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Stefan Didak

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You are here: Home / Infringer / AwareBear Andre Leite Alves: Irresponsible, Unprofessional, Careless!

AwareBear Andre Leite Alves: Irresponsible, Unprofessional, Careless!

October 17, 2008 by Stefan Didak 74 Comments

How pathetic must a person and its business be when they feel a need to paste themselves into a picture of my office and use it for their commercial purposes?

You can view more like this in the Office Thieves Hall Of Shame.

The person you see Photoshopped (pasted) into the photograph of my home office is NOT ME. Why it isn’t me will become obvious when you read the following story regarding a case of blatantly pathetic commercial copyright infringement committed by AwareBear Computers (Pittsford Rochester New York, owned by Andre Leite Alves).

AwareBear Computers Rochester Pittsford New York Unreliable and Fraudulent

The company, “Aware Bear” (home theater solutions, apple repair, pc repair, web design, and wedding photography), owned and run by Mr. Andre Leite Alves (not “Arthur Leite” which was used as the name to sign previous communications in a miserable attempt to ensure a court summons would be drawn up for the wrong name) claims to have been in business since 1993, has over 15 years of computer experience, and is serving the area of Rochester, NY (New York) and Pittsford, NY. Evidently, they haven’t learned much about legal matters and copyrights during that time.

AwareBear has created, printed, and distributed brochures using the above image (an unauthorized derivative work of my copyrighted material, as the actual owner of the property pictured as well as me being the photographer of the image). In addition a PDF version was available online at AA Computers USA (a former, rumored to have failed company that involved Mr. Andre Leite Alves and where a different website for Aware Bear is hosted, not to be confused with other businesses by that name for which actual business licenses could be found). After AwareBear was contacted regarding their blatant violation of copyright they removed the PDF from the website BUT claimed that the brochure “never went to print”. This response was signed “Arthur Leite”.

In my initial letter to AwareBear (at the time I decided not to involve lawyers yet other than the general consulting call) I advised them to consult with an attorney. The response stated that they did and was clearly written in great haste; “I am deeply upset thus I have already have spoken with my lawyer” (verbatim, errors aren’t mine). I wonder if the attorney advised their client to LIE, not knowing such a lie could end up being devastating evidence in court. I doubt that a remotely competent attorney would allow their client make irresponsible statements in writing, statements that can be held against you in court and would completely wipe out any defense a lawyer could spin with a dose of imagination.

The mistake that “Arthur” Leite made was not only the copyright infringement for commercial purposes but also made the stupid mistake of assuming that I and my attorneys wouldn’t know any better and only had knowledge of the online PDF. Unfortunately for AwareBear, we did know better because those who contacted me regarding this unauthorized use had in their possession the very printed hardcopies of these brochures.

AwareBear was certainly AWARE that they had printed and distributed these flyers, for example at a job fair for students at Monroe Community College. Once you start distributing flyers you no longer have control over where they might end up and what consequential damages and confusion that may cause. In this case it also causes major embarrassment for AwareBear and its owner Andre Leite Alves, especially considering that I am now publically explaining the situation to my readers and visitors. And from what I can tell, my website has some level of popularity in many tech circles. Then again, I am also known for making understatements. πŸ™‚

Stefan Didak's Home Office

In the initial response I got from AwareBear claimed that the image was created by a “university student graphic designer” and that they were “not aware of its copyright”. Legally speaking, not being aware does not absolve one from the legal implications of copyright infringement and any subsequent damages, financial or otherwise, that occur from taking such action. I have dealt with legal cases before where copyrighted material of mine was used in print for commercial purposes and the law was quite clear on that. Crystal clear. If you use material you can’t properly identify you take a risk and sometimes that can be a very dangerous risk that leaves you and your company liable for any and all damages that come forth out of those actions.

