Thread: Need some legal advice please!!

Make copys of any and all emails sent and recieved,in todays world they are all legal and binding documents.

Listen to Jim and Gugi, send the letter, send it return receipt, professional all the way, with a notary. State your cancellation of order, and state your reasons for doing so. Make it short, and matter of fact.
State a request of refund and request response within 30 days (some states might be 90) but let HIM figure that out. If it ever comes back to haunt you, you will have proof he received your letter (and don't forget to have a copy made for yourself!)
You probably wont get a refund, and you already expect that. so no big deal. But the legal coverage, slim though it may be, is worth the cost of postage.

Don't know why all those asterisks are in my last post haha but I have copies of everything and I've saved all my emails to him and from him as well as emails from lawyers.

Update: spoke to the guys on the guitar forum and they said I owe him nothing more, I just lost my deposit, which sucks but I'm just happy to be done with all this. Thanks for the help everyone!

Guys please help!!! New update!! So the guitar guy contacted me again after I quoted part of his email on the guitar forum, like above and in the email it says: *LEGAL NOTICE*
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential, may be privileged and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message and any attachment from your system; you must not copy or disclose the contents of this message or any attachment to any other person.
Copyright in this email and any attachment created by us belongs to...

He says his legal team will be contacting me. Help please, Im only in college, I can't afford lawyers, what do I do. Help please!!!

Get an attorney. Tomorrow. Today, if possible.
I know you don't want to. Hell, I am one and I hate them, too.
In your situation Craigslist can be your friend. There's an awful lot of recent graduates fighting tooth and nail for pro bono work. Failing that, there's an awful lot of recent graduates fighting for cheap work.
Also, try calling law schools near you. Many (if not most) have clinics where students can represent you for free (under the watchful supervision of licensed attorneys).

Wish I could help you more. Good luck to you.

I spoke to my law school friend and he said the guy can't really do anything, but I'm still scared, you know how people are, they can make up and sue you for anything.

I wouldn't let him intimidate me. He's clearly in the wrong for not holding his end of the bargain. Of course there may have been special circumstances (him being sick), but he failed to communicate those to you and the rest of his customers in a timely manner (assuming what you started with is true i.e. he not communicating with you at all). May be he was not able to do so, but at the end of the day it's still his failure and he can't really make you pay for his problems.
Of course he can sue you, but that sounds like a frivolous lawsuit.
If your school is university with a law school you will probably be able to get free legal help from them.

I also don't believe you are required to keep confidential things that he didn't explicitly ask you to keep confidential. So, don't publish the emails that say so, but I wouldn't worry about the stuff that you already posted if that notice was not on them.

Thanks Gugi. I literally just quoted two sentences to see if he meant he can't refund me the deposit or if he meant he still wanted me to pay him the rest of th money. The legal notice is on all his emails, although it says the messages are entitled for the use of the recipients.

He can claim copyright, although quoting and attributing his words seems like a case of fair use.
He cannot claim confidentiality because you didn't agree before receiving the email.

He is just trying to beat you into submission imo. The guy is a guitar maker, not Microsoft. It's not like he has a legal team on staff. Btw you mention you're in college, do you have a law school there as well? Might be they can give you some advice.

Originally Posted by animalwithin

Guys please help!!! New update!! So the guitar guy contacted me again after I quoted part of his email on the guitar forum, like above and in the email it says: *LEGAL NOTICE*
This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential, may be privileged and are intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message and any attachment from your system; you must not copy or disclose the contents of this message or any attachment to any other person.
Copyright in this email and any attachment created by us belongs to Bernie Rico Jr. Guitars.

He says his legal team will be contacting me. Help please, Im only in college, I can't afford lawyers, what do I do. Help please!!!

Originally Posted by gugi

I also don't believe you are required to keep confidential things that he didn't explicitly ask you to keep confidential. So, don't publish the emails that say so, but I wouldn't worry about the stuff that you already posted if that notice was not on them.

Even if he did explicitly ask, the OP did not agree to an NDA. Email disclaimers were popular a long time ago, but they fell out of use after it turned out they don't hold legal value in most cases.

The only disclaimers that seem to be valid so far are those specifying that the opinions of the sender do not necessarily represent those of the company (or similar things).

A contract is an agreement between 2 parties. Me sending you an email is not a contract because you didn't agree with it.