History of Wicked Moon

Why does it take me so long to get around to writing these things.

I finally won wickedmoon.com back in January 2001. I meant to write this little summary back then.

Nowadays it's like nothing ever happened, but on the other hand I guess I'm lucky it worked out the way it did. I could have lost wickedmoon.com forever, after putting so many years of hard work into it. Around about the time it was taken from me I became aware of how cruel some people could be. Not your average nastiness, or "all's fair in business" mentality, but a meanness of spirit I really hadn't seen before.

I'm reading this now from the solicitors letter sent to Helmut Morscher, to refresh my memory on dates. That letter can be read in its entirety at http://wickedmoon.com/eversheds.doc . It describes how trouble started in July 1999, how Helmut prevented users from seeing my site, how he put up a tacky cartoon porn site in its place, how later he replaced this and traded in on the years I'd spent promoting and building wickedmoon.com, by offering identical services to those I had, ie an e-card service named Wicked Moon. He profited off the back of my business for around 18 months, until I finally got the domain back.

I made the mistake of letting someone else register my domain. The person who did this, Natalie Zubar, had links to Helmut and his web hosting company, webby.com. In exchange for some of my artwork, Natalie agreed to register wickedmoon.com for me. The domain was supposedly mine, but as I learnt more about the Internet I realised I wasn't the legal registrant, nor was Natalie. The legal registrant was Helmut. (If anyone's interested in registering a domain, go to somewhere like godaddy.com and do it yourself! Learn from my mistake. I could have paid $70 at the time if I'd known what I was doing and saved thousands on solicitors fees).

Eventually then I wanted to transfer the ownership of my domain under my own name. I was keen to expand the site with e-commerce and something nagged at me about Helmut's attitude. Before all this kicked off he would write things like the following email, in reply to questions on hosting:

>Hi Jason
>We are NOT trying to be the cheapest, we simply want to stay the Best.
>If somebody want's to bargain themselves some frustration for a while, they are
>quite welcome to do that. If they grow up to need our caliber of service, then
>sooner or later they will come to us anyway. If they don't grow up, or if they
>are masochists who prefer frustration as long as it is a bargain, that's their
>problem.
>
>Remember, Jaguar and Mercedes don't lower their prices just because a Yugo is
>cheaper.
>Helmut

As far as I can tell Helmut runs his company by himself, with the servers set up in his own house. He has a lot of control in his own little world and I think this is the problem: power. He had no reason to prevent me taking wickedmoon.com where I wanted it, yet his actions I feel were unreasonable. I've since heard his heavy handed approach has affected other webmasters and I would be keen to hear from anyone who has had problems with Helmut and webby.com.

I'm looking now at that old site, Naked Truth Sex Giggles. Believe me, it sounds better than it looks. This was put onto wickedmoon.com shortly after I was kicked out, presumably by Helmut. At the risk of being prosecuted (the disclaimer at the bottom of the page says "No part may be reproduced without written consent"), I'm presenting the site for you to look at here: http://wickedmoon.com/giggles/.

This was later replaced by the fake "Wicked Moon Cards". Helmut must have asked another webmaster, Debbie Gibb, to knock up the site, as her name was across the pages. More on her later. Her effort can be seen at http://wickedmoon.com/mycheers/.

The solicitors letter threatened legal action if the domain was not transferred. This had the desired effect, but it was still a lengthy process of emails, letters, faxes and phone calls before we got anywhere. I'd hear stories through my solicitors of how Helmut had told them to waste someone elses time and hung up the phone. You might think paying £300 an hour to a solicitor might get you the help you're looking for, but the solicitors themselves didn't make it easy, with a string of errors I felt jeopardised the case. There were little incidents like trying to look up a QC in Canada, who had to sign the documents with Helmut to release the domain (naturally, when we first received the documents Helmut and company had filled them out wrong - we had to make some modifications and get their permission to do this, in case the transfer fell apart by Helmut accusing us of forging documents. At this stage, right before the transfer, I wouldn't have put it past him). The solicitors couldn't find the QC, but after spending 10 minutes on the Internet I found him myself, even phoned him myself (he sounded like he was half asleep, half witted and it took ages to make him understand why I was calling!) All day and the solicitors couldn't find him. Luckily I was paying a much more reasonable £150 an hour to an assistant solicitor who was doing most of the work. Maybe that was the problem. Don't hire a solicitor for under £150 as you just can't get the talent these days.