Because “Arthur” of Aware Bear already lied to me about the brochure never having been printed I certainly can’t accept anything else that they claim to be honest and truthful. Maybe a student did not create that image and it was only said in order to hopefully defer their own responsibility and liability in this matter. Either way, if a student did create the image and committed the actual theft, AwareBear did not have a contract with said student that includes an indemnification clause and still accepted the results, thereby taking a legal risk of their own free will. This to me indicates that AwareBear conducts their business in a highly unprofessional way.

It is unclear what the purpose of using that image in their brochure was all about, though. On the one hand it implied that AwareBear runs their on-site services through the setup seen in the image. On the other hand it also directly implied that there is an association between me, my business(es), and Aware Bear. And that is most certainly NOT the case. There never was such an association and certainly never will be. Given that the brochure mentions their services like on-site computer maintenance like removing viruses and backing up your data, it implies that I am not capable of doing that myself and need Aware Bear to do that for me.

Ha, they wish. I wouldn’t let them near my data. The nearest they got to my data was by taking it off my website and pasting that guy in there to create a completely falsified and fraudulent reflection of the actual facts. Next to the image they have the words “All Service Done On-Site” and directly underneath the image is a quote that reads “We are dedicated to helping you, facilitating your use of technology and making a difference one customer at a time”. Yeah, well, that customer does NOT include me in any way and very likely in the future they will perhaps only retain ONE customer, at ANY time.

I will keep you all updated on the legal proceedings and further developments of this story. In the meantime, I will gladly share with you what the associates at my attorney’s office have uncovered in an attempt to assess the person and company that acted in this extremely careless way and I will explain why it is seriously foolish to lie in response to legal inquiries that are made.

AwareBear, and its owner Andre Leite Alves, claim to have been in business since 1993. The company AA Computers USA (dot com) has one site for AwareBear while the actual site is yet again different. Nothing wrong with that, except that on one of the two sites the company also claims to provide business web design services.

Would you want your business site to be designed by a company that goes around being careless and unprofessional when it comes to the content they use? What guarantee do you, as a client, have that they will not ‘accidentally’ include stock graphics or material that has not been properly identified, cleared, and/or authorized for use? Would you like to take a chance at being liable for any carelessness on the part of Aware Bear? I wouldn’t.

What’s even more sad is that Andre (“Arthur”) Leite Alves also moonlights as a wedding photographer (according to our information for around $800 for a 12-hour day). A “professional wedding photographer”, as Andre Leite Alves calls himself, with a B.S. (does that stand for bullshit?) degree from RIT in 2001 (and former classes in Brazil) should not be as unprofessional as to steal the photographs of another photographer. That level of theft, also known as copyright infringement, indicates a high level of being unprofessional. Not clearing images created by third parties, if you are the client, is likewise unprofessional and careless. Any photographer worth a dime knows better than that.

Another interesting discovery was that AwareBear has been using so many mailing addresses and locations that it means that Mr. Alves either relocates his home a lot or has other reasons to move around a lot. Maybe Mr. Andre Leite Alves will soon relocate again and adopt the name “Arthur Leite” in an attempt to avoid getting served a court summons. In case he does, feel free to contact me to let me know where he could be found.

It’s maybe also part of the reason why AwareBear never mentions any addresses other than e-mail and their phone number. According to sources, AwareBear doesn’t have an office to speak of and dispatches students to customers to perform their activities on-site, or will have your equipment collected and returned (e.g. they bring it to some other place where someone works on it from their home).

And just to share something else that’s fishy but funny with you all, if you look at previous versions of the AwareBear related websites, you will find that some of their testimonials use the same words like “are part of my success story” but are attributed to completely different individuals and businesses over a different period of time. It sure makes me wonder if those aren’t ALSO IMAGINARY.

What is also made up and very clear, is another bad photo editing job that was done on a picture of a car in the brochure. It has the text/logo of AwareBear on the side of the car but a 2-year old can tell it’s pasted on there after the fact and way too obvious. Perhaps this is the level of quality that is acceptable to AwareBear which would say a lot about the level of quality the company might represent to anyone else. The brochure also claims “Our team is standing by to support you with friendly and honest service you deserve”. I think they might need to consider dropping the word honest in there. Perhaps edit it to reflect the word DISHONEST instead.

