Is this true? sounds legit?

ubersonic

ubersonic

ubersonic

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26 May 2009
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Hi, ill try and sum this up quickly, our family business used to be run by my father and the IT was, over a decade ago, handled by a friend of his. That friend has since fallen out with the family but many moons ago he supplied a copy of SBS2003 for us, it was legit discs with keys/etc so we always thought it was a retail copy.

Fast forward to today and he has now sprung it on us that it's actually a select licensed copy for which he has been paying £800 a year "out of respect for my father". He is now basically blackmailing us that if we don't agree to move to a Server 2012/Exchange 2013 licence he will have Microsoft shut down the license and our server will stop working.

My plan had been to move to Office 365 and Server Essentials 2012 for local file storage and AD (we have <10 staff) which would have been a lot cheaper and less overkill but he is basically saying we have until the end of business today or he's cancelling our license and Microsoft will shut it down via remote.
 
Smells like something that comes out of the back of a male bovine to me...

You could always contact MS and ask them.

Does he still have a login for the server? He might do something just to make his "point".
 
As far as I'm aware Microsoft cannot stop the license key working (yes you may not technically be licensed but the server will carry on working)

Don't be pressured into rushing into a new solution. Definitely find a new IT guy!
 
Licenses don't 'expire' like that, When you buy them they are perpetual, Microsoft have no power to shutdown the license.
I'm also pretty sure that select agreements have a minimum license requirement, and being that Small Business Server is for exactly what it says on the tin - there is no way you'd meet that minimum.

What isn't perpetual is support, but being that exchange 2003 left support 3 months ago and 2003 server is following it next year just forge on with your plan for office 365.

You have no worries on the Microsoft front.
I would just check on the server for any remote access apps or even plain old RDP that he might use to follow through on the threat.
 
Little_Crow said:
Licenses don't 'expire' like that, When you buy them they are perpetual, Microsoft have no power to shutdown the license.
I'm also pretty sure that select agreements have a minimum license requirement, and being that Small Business Server is for exactly what it says on the tin - there is no way you'd meet that minimum.
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The subscription licenses do expire (in terms of not being legally allowed to use it) but it will carry on working ;)
 
Little_Crow said:
I'm also pretty sure that select agreements have a minimum license requirement, and being that Small Business Server is for exactly what it says on the tin - there is no way you'd meet that minimum.
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The guy we got it off used to own a number of large IT firms in the 90's and early 2000's before he retired and he had major government contracts so it's quite feasible he had a high end account with MS and maybe still does so I think he's probably being truthful about how he got the software, but if there's nothing that can be done externally that makes me feel a whole lot safer :)
 
Have you been through all the login accounts to make sure? Have all passwords been changed since he stopped looking after it? Have a double check to make sure as he could access using another account.

Theres no chance he would have been paying £800 a year for SBS. If its a volume licence agreement, it should be with yourselves. It sounds like he's probably been using his own MSDN or Action Pack licences which arent for resale anyway.

Sounds like a nasty bit of work.

Edit, as others have said. Microsoft wouldnt shut it down. If that happens today, it will only be him thats done it.
 
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tribz said:
Theres no chance he would have been paying £800 a year for SBS. If its a volume licence agreement, it should be with yourselves. It sounds like he's probably been using his own MSDN or Action Pack licences which arent for resale anyway.

Sounds like a nasty bit of work.
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As the CD Key is on the case not the disc I guess it can't hurt to show you it:

WP_20140711_001.jpg


You think he is/was scamming us?
 
That takes me back. I got a huge box of these discs when we first signed up for our VLA. They filled 3 or 4 Microsoft branded DVD wallets that were also handily supplied.
Almost all of the software media they sent wasn't in our VLA, it needed the key available from the licensing portal to use it.

Sadly, going by this guys attitude I would suggest that you have legit media and key, it's just that the key may not be registered to you. I might even go so far as to imply it may have been used on multiple customers installs.

Go forward with your Server Essentials and Office 365 plan and get rid of anything this guy might have had anything to do with, you'll feel better for it.
 
Well I have made sure that Any account's he may have had access too have had the passwords changed, and I am pressing ahead with the 365/essentials plan at speed, however I have remembered somehting that thankfully he doesn't appear to have yet: he's our domain registrar :(

If I contact Nominet and explain that we are a Registrant who have fallen out personally with our registrar how likely are they to let us move to another one? our current reg is until 2017 and we are listed as the Registrant on the Whois lookup. I am worried he may start messing around with which name servers are listed and whatnot.
 
ubersonic said:
Well I have made sure that Any account's he may have had access too have had the passwords changed, and I am pressing ahead with the 365/essentials plan at speed, however I have remembered somehting that thankfully he doesn't appear to have yet: he's our domain registrar :(

If I contact Nominet and explain that we are a Registrant who have fallen out personally with our registrar how likely are they to let us move to another one? our current reg is until 2017 and we are listed as the Registrant on the Whois lookup. I am worried he may start messing around with which name servers are listed and whatnot.
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Is it in his name? Do you have access to the domain account?
 
ubersonic said:
I don't think you understand, he's a registrar, like godaddy or 123-reg. It's in our name but registered with him.
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I would have though he would have bought the domain through a company (excluding his name or your name) which has a control panel?
 
I'd disconnect any servers from the internet if you can until you have any critical data backed up then double check he doesn't have any remote access and/or move to another solution he can't in any way manipulate.

EDIT: If he has any kind of access to domain management/ownership thats going to make things complicated.
 
If he's actually a registrar and he's trying to blackmail you then Nominet (assuming a .uk) will come down so hard on the guy that it won't even be funny.
 
decmatt said:
I would have though he would have bought the domain through a company (excluding his name or your name) which has a control panel?
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No he is one of those companies, he registers domains directly with Nominet.


Caged said:
If he's actually a registrar and he's trying to blackmail you then Nominet (assuming a .uk) will come down so hard on the guy that it won't even be funny.
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Cool that's good to know, I doubt he would try anything dodgy with the tag then :)
 
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