Another mistake was the fax the solicitors had to send to Helmut. It required his faxed reply, with his signature agreeing to certain terms. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the solicitors had entered the wrong fax number so we were waiting for a fax that would never arrive.

Yet another mistake was the bank transfer. You see, in the fair and just world that we live, I had to pay $500 for the domain to get it back. The alternative was to pay $10,000+ on court fees with, and get this, no guarantee we could get the domain transferred if we won the case. Issues with international law. So really, threatening Helmut with court action was a bluff, though I was fully prepared to go through with it. My solicitor couldn't just deposit $500, first they sent $444.17 because of an accounting mistake. Then they sent a further $51.38 to rectify the mistake. Then they sent $4.45 to fix the mistake they'd fixed.

They sent the following email to Helmut:

>Dear Helmut
>
>Thank you for your email dated 22 December 2000.
>
>According to our records, the following amounts, which total $500, have
>been sent to your bank account:
>
>$444.17 - 12 December 2000
>$51.38 - 14 December 2000
>$4.45 - 21 December 2000.
>
>Accordingly, please return the executed and notarised Registrant Name
>Change Agreement and signed undertakings in accordance with the agreement.

Helmut's reply:

> Your "records" are totally meaningless. It makes absolutely no difference to us
> how much money you took out of mommy's apron. What counts is what
> made it past the candy store and all the way to the bank.
>
> The banks here in the West use calculators instead of a Dreidel, you can't fool them.
> And because we are a business, ONLY the facts count for us.
>
> We do appreciate the amusement you have caused with all your
> correspondence, however, that does not make you eligible for a discount.
>
> Helmut

Helmut was fond of these odd visuals. It was either candy stores and banks, or, in an earlier one to me, something about an ice cream van.

At the end of this comedy of errors, my solicitor was certain, according to their records, that in fact $500 had been transferred. Helmut disagreed. He said again, "YOUR 'records' are totally meaningless", and claimed we were still $20 short of the $500. We ended up paying the difference and fortunately everything worked out. In January 2001, after months of waiting and spending thousands on litigation, wickedmoon.com was finally transferred.

I wrote to Debbie Gibb after Wicked Moon was restored and she had some telling thoughts about Helmut.

> Sent: February 28, 2001 3:37 PM
>
> Hi Jason,
> I am very aware of Helmut and his very nasty side I have dealt with it on
> more than one occasion ... Glad you got Wicked Moon back and I am sorry that
> I was miserable when you wrote to me I really am not a nasty person at all.
> I was hoping you would that is why I put crappy Star cards there. I had no
> desire to have another site.

If you're wondering why she says she's not nasty, it's because two years before she wrote the above, I'd written to her when she was "in charge" of the site. I asked whether she could at least put some signposts in place because of all the traffic I was losing. She had refused in no uncertain terms.

I asked Debbie how Helmut had gotten to her. She wrote back:

> HAHAHAAH! He has done nothing yet but be very nasty by times and when he
> does I just tell him to back off in not such nice terms. He gets just as
> good if not better than what gives. I know that he has taken other sites and
> taken them down and away from people.

Who are these other people? One at least is German webmaster, Heiner, of www.cardcorner.net . He first wrote to me in May 2000. An ICQ message came in asking, "I have a question about webby.com (Helmut) Do you have a minute ?" Heiner described how he was furious with Helmut. It turns out Heiner wanted to move his site from webby.com, Helmut had said ok, but then had gone on to delete the site straight away. The result? A huge loss of traffic for Heiner. Heiner's subsequent emails to Helmut were ignored.

For brevities sake there's a lot I haven't said. I hope to put more online as I compile it.

All for now,

Jason

http://wickedmoon.com