. They used the fact that he owned a Porsche and had put his details on his CV, as a reason to ignore my protests and insist that he didn't have the car on campus at all. It was a nice ride, but he never intended it as an honest mistake. What he was saying was that this was a car which he felt safe taking round to the uni - the implication being that I was not safe because I wasn't allowed to drive. That was obviously ridiculous - I was a fairly poor driver, he was well paid, and so we both knew it - and he should have known better than to try and pull a stunt like that. I don't want to be caught in a similar situation. I just want this person who seems to have so many connections to have his name cleared, so that I can trust him again. I have checked, and the person who said I was involved in selling property at a place, where he supposedly lives, does not live in the same state that the house is in. I can send the URL of the newspaper article if someone would like to have a look. I did get an apology from the person in question, and he also got his own website taken down and had all the evidence put up on a different site. He's a very busy man, but it's his own problem. I tried to get a more sensible response from him (the apology was a bit off-the-mark, since nothing illegal or wrong happened, but I couldn't help wondering if he was a bit sensitive about his home town, which is part of the whole problem) but it didn't seem to do the job. This is something of a tangent to the main point, but this all happened during the weekend. I found out about it when I arrived at the airport, and only found out what it was all about because of the media coverage. I hope that this does not seem to be too much of an interruption - I'm pretty sure that there was nothing to this at all, but I thought that the more people who could see that this is clearly not a serious incident, the better. In one of the blogs that I checked, a poster (who I am fairly sure is not related to the landlady) had the idea that we should "try and find out if there are any pictures on [the website]". Here are some other things that you can do: Check the website name, to see if you have any clue to what it is about. Check the email address, to see if there is a link to anything else. Check the name and address of the company that the person who owns this website is connected to. If you do have some connections with this person (although they seem to be in this business already) then you can do an internet search of the company and see if there is anything there. You might find some interesting things on the website if you look for them. I hope I have been of some use. This was not something which was worth the effort. I know that you were only trying to help, and are not to blame for any of this, so it might be a good idea to try and get it off your plate for a while. Good luck. P.S.: This is definitely not a threat, since I'm not at all