The online community is bursting with a companies poor handling of what they consider to be an infraction against them by a Twitter user. The Twitter user in question had around 20 followers and they posted something about mold in their rental unit. They referred to someone in their post as ‘Horizon’. Jay Thompson brought the post to my attention in his blog at PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com
What it looks like is that a real estate company named “Horizon Realty Group“, a company that manages about 15 properties in the Chicago area, has taken issue with the post and filed a lawsuit for $50,000 in damages from the person who made the post, Amanda Bonnen. What did Ms. Bonnen say that was so bad that Horizon felt compelled to file a suit? It looks like a reply to one of her followers / friends that said “You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.” (the account @ABonnen is now inactive BTW)
Its a good thing that Horizon is savvy enough to monitor the social media world for it’s brand and mentions of it’s company. Now we begin to explore what should you NOT do when you find a post like this.
Should they have filed the lawsuit for $50,000? Maybe, but now that the story has made it to the mainstream media, the likely impact to the company filing the suit will likely be something much more more than the $50,000 they are seeking from Ms. Bonnen, who could not possibly be found at fault for the loss of revenue after this story has made the rounds. I’ll say they probably should not have filed the suit.
The overwhelming penalty in revenue and social capital will not be because of the initial Twitter post made by Ms. Bonnen. The impact will be because of two other things being talked about regarding this event.
First is that the property management company opted to file the suit to begin with. They might have handled it a hundred other ways, but a lawsuit is the way they decided to handle it. They did not apparently attempt to contact Ms. Bonnen before filing the suit. Whether or not they did attempt to contact Ms. Bonnen is now irrelevant though. It’s the next item that really I think closed the door for Horizon and their reputation.
The second item is a comment by Jeffery Michael, who’s family has run the real estate company for about 25 years, who said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times “we’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of company”.
hmm…
My thought after reading about that comment was “… well, that’s good to know that about that real estate company – I’ll make sure I NEVER rent from them”.
It’s a thought that I think it will be the assessment of hundreds, if not thousands of other potential renters over the next few days, weeks and years. The impact to their revenue will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost rentals, maybe millions of dollars.
Chicago is a city of of over 2.8M people. If Jeffery had held his tongue, MAYBE 20 people would have heard about it. Now that the media has picked it up, all 2M+ Chicago residents have or will likely heard about it. Heaven knows how many more million of people across the country and now the world will hear about it.
Now when people search for “Horizon Realty”, guess what will likely come up as the #1 result? Probably not their well constructed site – it will be this story for the next several years to come. It’ll be the comment that the company is a “sue first, ask questions later” kind of company. This could be bad for revenue.
What To Do? If I were to advise Horizon, I get them to immediately withdraw the lawsuit, apologize to Ms. Bonnen, and comp her rent for a year. I’d make it known that legal action is a last step, not a first. There are a few other actions I would recommend as well, but I’m sure they’re getting a big dose of social media crisis recovery consulting right now – they can contact me if they would like a few other tips.
Learning a lesson about phishing scams seem to me to be a lot like the lessons learned about the likelihood of data loss on a computer, namely that there are those that have lost data, and then there are those who have not lost data… yet – *sigh*.
I suppose it will happen to all of us at one time or another, but it still really bites… this was my turn I guess.
I consider myself a pretty literate user of computer technology and to allow this to occur, for me, was a sign that I was just not paying attention to what is probably one of the most important elements of an online presence – securing my identity.
The fact that it happened to me on Facebook was disconcerting; Facebook is a relevant social network for me, TheSocialMediaBible.com Community site is more so and FastPitchNetwork.com is coming up fast as a place for me to hangout lately (very nice B2B environment BTW, well worth a look-see if your are a small- to medium biz wanting to connect / sell to others).
On May 21st I get an email from the phiser, via Facebook, that looks like an email from a friend, Pat Kitano. I know Pat to be a pretty literate user as well, so I do not question the source of the message. Little did I know what will come out of this message from a trusted friend.
The message looked like other emails I’ve received from my community via Facebook, and says I should “Check <<insert URL here>>”, which looked like a legitimate link – I happily click thru to the site. Still OK…
As the site comes up I fail to inspect the site closely. It looks ‘Facebook-ish’ and I give up my Facebook login credentials – poof… almost immediately I begin getting tweets from friends telling me that I am spamming them. As I hear from my friends, at first I am incredulous. I value my online community and I’d NEVER intentionally spam my friends, it just couldn’t happen!
…then suddenly the realization comes over me – I’ve been phished… dang… I think through the steps next to take –
- Stop the spamming, if I can
- Reset my credentials on Facebook ASAP
- Apologize to my network for the bad judgement / lack of presence that allowed it to happen
- Move forward – not the end of the world…
- Share the experience so others do not get caught too
I know how to do most of this, but unsure on other parts, so I tweet about my predicament. I get back a series of responses on what to do next that range from deleting my Facebook account and restarting to simply changing the login credentials. Another, very techy friend suggests I may have even been hit with a downloaded component that may have infected my local computer. I’m working at home, so fortunately I have another computer nearby that will allow me to keep working.
I get to work on establishing just what the phisher might have done to my laptop. I make sure my WiFi is turned off and then reach around and disconnect the Ethernet cable and drop off the net on my laptop. I start a virus scan; I use Avast AVG as my anti-virus provider and AVG updates almost everyday so I believe that it is current. Click, click – I kick off the virus scan right away.
