vBSEO.com Transition - An Open Letter to Juan Muriente, vBSEO CEO

I agree totally. While Juan is still accepting money I presume, as the site seems to be open to accept money.
Ilia is putting things in the open and I applaud and thank her for this.

Regardless of the pros and cons that can be discussed ad nauseum, Ilia IS helping people to save their money. So kudos for this.

 

So what's the status on this?

 

Juan (CEO) has made no communication attempt with me, and has not responded to my messages.
Buy page is still active on vbseo.com and accepting new sales.
Andres, sole support staff, is aware of this topic and has posted here.
vbseo.com experiencing unresolved trolling.

 

Andres is not the sole support staff. Marco is still there doing his job as well.

 

This is the last stage of a long standing business dispute that just so happens to be between brother and sister co-founders.

I attempt to communicate. This is an example of the type of responses I have come to expect:



From late 2012 he was trying to sell the company and needed my approval, yet refused to give me access to financial documents or anything else. His position was only communicated to me via a frustrated lawyer who was trying to collect all of the documentation to make the deal happen.

Brother and sister matters won't be resolved here. However, as I indicated, the company is in a very poor state, and he's shared with me his intentions to close things down.

He left with the lead developer to Topify a long time ago (although supposedly not still affiliated with them).

At minimum, the customers deserve to know the status and no new customers should be fooled into purchasing at this time.

He hasn't responded to clarify his position here in his own words, nor on vbseo.com. He also hasn't removed the Buy button from the vbseo.com website to prevent further sales from happening to people who do not know the status.

 

Marco is a great and valued team member, and is doing his job in our Arabic speaking community. However, his role is a bit different. We've had a long standing relationship with him as a reseller in the Arabic market.

 

I am not a lawyer so this is only my opinion.
I think that Ilia as co -owner has more than enough grounds to have a lawyer obtain copies of the server logs. ( I understand this is not too expensive) This would show exactly what has been going on and I am sure that she would then be in a better position.
I am quite surprised that the lawyers have not suggested this.

Armed with such information would put Ilia in a far stronger position. And could help in deciding what action to take next.

 

It's called "grandstanding" Shawn, which may be silly but I suppose she has her reasons however unclear they may be to the rest of us.

 

Thank you. There's lots of forensics that needs to happen if we don't solve this by cooperation.

 

and I did the same thing and have the same problem as you! Have you managed to find a fix? Can anyone provide any help? Would really appreciate some kind of response.

 

Based on your unwavering support of Juan including the mass forum scraping of thousands of forum communities (an extreme copyright violation) by his product Topify, as well as misleading people about just what Topify does, until the truth came out, your motives are extremely suspect.

 

Yeah, ignoring what's been going on at vBSEO for a second, which is bad enough in itself that he was still taking money from people knowing he has plans to close vBSEO down (or so it's claimed in this thread by his sister). The highlighting on other sites that he's also involved in some shady going ons with Topify also, has just about ruined any credibility he may have had before. The guy sounds like a right shark!

 

I'm really astounded at the side of this issue you are taking.

Juan has not supported vBSEO for years. He's just cashed the cheques and made a lot of empty promises. He's squeezed as much money from the customers as he can, and now he's cutting his losses. Sound familiar?

Juan is now fully invested in Topify, which illegally scrapes the content of thousands of forum communities without authorization and then uses these complete archives as a "mobile experience". Basically, taking the choice out of the hands of these forum owners to install a mobile theme or Tapatalk, and instead hooking up a vacuum hose to forums and sucking everything up. So if his behavior at vBSEO didn't tell you all you needed to know about what he thinks of forum admins, surely Topify should enlighten.

There are really two choices here:

1) Ilia appeals to forum admins to try to get some external pressure on Juan to do the right thing and sell the company to someone who will keep it going, as Mert and others tried to do in the past.

2) Ilia does nothing and vBSEO will be shut down.

You are presenting a third choice -- trying to contact Juan -- which we already know has not been successful as she was forced out of the company.

Also I just have to ask: Even though XenForo's dirty laundry was aired, has it affected your view of the company and your choice to run their software?

When all other solutions have been exhausted, whatever remains, however unpalatable, must be attempted. (with apologies to the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

 

Juan Muriente doesn't own Topify. And it isn't his product. Whose motives are extremely suspect?

 

Juan Muriente is CEO of Topify. Try again.



This issue is being discussed extensively on TheAdminZone.

 

Topify has been around originally as a Twitter app since 2009. More recently it is focusing on forums. The CEO is Raymond Lyle.

Whether or not Juan Muriente was ever associated with Topify is unclear there is no indication that he is part of that project currently.

And the source of that graphic is not Dun & Bradstreet but rather second hand via Corporation Wiki http://www.corporationwiki.com/Illinois/Chicago/topify-inc/135011732.aspx claiming they are using data from Dun & Bradstreet.

 

Thanks djbaxter. It does seem murky what Juan's involvement may or may not be. Ray has posted his take on the situation:
http://admin-talk.com/threads/where...eo-team-mystery-solved-at-topify.43613/page-2

My issue, despite the massive censorship and whitewashing going on over at TAZ, you can still clearly read numerous examples of Joey openly lying to people about how Topify worked and repeatedly defending them. It's highly suspect.

 

Yes, I just want to clarify as well. As djbaxter has indicated:

Raymond Lyle is the CEO of Topify.

It was never suggested that Juan was the CEO. It was only questioned what his involvement was since he was listed (in the above) source as "President", and Oleg (vBSEO's lead developer) is acknowledged as their CTO.

Mr. Lyle says that Juan is not involved with the project. He hasn't ventured to provide any information on what the previous relationship was. It's worthy of further scrutiny. TBD.

I think it would be an incredible coincidence if Corp Wiki randomly associated Juan with Topify by accident. We know for certain he is/was friends with Mr. Lyle and has referred to him as his business partner.

The Topify team is welcome to drop in and explain why he was listed as President at their earliest convenience.

 

Oleg (formerly vBSEO's lead developer)

Would you still refer to Keir as (vBulletin developer)?