So this web design company takes over this fairly prominent medical site for design purposes. Without the clients knowledge or consent, created a new similar domain under their ownership. Designed the website on their servers and also at the clients dns control panel used a 301 redirect to redirect the clients site to their own site using masking. In addition they set up non existent email addresses for all the principals but directed all contacts and leads to themselves without clients knowledge? Thoughts???? Do I have a reason to be disgusted by this. Was this a scheme to beef up their own new domain or plain stupidity? All traffic and ranking authority passed to their site. What should they do with the domain they created.
Where did they meet these people? Did they hire them off the street or something? If they have deleted the existing website, then straight away, ask the hosting company to change the passwords on the account to lock them out, and ask your hosting provider to restore the website from backup files. Then surely the client could look into legal actions against the law firm.
A prominent international marketing firm if you can believe it and they are still claiming nothing was done wrong. I fixed everything at the hosting level but I see these people a lot and we have gone to war over this nonsense. I would love to blast them publicly but not my style. Thanks for the response.
Unless the marketing agency turned over all of the leads they acquired through this subterfuge to their clients, this sounds like a case of theft via fraud which in the U.S. could result in criminal charges. This sounds like stealing, plain and simple.