I Received An Email From Sarah Beeny’s Business Partner

I received an interesting email yesterday, which was supposedly sent by Sarah Beeny’s business partner, Amanda Christie. Before I discuss the matter further, I’ll show you the email:

Email: mailamanda@yahoo.com

Dear Sirs,

I represent Sarah Beeny, as her business partner.

We would like to give you one opportunity to cease using her name in the advertising, page titles and content of your website ‘propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk’ (the website) in order to immediate avoid legal action.

Your actions amount to ‘passing off’, as Sarah does not endorse your website, nor has she given permission for you to use her name in advertising your services.

Please do take this opportunity to cease the infringement.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Amanda Christie

Amanda Christie is actually a business partner of Sarah Beeny. From what I remember they’re childhood friends and they run My single friend together. However, i’m not entirely convinced the email is genuine.

Reasons why I think the email may be fraudulent:

1: the email used is from a yahoo account, which is unbelievably unprofessional. It means anyone could have created that account and sent me that email. Anyone serious would have emailed me from a verifiable email account e.g amanadachristie@sarahbeeny.com.
2: the allegations don’t even reflect reality. I’m not pretending to be Sarah Beeny, nor am I selling/advertising a service. They basically have no case, unless a fan site is illegal (which it isn’t).
3: There are no contact details from Amanda Christie. If the email was legit, there would be a contact address and telephone number

Regardless of thinking it’s a fake, I played it safe and responded with this:

Dear Sir
Thank you for your enquiry. As a conscientious webmaster, I am very concerned by your suggestion that my site may have infringed any laws and am very keen to put a stop to any such infringement immediately.

To the allegation of ‘passing off’, as per my post of the 7th of April 2007 (http://www.propertyinvestmentproject.co.uk/blog/i-am-not-sarah-beeny/) I have never claimed to be representing Sarah Beeny and have, in fact, taken steps to make it very obvious that she is not associated with my site. Users searching my site for blog entries categorised ‘Sarah Beeny’ will see, in large letters, the title of that post (‘I am not Sarah Beeny’). Passing off, as I understand the law, would also require me to be trading goods. The only thing for sale on my site is advertising space, and I am not aware that Sarah Beeny is in the business of selling advertising space. The only service I offer is related to advertising. If you could send me examples of instances of ‘Passing off’ (screenshots, links) that would help elucidate your request for content to be removed which would, in turn, expedite my compliance.

To the use of the name ‘Sarah Beeny’ in advertisements, the advertisements that run on my site are supplied by the Google AdSense programme. If an advert appears on my site that contains her name, it is because an advertiser has paid for their content to show opposite the keyphrase ‘Sarah Beeny’. The fact that such adverts appear on my site specifically is a function of Google’s association of that phrase with my site, which is out of my control. If you believe that it is an invalid contextual association, or you believe that the Google AdSense program infringes your trademarks, please contact them directly.

Finally, to your being Sarah Beeny’s associate, in order to take this matter further I would be obliged if you could provide details of your association with Sarah Beeny and, at the very least, contact me from an official e-mail address for the company that you represent. If the company you represent is Yahoo and the address ‘mailamanda@yahoo.com’ is your official company address, please provide details of the nature of the relationship between Yahoo Inc. and Sarah Beeny.

Kind regards

I haven’t received a reply yet

So, what do you guys think? Is someone playing games or do you think it’s legit? I mean, it could be legit. If that’s the case, Sarah Beeny’s business partner doesn’t really have much of a case, in my opinion. Also, if it is genuine, I might have to put my foot down and retract my statement about marrying Sarah Beeny one day. And I mean it!!

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Talk / 9 Comments left so far

Badger wrote this on 2007-10-24 14:30:00 Load of bollocks son lol.
What they gonna do, smother you 1

Victoria wrote this on 2007-10-24 17:02:25 Don't think its worth worrying about tbh. You're entitled to write about people as long as you don't misquote them or make false statements about them - that's how biographers get away with so much. I knew someone who was threatened with court action by Jackie Chan just for mentioning him in their film review book. Came to nothing.

That said, it might be polite to tone down some of the somewhat base references to Ms Beeny's charms. Whether she's in the public eye or not its worth considering how she might feel about what you've written. Its not like she's an ex-glamour model or page 3 girl or something who's relied on her "assets" to get that popularity in the first place, is it? 2

The Landlord wrote this on 2007-10-24 17:12:24 Jackie Chan? God, that is a high profile case!!

Yeah, I haven't said anything false about her as far as i'm aware, if anything i've complimented her work, and other various bits and bobs :)

I know what you're saying about her charms (obviously). However, the 2 articles I did talk about her breasts were referencing other people, and what they wrote about them. That's probably not a justification. Oops. 3

Victoria wrote this on 2007-10-24 17:17:40 I've just had a fab idea. Let's see how many legal infringement threat letters we can collect from popular people's management teams. Using your website. It'd be a hoot.

:D 4

The Landlord wrote this on 2007-10-24 17:20:34 That's genius!! This blog would get unbelievably popular. Granted, I would have barely any content because I would have been forced to remove it all, but who cares? We can direct everyone to the forums!! 5

Badger wrote this on 2007-10-24 18:38:21 Ok apart from the two you have already who shall we go for now !, Kelly Brook 6

Alex wrote this on 2007-12-11 22:08:21 haha, kudos on the handling of this whole situation, I would probably panic before rational thought set in and I figured something was amiss.. And good luck on marrying Miss Beeny, she'd be a catch! 7

Bittenbydesign.com wrote this on 2008-02-07 21:28:25 Is it not a crime to purport to be a business associate of someone and threaten legal action whilst you are not at all associated with the particular person?

Sounds like a 'do-gooder' trying to get stuff done that they think is right.

I personally would of ignored the request, or stuck their email address into my spam filter...

But good for you for doing what you did. 8

The Landlord wrote this on 2008-02-07 21:37:52 Thanks :)

Thing is, I've been threatened with legal action before about other articles i've published. I didn't want to take the chance, "just in case", so I responded the most cautious way, I guess. 9

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