That might explain why AwareBear decided to use, print, and distribute the image of my office with a different individual pasted in there. Clearly a deceptive practice that matches the overall sense that this entire company is unprofessional and, I strongly suspect, not to be trusted. I usually have a sharp sense about business matters and everything about this company and its owner screams to me that it’s an inherently untrustworthy operation. Very amateurish, I would say.

I suspect that if a business represents no value, has no value, and is operated in a highly questionable way, the only way to impress potential customers is by using things you falsify and the deception you create in order to misrepresent yourself and your business. Perception is reality, except that the reality of AwareBear does not present much of a good perception at all.

It’s a good thing I’ve got a background in computer graphics since the mid 80’s. It allowed me to instantly notice the badly done “Photoshop” work, otherwise I might have felt compelled to file charges of trespassing and burglary! As a business associate of mine said, “I wouldn’t hire them to do Photoshopping”. I fully agree on that. πŸ™‚

I don’t want to create a whole bunch of blog categories on my site for AwareBear but if I were to do that it would probably include tags for; untrustworthy, liars, thieves, unprofessional, irresponsible, amateurs, unreliable, deceptive, dishonest, inexperienced, reputation, and a whole range of other words along the same lines. Then again, maybe those words are intended to serve as the kind of “juice” that most real professional web designers will understand what it means.

Take Care, Be Aware and Beware of the Unaware Aware Bear!

P.S. Maybe I should consider starting a contest where people get to paste themselves into images of my office and then publish those online on my site as a ‘tribute’ to this AwareBear fool who did so with commercial intentions and total lack of any clues as to why this is a bad idea to do with POPULAR IMAGES. Your ideas on the subject are welcome.

Update 10th November 2008, Information recently received from a reader. The link specified was already taken down shortly after we received this information on Andre Leite Alves.

This guy copied the D&C peoples choice awards page and penciled himself in under best computer store and created another category for himself. To make dumbo even dumber, he placed in his multiple Frontier Yellow Page ads 3 certificates that he was the People’s Choice Awards winner for 2006, 2007, and 2008. Hey Andre, the 2008 awards haven’t even been made yet. The D&C has been notified and isn’t very happy about the stolen graphics and copyrighted content he used, along with his blatant plagiarism and false advertising. Based on his character I expect him to go under, switch names, and get out of paying for his Yellow page Ads, then link to them under a different name and get free advertising out of them. You can see this guy coming a mile away. Only the beginning Andre, run and hide.

Please do contact me with further information! Thanks!

Update 12th November 2008, read how Andre Alves attempted to abuse the DMCA for what it wasn’t intended for. He’s providing quite some entertainment to the masses. Thanks Andre. πŸ™‚

Update 29th March 2012, once again Andre Alves attempted to file a DMCA and botched it up completely. It cost him $99 and provided us with PRICELESS ENTERTAINMENT.

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Filed Under: Infringer, Very Lengthy Tagged With: Copyright, Exposed, Exposure, Home Office, Images, Infringement, New York, NY, Office Thief, Pictures, Pittsford, Rochester, Theft, Thief, Thieves, Website

Comments

  1. Harry says:
    October 17, 2008 at 03:25

    What a loser!

    Reply
  2. Tim Hanson says:
    October 17, 2008 at 04:16

    Plagiarism by a computer repair company?

    What is the world coming to. Not a whole damn lot from the looks of that. That photoshopper must be a complete moron suffering from low self-esteem.

    Reply
  3. Crypto says:
    October 17, 2008 at 05:02

    i recognize the geek in the picture. he an ahole neway.

    Reply
  4. CareBear says:
    October 17, 2008 at 05:03

    Does the jerk think he’s some teddybear?

