Some of you may know that I'm an eBay seller and I have a store that does well enough for me as I work my way through school. I recently just discovered another store almost an exact copy of mine, somebody was obviously "borrowing" my business plan and rolling out a (half assed) copy of my store, selling the exact same products with the exact same "shtick" and targeting the exact same market. This doesn't totally surprise me as I've noticed a few people doing this, but this one caught my attention because it was in my own city.

I did a little digging and found out it's a very close friend of mine. Looking back, this friend has always been very interested in my business when we hang out and has watched me run it many times as we hang out. I never dreamed he would go behind my back and do something like this.

Let me be clear on something though!!!....I have no issues with competition! This is NOT a legal issue, or a civil issue, or ANYTHING like that. This is about a good friend coming over to hang out with me, watching what I'm doing, and going home and using my ideas and business plan for himself WITHOUT me knowing.

How would you feel about this?

ask him wtf hes doin

Haha, strange. I'd confront him on it and see why he didn't just ask you to teach him instead of plagiarize?

I'd end the relationship. He's obviously not a friend, but a spy. A leech. Stop being his host.

Maybe he wants to be you? If he calls you to hang out and also has an alibi with someone else It's A Trap!

Copying your pitches exactly is copyright violation.

Otherwise it's legal. But being legal doesn't mean you can't call him an ******* to his face.

Omg, Dash_rendar hates competition. Dash_rendar is a communist!

I'd confront him about it (if he's a pushover you might get him to change it or take it down), and then stop being his "friend" (and I use the term friend lightly to mean con target).

Seriously, those actions are reprehensible. The right way for him to have gone about it if interested, would be to tell you he was interested in doing something similar and asking for advice. Then if you didn't want to provide advice (OH NOES COMPITITON!) he should have done his own research (I'm sure there's plenty of information on the subject if you're willing to dig through Google).

Go out & rent "The Talented Mr. Ripley". Once you've killed him before he kills you, tell us how it went.