I get back to the web and keep checking replies from the community – the suggestion that I might have downloaded something by simply logging onto the phising site is clarified that it in order for it to have executed a download of anything, it requires that I be on IE. I breath a sigh of relief – as much as I like Microsoft products, I rarely use IE as my browser; I’m usually in Google Chrome or Firefox for browsing, feeling like I might have dodged a bullet there, but still let the virus scan proceed.
I then look at the change of credentials. I know I cannot delete my name, I want to still be ‘Steven Groves’ and while my community on Facebook is not large (362 as of today), I am in no way interested in trying to recreate the connections I have there. Just changing my password will probably do what I need, which is to keep the phiser out of my account. I think about password management and realize that I lack a robust capability to generate and manage passwords. I have multiple computers, dozens of accounts and if I want to reduce or eliminate the likelihood of this happening again, I need a better solution.
I had come across LastPass.com a few weeks earlier and begin to explore it in earnest – I love what it does. LastPass connects to FireFox as a plug in and can securely manage an identity online by generating wonderfully random characters for a password and by handling the fill-in for the login page. As I implement LastPass, I’m feeling fairly secure but recognizing the weakness of counting on the LastPass.com solution to handle this critical capability of managing my online credentials.
Paranoia and conspiracy theories only travel so far with me, so I make the plunge. LastPass can generate a powerfully cryptic password, one a human would NEVER remember and one that, I hope, a hacker would never discover either. As I work with LastPass on other accounts, I realize how powerful this kind of capability is, that is the ability to auto-generate a secure password for ALL my accounts. I like it – a lot… I decide to also get the USB key, which turns a thumb drive into an authentication device so now you need my thumb drive, my password protected laptop, account access to LastPass and know where I have accounts to have an impact on my online presence. Feeling significantly better now.
Finally, the virus scan completes – no known viruses found. I breath a very big sigh of relief… definitely feel like I’ve dodged a bullet here and feel badly that I’ve spammed so many people.
Lessons Learned – consider using ‘non-industry standard’ web browsers more, pay attention to the links you click on, check into a password / single sign-on management product like LastPass.com. Will it make a difference? Yes, I think so and the solutions out there make the implementation very easy and non intrusive once you’ve got things set up.
Image credit – The Tech Herald
I am getting back to the business of what I do after the tragedy of losing my son and wanted to begin by saying thank you to everyone who has helped, commented, sent a well wish and / or made a donation. I’ll cover that whole experience soon enough, but until then please hear how grateful I am to everyone. I took some time off, got connected to reality and have been working through all the thoughts issues and situations that come from such an experience.
My takeaway from the experience is to an evangelist for telling the people close to you that you love them everyday, every time you part with them – it’s a powerful message that helped make the loss of my son more manageable for me. You can expect to hear it again… kind of like what I do.
Image attribution = http://www.sumnertoferrymead.co.nz/index.htm
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Posted by
Steven Groves |
Categories:
Current Affairs |
This last week has been a whirlwind… loads of well wishers, friends, near friends and lots of social media connections that all took a minute out of their day to connect and support me, and by proxy, my family as we process this sad event. I’m doing OK, certainly as well as can be expected thank you.
Thank you to everyone who left a comment, sent a tweet, a note, a well wish or a small donation – the team at OTEF will be good stewards of the donated fund and we’ll see how much we need for the services and how much we can donated to a drug treatment agency in Stevens name – you all are just a blessing to us.
There are two events planned for remembering my son, Steven Groves II. A viewing at the funeral home for family & close friends and a memorial service for anyone who would care to show support for the family and be present as we remember Stevens life in celebration.
Viewing / Funeral Home Service
Friday, June 6th at 5P, Shadow Mountain Funeral Home 2350 E Greenway Rd, Phx
Memorial Service
Saturday, June 7th at 1:30P, Unity of Phoenix, 1600 E Greenway Parkway, Phx
Thanks again, I and we appreciate your support – I’m taking some time off, so I may be online now and then, but count on seeing me back online in full force beginning Monday the 15th.
You can DM on Twitter (@StevenGroves) or use GoogleVoice to call from my website (use the badge to the right and below) if you need to contact me.
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Posted by
Steven Groves |
Categories:
Current Affairs |
My oldest child, Steven Groves II, passed yesterday. The medical examiner has not finished their work, but it appears he succumbed to a battle with drugs.
I’m still working on how these events fit into the journey of my life and those around me, but the outpouring of support from my online and offline community have shown me again, how important it is to be in a community and how critical it is to have friends around you when things are difficult.
Steven did not have any means set aside or insurance to cover his passing, nor did his Mother or I. Burying a child is just not something I think any of us would plan for.
Francine Hardaway, Joan Kerber-Walker and Lon Safko have set up a Chip-in site for people who are interested and able to help us with the costs. I’ve promised that any fund remaining after covering costs will be donated to a drug addiction treatment program.
I’ll end my post today by asking you all to just stop – stop whatever you are doing and turn to the people you love (your spouse, partner, child, parent, whomever) and tell them you love them. I have made it a steady practice in my life with my kids, they were the last word I shared with my son… in all the stream of things I now have to deal with I’m grateful for at least that.
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Posted by
Steven Groves |
Categories:
Current Affairs |
What it looks like is that a real estate company named “Horizon Realty Group“, a company that manages about 15 properties in the Chicago area, has taken issue with the post and filed a lawsuit for $50,000 in damages from the person who made the post, Amanda Bonnen. What did Ms. Bonnen say that was so bad that Horizon felt compelled to file a suit? It looks like a reply to one of her followers / friends that said “You should just come anyway. Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.” (the account @ABonnen is now inactive BTW)