    Reply
  5. ron hoffmann says:
    October 17, 2008 at 05:33

    Big L. L0ser! W00t! W00t!

    Reply
  6. The Crazy Scott says:
    October 17, 2008 at 06:20

    Damn, Stefan.
    I hope you go after them like we know you can.
    Get’em bud!

    Reply
  7. Jane Elding says:
    October 17, 2008 at 06:31

    Ya think the guy has a fetish for bears?
    I don’t mean the stuffed ones. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  8. blotter says:
    October 17, 2008 at 07:04

    Hes a what??? What ya say??? Moonlighting as a wedding phtographer???
    Dude. Imagine him stealing your bride! OR THE GROOM!!

    Reply
  9. Billy says:
    October 17, 2008 at 07:22

    That creep is so screwed.

    Reply
  10. Tim Fischer says:
    October 17, 2008 at 08:06

    Stealing the bride or the groom? Looking at that picture he’d steal the cake. All of it. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  11. Mike says:
    October 17, 2008 at 08:16

    You say he also photoshoped the logo on a pic of a car. Does that dork go out at night to spray paint his company logo on other ppls property too?

    Reply
  12. jim says:
    October 17, 2008 at 08:37

    i would not allow these guys near my computer. they might steal data off my drive for whoknowswhat purpose. bleh. πŸ˜›

    Reply
  13. Hu Wang [RCC] says:
    October 17, 2008 at 09:02

    What did you do to produce all the search results so fast?
    Did you already googled the jerkoff?
    I just did! πŸ™‚

    Reply
  14. sharebear says:
    October 17, 2008 at 09:21

    Not allow them near your comp. I wouldn’t even allow them near my house. Afraid they’d steal the front door and kitchen sink. He forgot to have his posture modified for that picture. He looks like a couch potatoe in the wrong environment.

    Reply
  15. Whistle says:
    October 17, 2008 at 09:36

    Whoop-di-doo! That is one f’ing hell of a bad photoshop job.
    All the proportions are wrong unless that guy is a big fat giant.

    Reply
  16. Phil Mueller says:
    October 17, 2008 at 09:53

    oh boy. how low can you go. he must have bearshit for brains.

    Reply
  17. Does a bear shit in the woods says:
    October 17, 2008 at 10:42

    Hey PM. Sheesh. Y’think the guy shits like a bear too?

    Reply
  18. SiCKO says:
    October 17, 2008 at 10:58

    Yo Stefan. I was at MCC and just felt in my toes that something was fishy about them. I have one of those flyers!!! I can scan it and send it to you!!!

    Reply
  19. Alfred Heinz says:
    October 17, 2008 at 11:50

    I hope he learns to not touch other people’s stuff.

    Must be dificult to not touch other people’s stuff if you computer repair.

    Tho he might not be doing that work for much longer. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  20. Jamie Modderman says:
    October 17, 2008 at 13:04

    The conehead in the picture there looks like he’s too stoopid to know what a copywrite is. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  21. simeon-X says:
    October 17, 2008 at 13:22

    Thanks for the entertainment.

    Reply
  22. Kenneth B says:
    October 17, 2008 at 14:42

    I’ve had a web design company steal two pictures I made and had on my site but didn’t have the funds to sue them over it.

    Must not be an issue for you. πŸ™‚
    Destroy’em I say!

    Reply
  23. Dan says:
    October 18, 2008 at 02:33

    You forgot to link in awarebear.com and aacomputersusa.com in your post. You should consider doing that so everyone can see the crap they have on there. I looked them up and am willing to bet something that some of the other pictures on their sites are also β€œcreatively borrowed” if you know what I mean.

    Reply
  24. Stefan Didak says:
    October 18, 2008 at 05:03

    Hey Dan. I wouldn’t be surprised either but I intentionally didn’t link in those sites. If you read my blog you can see that my site gets a ton of visitors and sometimes by the tends of thousands in mere hours.

