Corporate Espionage

Kinda wild...

A few weeks ago, I was exhibiting our products at a trade show when a guy came up to me and asked for a demo. He said he worked for Capital Trading, a prop shop in Chicago. He didn't have a business card but gave me his email for a followup.

When I got back, I sent him an email following up. He asked how he could download our products. I told him, we'd be happy to register him after he sat through our demo and we got some information about him and his company. We scheduled a web meeting for the day before Thanksgiving.

That morning, I happened to be on LinkedIn when all of a sudden this guy's name pops up as someone I may want to connect with. I click on his name and I find out that he works for our number one competitor.

Now things started falling into place - no business card, just a gmail which he gave me at the show. His name was not on the list of conference attendees, and when I called Capital Trading in Chicago, they never heard of him...

And he blew off our meeting and did not reply to our followup emails.

Wild stuff...