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Getty Images Letter Forum / Do I have to prove innocence? Interesting spot with Getty.
« on: July 29, 2012, 11:28:45 PM »
Hi, my name is Craig. I received one of those famous getty letters demanding 700-800 bucks for a photo I posted on a website. The website was a pretend business that I set up for informational purposes only. The website made no money, in fact I had to pay like 40 bucks to 1and1.com to get it set up. The business was a hedge fund, and getty claims that the pretend fund I set up was real, I wasnt using the image for information purposes, and they want to get paid!
They recently responded to my email with "get a letter from the IRS saying that this hedge fund isn't real."
But, isn't the burden of proof on them to prove it is real? In order to be a hedge fund you have to register with all sorts of regulatory agencies, and a bit of paper work is involved. (SEC and whatnot).
I'm curious because I really don't want to have to call the SEC, call the IRS, jump through all these hoops, simply in order to prove my innocence. It just seems pretty silly all the way around, and I'm not sure where to go from here.
I read some material on this site, and the main thing I took away was that if you ignore them, and they go to collections, never admit its a debt. I never admitted there was a debt, and simply told them they were wrong. I also shut down the website immediately.
Any advice helps.
Thanks,
Craig
They recently responded to my email with "get a letter from the IRS saying that this hedge fund isn't real."
But, isn't the burden of proof on them to prove it is real? In order to be a hedge fund you have to register with all sorts of regulatory agencies, and a bit of paper work is involved. (SEC and whatnot).
I'm curious because I really don't want to have to call the SEC, call the IRS, jump through all these hoops, simply in order to prove my innocence. It just seems pretty silly all the way around, and I'm not sure where to go from here.
I read some material on this site, and the main thing I took away was that if you ignore them, and they go to collections, never admit its a debt. I never admitted there was a debt, and simply told them they were wrong. I also shut down the website immediately.
Any advice helps.
Thanks,
Craig