    If everyone starts hitting those links it might cripple their sites and I wouldn’t want to be blamed for causing their sites to be unreachable. Of course, one day of my visitor volume directed at those links might be more than they see in a lifetime.

    Reply
  25. carlos nunzio says:
    October 18, 2008 at 08:11

    awarebear looks like a total ass and frickin incompotent stefan you have already forgotten more than they can ever learn.

    Reply
  26. Karel says:
    October 18, 2008 at 09:39

    Stefan, check your e-mail. I run a site about copyright infringement cases and internet business development and would love to chat with you some time about this.

    Reply
  27. Wendy says:
    October 18, 2008 at 11:27

    Swwwwweeeeeet!!
    I love it when people think they can get away with anything and get what they deserve.

    Reply
  28. Stefan Didak says:
    October 18, 2008 at 15:10

    Sorry guys, you know who you are (acki, madmax, phrello), but I moderate comments and while I don’t mind people having a say and expressing their opinions on my site, I do draw a line when profanity gets out of hand and turns into discrimination.

    Reply
  29. Peter says:
    October 19, 2008 at 05:06

    I know you are revamping your office but can’t you upload pictures where it will be impossible for this jerk to paste himself into?

    Reply
  30. starfire02 says:
    October 19, 2008 at 08:20

    Man! That guy is just a envious little twerp.
    He can only dream of an office like yours.

    Reply
  31. Theo Ramsenaar says:
    October 19, 2008 at 10:27

    How can these thieves create websites for other companies when they can’t even design a decent one for themselves. I think the whole aware bear thing is a scam.

    Reply
  32. G says:
    October 19, 2008 at 17:55

    Maybe Andre’s whole life is a story that can be told in pictures. Other people’s pictures of course.

    Reply
  33. 45omega says:
    October 20, 2008 at 04:24

    If a “university student graphic designer” created that lousy photojob please tell us what school that student goes to because it should be blacklisted if they teach students how to produce CRAPOLA.

    Reply
  34. Luis Pastrulo says:
    October 20, 2008 at 06:20

    Is sad to know this from a new york web design company.

    Reply
  35. Luis Pastrulo says:
    October 20, 2008 at 06:21

    Is sad to know this from a New York Web Design Company

    Reply
  36. www.7strategy.com says:
    October 20, 2008 at 06:22

    Is sad to know this. WHat a Loser.

    Reply
  37. Rob Potts says:
    October 20, 2008 at 08:51

    Having known you for nearly 10 years I think I can say that I truly believe you are going to be this guy’s worst nightmare. Or maybe your lawyers. Or maybe Google will be his worst enemy from now on. His name is showing up prominently. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  38. Schwabe says:
    October 20, 2008 at 10:02

    This guy is a total wannabe!

    Reply
  39. morpheus says:
    October 20, 2008 at 10:39

    hella funny post! ha ha this peanut is like the fools on idols. i think if we examine his computer we will find pictures of playboy bunnies with him pasted next to them. not for commercial use but his own personal use tho πŸ™‚

    Reply
  40. Shane Berger says:
    October 20, 2008 at 13:28

    He can’t fix a computer if his life depends on it. He’s not smart enough. That type copied other people’s homework in school.

    Reply
  41. MacLuthor says:
    October 20, 2008 at 15:03

    Back in the day we would slam petty thieves and ordinary criminals into the stocks -medieval torture device- and had the whole town place shame on them. Today we have the internet and pitbull law firms!

    Reply
  42. Damien Murray says:
    October 21, 2008 at 11:35

    Sheesh Kar you think he can manage not to break a Grow-Ped?

