Flattering Fraud

[jdikov]

Here is the situation and we need advice:

We sell our scooters to dealers all over the US. Recently we were approached by a dealer who wanted to buy scooters from us and we had to turn him down because he was located in the same territory as an existing dealer. (Unlike some scooter distributors, we protect the territory of existing dealers) Well this dealer was not happy at being turned down so he is now advertising a scooter that is not ours but using our name and reputation in his ad. This of course angers our dealer who has spent a lot of time and money developing the name in his area.

So not only is this dealer misrepresenting his product by pretending that it comes from us but he is also dissing his current supplier by not using their name. Now I'm flattered and all that our reputation is desirable but fraud is fraud. We don't have lawyers and patent and trademarks or any of that stuff. We are a small family run business that has worked hard for the last 10 years to develop our reputation. We are not the type to sue people as too many in this coutry have become. So really not sure what recourse we have or our dealer has other then the Amish approach. We can only hope that this dealer is shunned into shame by the scooter community.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Forgot to mention the dealer doing the nasty is Scooters to go in Gran Rapids MI

thanks,
John Dikov