I'm more than happy to talk ill of them, to yank my other accounts from them, but banner ads -- slanderiffic, and legal action? We're all here for the fun of it. Legal action is work.

Fuck 'em hard, but don't let them eat our energy now that we're free.

What ita said.

We're free of them, and while I think it will be good fun for any of us to say bad stuff about them on our own time, as a board we need to Not Feed the Energy Creature.

SF.com was hosted at HR and went through exactly the same treatment. Although they don't have anyone with quite ita's skills on board to quiz HR about the load, and basically they jumped ship immediately after the first suspension. This was, I admit, one of my concerns last fall, that I'd just been through this on the SF.com boards, when I realized that B.org was also hosted by HR.

Honestly, I wouldn't have made the crack about the banner ad if it had occurred to me that folks would take it seriously. I thought it clearly seemed like a crack-pipe crack. I should have known better. Mea culpa.

Fuck 'em hard, but don't let them eat our energy now that we're free.

I'm willing to expend the energy to report them to the Better Business Bureau, because I just feel a sense of responsibility to humanity in that regard, you know? If it's okay with everyone else, I would like to draft one to be able to report what happened. I mean, I'm not sure it does much to hurt them, aside from maybe nipping at their hees if they try to get business loans or some such.

It's not a lot of energy to write a letter, and might provide some folks with a gentle closure?

Good point, Allyson.

Honestly, I wouldn't have made the crack about the banner ad if it had occurred to me that folks would take it seriously.

I took it how you meant it, Burrell. I laughed a lot.

And I agree with Allyson that a strongly worded letter is cheap and easy.

OK - and while we write the strongly worded letter, can we at least add up what they cost us, and ask for them refund it to us? Cause that doesn't cost a lot of additional energy, and it will cost them the worry of wondering whether they are going to be sued?

I'm with ita and Allyson on this one. YOu had a couple of valid points, TB, but I'm very much of the opinion that sending evil vibes their way does take a lot of energy. Cautionary letter to the BBB and word of mouth if anyone should ask and moving on, now we're free, is spending the least amount of energy on HR, and more than I think they deserve.

Perhaps I'm not vindictive enough. I just don't feel the rewards of "being right" outweigh the peace of mind at being free of the unpleasantness.

I would suggest a letter to the AG of wherever HR has its business address. You're right, Fred Pete, that jurisdiction is difficult, but they do do business from a bricks & mortar location; they are a corporation that is located somewhere. However, I don't think the AG or the BBB would have a freaking clue what happened to us. The fact that it happened to several different people, and that they had to cancel their contracts because of the same mysterious claims, is more cognizable to those offices.

But legal action isn't worth it, no; taking them to small claims court is not worth anyone's time.