    Reply
  43. Black Roamer says:
    October 21, 2008 at 04:25

    Mac, I think the guy should paste himself in Stefan’s pictures. Under the desk where that c**ksuc*er belongs. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  44. Stefan Didak says:
    October 21, 2008 at 06:22

    Roamer: Hey, watch your language there! And there wouldn’t be much room under the desks. He’d get strangled… by cables… or lawyers of which I keep a whole box under there! Peekaboo! Scarier than a Jack-in-the-Box. Not to mention, I wouldn’t want the guy near my parts!! πŸ™‚

    Reply
  45. Kar says:
    October 21, 2008 at 09:18

    He photoshops his company logo onto pictures of cars?
    Aye well, guess it wouldn’t fit on his Grow-Ped.

    Reply
  46. Hoff-E says:
    October 22, 2008 at 04:17

    I really really really hope those awarebear amateurs will refrain from offering graphics services.

    They’d give all of us real artists a bad name.

    -Hoff

    Reply
  47. Jeff Munn says:
    October 22, 2008 at 11:59

    I say, it’s smarter to steal something great than to create something crappy πŸ™‚

    Reply
  48. Steve Norwood says:
    October 22, 2008 at 12:21

    With what you’ve exposed about this pathetic Aware Bear Computers place it may be time for Alves to apply for a job at McDonalds.

    Oh no wait bad idea.

    He would eat the burgers quicker than he could flip them. πŸ™‚

    Steve

    Reply
  49. frackee says:
    October 24, 2008 at 05:33

    The little shit lied to you about the prints and thought he could get away with it. He not only a thief but also braindead.

    Reply
  50. Colin Foley says:
    October 24, 2008 at 08:17

    Genie in the bottle, my wish is to be a fly on the wall at Awarebear for a day. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  51. John Ledel says:
    October 24, 2008 at 11:19

    Of course he had to steal one of your pictures, Stefan!

    He HAD TO!

    Or do you think it would be wise for him to take a picture of himself sitting behind his Asus Eee PC? That also explains why he needed someone else to create the picture for him. Ever tried running Photoshop on the Eee? πŸ™‚

    Reply
  52. Donald says:
    October 26, 2008 at 08:47

    The bible says thou shall not steal. God will punish him.
    And if He don’t, you surely will.

    -DoN

    Reply
  53. Mark Hanson says:
    October 28, 2008 at 11:52

    Stefan,

    What an unbelievable loser!
    That Leite Alves needs to get a life.
    His own.

    Maybe he should have waited a bit for your new office pictures.
    Those are even more impressive than before.

    Think he’ll try and steal those too?
    Or have your legal eagles already shredded him to bits?

    Mark.

    Reply
  54. McDermoth says:
    October 28, 2008 at 19:00

    That’s soooooooo creepy! I can’t imagine seeing my space at home with strange dorks photoshopped in it. I’d probably freak out. It takes a creep to do something that creepy.

    Reply
  55. Mowcius says:
    October 29, 2008 at 03:26

    Stefan,

    It would indeed be interesting to see a visitor counter on your site to log traffic.
    I’m sure many people including me would be interested in seeing how many visitors you get even if you just post figures every so often.

    Btw, I am overwhelmed by your pc setup and I have no idea how someone can compare your office setup to that of Al Gore. I would more likely compare it to some of these

    I’ll be sure to check up again to see what other pc stuff you’ve bought, it makes me feel very small with my 800MHz AMD athlon web pc (which i’m on now), my 2GHz compaq evo n800w, and the parts for about 8 pc’s including a couple more AMD’s (1.5-1.6Ghz)….

    But I got it all for free and it does what i need it to…

    Mowcius

    Reply
  56. Stefan says:
    October 29, 2008 at 03:35

    There used to be a little counter at the bottom of the page that sat there for about a year but it wasn’t working correctly. With low traffic it would update fine but with high traffic it would skip counting. On one particularly busy day the real logs showed around 15.000 unique IP hits on the page yet the counter only updated itself by about 2000.

    The Al Gore thing… ha, yeah! That wasn’t someone comparing the setup but rather him and me personally. The person was making some odd claims about global warming and how I didn’t care about the environment just like Al Gore and his electricity use.

