Contra Health Scam has received what looks like a legal notice from the scammer behind The 3 Week Diet, a weight loss scam I exposed months ago. The notice is ordering me to remove the images featured in the scam review or else my site will be taken down within 24 hours. Well this is my response to the threat!
It all began on Friday October 28, eight months after I published the review exposing The 3 Week Diet for the scam that it is. On that day I received this shabby email from ‘Brian Flatt’ (who by the way, does NOT exist):
As you can see, ‘Brian Flatt’ is accusing me of ‘copyright infringement’ because I used screenshots of his website in my review. The ‘material’ I allegedly infringed upon include the supposed photo of Brian Flatt (which is actually a Shutterstock photo), the fake Doctor-Certified.com endorsement badge, and a screenshot of his HTML-coded fake testimonials.
Well I ignored the email and went on with my life. Then on December 8, I received another email from a lawyer claiming to represent my web host, informing me that my site has been reported for copyright infringement. Read it below.
Here is the email the scammer’s attorney supposedly sent to my web host:
From the second email, you can see that the attorney gave me 3 days to respond to his mail or else my ‘material’ will be taken down by my host. Well I chose NOT to heed the request.
Then today, December 12, I received this email from my web host’s attorney:
So if the scammer gets his way, you may not be able to read Contra Health Scam tomorrow, and I may not be able to access my own website at the backend. How scared I must be now, right?
WRONG.
I will NOT take down the screenshots in the scam review. Here is why:
1. Contra Health Scam is Protected by the Fair Use Policy
The dumb scammer behind The 3 Week Diet apparently does not know that there is a Fair Use policy, which enables review sites like Contra Health Scam to use parts of copyrighted material without permission for the sole purpose of commenting upon, criticizing and parodying [Stanford University]. In my case, I used screenshots from the website to prove my opinion that 3 Week Diet is a dangerous scam. Had it been I didn’t do that, the scammer would have sued me for defamation of character, slander or libel!
Again, Fair Use is a constitutional right in the United States and many other countries. It can be used as a valid defense in any copyright infringement lawsuit.
Bottom Line: The scammer has NO case!
2. 3 Week Diet Scammer is A Copyright Violator
By passing off a Shutterstock photo as ‘Brian Flatt,’ the 3 Week Diet scammer blatantly violated Shutterstock.com’s Terms of Service and Licensing Agreement, where they state that their photo must NOT be used for ‘engaging in immoral or criminal activities’ or in a way that ‘would give rise to a claim of deceptive advertising.’ In our case, the scammer is a criminal because he’s ripping people off everyday with a scam product, while using a stock photo to hide his real identity.
So I advise Shutterstock to go after this guy in court for violating their terms!
Final Conclusion: 3 Week Diet is A SCAM! DON’T BUY IT!
Blacklisted Website: 3WeekDiet.com
The 3 Week Diet is the second health product that was exposed as a scam here on Contra Health Scam. This lame, pathetic lawsuit threat has just confirmed yet again that I am correct in my assessment: We are indeed dealing with a scam from a very dumb scammer!
Now that it is clear that I won’t be taking down the ‘infringing material’ as demanded, I’m curious to see what will happen next. For now though, please share this report to the relevant people so that they too will be informed about this latest development.
Thank you!
Update 13 Dec 2016:
I have submitted a counter-affidavit protesting the DMCA notice filed against Contra Health Scam. However, the DMCA law requires me to disable the images in contention for a period of 10-14 days in order for the affidavit to be submitted, or else I lose access to this website.
I have disabled the images as required (I only did this in order not to prevent people from accessing the vital information on this website) but I will restore them after two weeks. I can’t wait to see this scammer in court.
So bring it on!
Update 27 Dec 2016:
Turns out the scammer is wise after all …
Two weeks after filing my counter-affidavit, I’m yet to be served any legal papers. So I’ve restored the disputed images in the original review.
Case closed.
Hi there, it seems that Brian from 3weekdiet.com was able to close your siteground.com hosting account after all (as your site resides on Amazon servers now), or have I missed something? Dave.
No, I still have access to my hosting account. Logged in a few minutes ago. Besides, Siteground hasn’t informed me that my site has been moved to another server.
Obinna, your site no longer resides on SiteGround.com’s servers. You may have an account there but according to Whois and other domain query websites, ContraHealthScam.com now resides on Amazon.com, so either you or your admin had to switch DNS and move the files to Amazon. Nobody else could have done this for you and a website cannot move randomly to other servers by itself.
Oh I understand now. My site is not pointing to Siteground’s servers. I moved it a few weeks ago. That wasn’t ‘Brian Flatt’s doing.
However, Siteground is still my host.
(Sorry, had to edit your comment for security reasons.)
This scammer is a cry baby.