First of all I would like to start by thanking all of those involved with this site for all of your efforts and reliable services. Because of this website I have avoided numerous scams and pitfalls. I have been a fan of this site for a few years and fortunately had never had to post anything up until now.
A few months back, we started working on a real estate website for a client that is a Realtor. He approached us with interest to help him develop a website that would primarily provide quality and useful information to his visitors and be able to promote his services online.

Anyhow, being that real estate is a very competitive online market, our client was interested in staying on top of marketable trends that would help him expose his website. Because this was our first real estate project we started consulting with popular real estate portals to get advice and information on optimizing and marketing a real estate website. By doing so, we found several Real Estate forums and became involved with them.

Our client had expressed interest in creating a section on his website that would provide free and useful information to the general public, but he simply didn't have the time to sit down and write articles.

One particular forum had a thread started by a realtor that was requesting information on FREE real estate articles.

This thread can still be found at:
http://www.agentsonline.net/forums/u...r/62172/page/4

Anyhow, on this thread there was an agent requesting information on websites that provided free real estate content/articles.

When we came across this thread and website we sugested to him that this might be a good alternative for now until he found some time to create articles. But at first we where a bit hesitant because any domain that uses the word "FREE" (The site is titled www.FREErealestatearticle.com) usually has a hidden agenda or has something to ask in return that is almost always worth more then what they are offering. Well a few weeks later, coincidentally our client was in touch with a moderator of another popular real estate portal, and a moderator recommended that he use the same page to provide content on his website.

After two endorsements from two different real estate websites we figured that this site was probably legit and be a good idea to list these articles until he found time to write his own.

Well that was about 2-3 months ago...

Last week our client called us concerned because an individual called him threatening him to file a police report and take him to court for "stealing his content".

I was blown away! I didn't even know how to respond and frankly I wasn't sure what this content could be because we coded the entire site.

The logical thing for us was to ask him for this persons phone number and call him to figure out what the situation was about.

Well we called him and let me just say that I have never come across anyone that is so unbalanced, unprofessional and insane as this individual. We greeted him very politely and explained who we where and right off the bat he started shouting that we stole his content and that he was talking to lawyers and the police department and what not.

At that point I felt confused and concerned. We very calmly asked him what content he was talking about and he could not identify whether it was in the blog, the news section, or any other portion of the site. We asked him that if he could not identify where the content was then to please identify the content he was talking about. Well he could not remember where it was located and he could not name anything in particular. At that point I figured out that I was not dealing with a normal person. After he failed to identify his content he went on again about calling the police and talking to his attorney's to file a law suit against our company and our client.

Our only true concern was the fact that our client had been bothered by what seems to be an insane person and he some how managed to try and drag our name through the mud with his ridiculous accusations. He could not identify what this content was, who he was, or what he wanted. He repetitively ranted on like a maniac threatening to call the police on us. lol

So we get off the phone with this guy and call back our client and explain everything that happend. Our client informed us that he now recieved several emails from this guy... Well to make a story short... This individual ended up being the author of www.freerealestatearticle.com

His name is Joe Lane and is also the author of www.joelane.com

He sent our client several emails and we managed to unscramble that apparently he was the author of this website and was upset because we had used his articles. His key issues where the fact that we "copied the content word for word" and was upset about this despite the fact that his websites guidelines request that you copy the articles word for word and credit the author and we did. After we figured out who he was we explained to our client who this guy was and explained to him that he was upset because we placed his content on his website. Our client got in touch with this individual after to ask him what it was that he wanted or needed rather to resolve the matter.

He spent about 20 minutes on the phone with this individual and this lunatic could not come clean with the fact that the only thing he was looking for was monitary compensation. The fact that he was credited on every article, that his site was linked to our clients articles main page, that the content was copied word for word as stated was not enough.

He contineously insisted that he needed to be compensated and that is when it was realized that this guy was looking for money.

My client figured out that it was best to simply delete these articles to avoid any further problems.

These articles would be deleted and everyone would go back to their lifes. He was informed that we had a production schedule to follow and his articles would be removed as soon as we find a slot open. Well this was this past Thursday. Since then he has called our client about 3-7 times a day. flooded his emails and continues to harass him even after his articles where removed.
We contacted him to inform him that our attorneys wanted to get in touch with his and he turned around and informed us that he did not have an attorney.

The bottom line is that this individual is very unbalanced and is a con artist.

I highly recommnd that all realtors or real estate webmasters stay away from Joe Lane and his websites because he will likely try to come after you next!!

I want to make it clear that this article is posted in behalf of upgrade media and my comments are no way endorsed or provided by our client. This thread was made to expose a con man that is attempting to con inosent people out of money and that is why we have decided to expose him!