    Reply
  57. John says:
    October 30, 2008 at 06:36

    How does this Aware Bear rate? Do they even have a rating? Negative scale?

    Reply
  58. Jim Felt says:
    October 31, 2008 at 15:42

    Stefan, if you filed charges for trespassing he’d get away with it much cheaper and easier. Get him for all he’s worth. Not much I bet but still, go for it.

    Reply
  59. You're going down says:
    November 10, 2008 at 13:42

    To make matters worse,this guy copied the D&C peoples choice awards page and penciled himself in under best computer store and created another category for himself. See the link below if it isn’t down yet. We have copied the site in it’s entirety because he probably is taking it down as we write this.
    http://frontiernet.net/~aalves01/awards/
    To make dumbo even dumber, he placed in his multiple Frontier Yellow Page ads 3 certificates that he was the People’s Choice Awards winner for 2006, 2007, and 2008. Hey Andre, the 2008 awards haven’t even been made yet. The D%C has been notifed and isn’t very happy about the stolen graphics and copyrighted content he used, along with his blatant plaguerism and false advertising.
    Based on his character I expect him to go under, switch names, and get out of paying for his Yellow page Ads, then link to them under a different name and get free advertising out of them. You can see this guy coming a mile away. Only the beginning Andre, run and hide.

    Reply
  60. Stefan Didak says:
    November 10, 2008 at 17:16

    Hiya “going down”. Please contact me. I may have some additional information and perhaps a few questions as well.

    You are right about Andre being in hiding. Of course, that may not be a big surprise since my people are looking for him to hand over a little piece of paper in person. The problem with con-artists like him is that they can hide for a while but not forever and I suspect he may be underestimating my determination, or that of the law firm. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  61. Ted Gocek says:
    November 15, 2008 at 01:16

    I think I remember seeing this before, not sure. Either way I used to do web design back in 2001 for a very brief period of time and after checking out this guys website it seems that he is clueless about web design. The first page alone is gastly! Every single page afterwards does not follow any kind of design basics. The Apple Repair page seems to be ripped from Apple itself, at the very least more ripped off images and if that is the case he is messing with the WRONG company.

    The pages themselves are just images, if you follow the page down that is where the only content this guy has created himself – text. I checked out the page source and yep… a single image, a couple dozen ‘ ‘ and he designs websites? I haven’t seen websites built this bad in a decade! At least not by professionals.

    This guy is a joke.

    Reply
  62. Steve says:
    November 22, 2008 at 11:18

    Two things I found humorous about the awarebear website after less than 1 minute of browsing…

    1. The amount of spelling and grammar mistakes.
    2. The fact that the testimonial section was “Under Construction”

    I feel bad for anyone who’s hired them. Thanks for sharing the story.

    Reply
  63. Loki says:
    November 25, 2008 at 13:35

    I just looked over his website, and wow. That is some horrible web design work there. One thing that really got me is that, on every page, there is a major space between the graphic content and the text below. I’m using a 19″ LCD at 1280×1024 resolution, and there is enough blank space to actually fill my entire screen, without being able to see any of his content above or below. I thought it may have been a browser translation issue, as I primarily use Firefox, but I tried it in IE7 and it was the same. As already noted, horrible grammar and spelling issues, as well, not to mention a lot of questionable claims regarding “certification” of so-called staff.

    Stefan, I love your office, and on my website, I actually do use one of your pictures, but properly credited to you and your site. BTW, will you adopt me? That way I can get my own NASA-inspired computer room?

    Anyway, I hope you nail this clown good. He certainly has it coming. What a con-man.

    Reply
  64. Stefan Didak says:
    November 25, 2008 at 14:06

    If you really want to see something funny, use his full name and add .com and check that out. Scroll down to read the gibberish text he’s got there. I know what he’s trying to do with that but it isn’t going to work… and he doesn’t understand why it doesn’t work. LOL!

    I think he insists on providing us continued entertainment. πŸ™‚

    Reply
  65. Loki says:
    November 30, 2008 at 09:03

    Yup. Gibberish indeed. And no, he has no idea that, or why, it won’t work. It also makes him look even more unprofessional and amateurish than his other stunts already have. People who don’t know anything about writing html and dominating search engines will look at that page and wonder why he is constantly using his full name, and in various ways and combinations. To the average person, his horrible use of grammar simply reveals him to be a total amateur in probably every respect.

    In short, he’s shooting himself in more than one foot. πŸ˜‰

    Reply
  66. Jim says:
    December 8, 2008 at 08:12

    They also have images on their site stolen from Alienware and Apple. I started looking into these guys over the summer, checked out their DBA and it was filed in 2006, so to say they’ve been in business for 15 years is ridiculous, they are in their mid 20’s. I posted a negative review on their yahoo local page and they somehow got it removed, and then 2 blatantly fake ones popped up. So I posted another, and they managed to get that removed also.

    Reply
  67. Jeff says:
    December 8, 2008 at 12:31

    Stefan — actually, I do think Andre and Arthur are 2 different people and brothers. I believe Arthur graduated from college in 2005. They also refer to each others as coworkers.

    Read the D&C choice cached page carefully. He actually seemed to have created his own awards which are “like” the D&C awards and claims to have won that one. So he is not claiming to have won the D&C award, but creating his own and so confusingly referencing the D&C award so people will be confused into thinking he did win it (or is claiming to have.) So it is shady but a slightly different shady than you think.

    Reply
  68. Anonymous says:
    January 4, 2009 at 00:32

    Very lulzy story!

    This guy deserves to be on Encyclopedia Dramatica, together with the likes of Sonichu and Crystal Shinkle.

    Hopefully someone who reads this has the time to start an article.

    http://encyclopediadramatica.com

    Reply
  69. AwareBear What a Douche says:
    January 10, 2009 at 14:09

    I cannot believe what a d-bag this guy is. I looked at their web ‘design’ page, and I’ve never been on a more-crappy site before. I imagine all of the portfolio images are stolen too. They look like they’re right out of a template site.

    I wonder what his day job is? There’s no-way he makes any money at this shotgun blast of services. Maybe he’s the WalMart Photo Manager. That seems about right.

    Reply
  70. webdesign says:
    March 14, 2009 at 05:37

    Damn that is so stupid … how can someone think that was a good option for promotion ?
    Well i think he was just jealous of your home office set up πŸ˜›

    Regards

    Reply
  71. Matt says:
    March 25, 2009 at 18:42

    Hi there,
    This is a very interesting story. Have your ever found him???
    Did you try http://www.public-records-now.com the following link matches exacly to your guys.

    http://www.public-records-now.com/Search/Order1.aspx?from=hys0339543278&piid=46&1=ANDRE;;L;;ALVES;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;335043123&2=name&3=people&4=96&5=Andre;;;;Alves;;;;;;;;;;;;&

    I did not pay be sure, but aparetly they have addresses, phone and more about him, the other thing is that the record shows Andre and Arthur as an alias, in Rochester, NY.

    I think I might have gotten your guys… hehehe

    Good luck and by the way your office is what I imagine having since I was a little kid.

    Reply
  72. Carlos says:
    April 28, 2009 at 00:39

    Dear Stefan,

    It’s OK, Evthinbg is clear enough. Don’t take more time talking about this stupid. He doesn’t deserve our attention any longer. Good people deserves that.
    Our job talks by ourselves. If someone still believes in selfpromotion… he/she might check his/her brain.
    BTW, I admire your job…and, of course, envy your staff.
    Best wishes from Spain,
    Carlos

    Reply
  73. Chris (MaxWW) says:
    October 29, 2009 at 09:13

    Still picking fights I see.

    Props on the studio though looks nice.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Eric says:
    January 15, 2009 at 06:26

    know ped…

    That’s redonkulous, but I like it anyway….

    Reply

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