I am running a small website design and development company, We have done a project for one of the USA based client. Based on my experience, more than 95% of the clients are good, but at least you will get 1% or 2% of clients who comes to you to screw your happiness and your business. I have got one such a client about two years back.
The client paid X amount of money, but day by day, his expectation keeps increasing to X+X+X+X+X.... I tried my level best to accommodate his changes, but it seems like a never-ending story. He started abusing my staff and threatening us with blackmail and creating bad reputation online.
So, the client started a website with my company + "cheat", and started adding information to the website. Now, when I or anyone search online in Google for my "my company name" , his website "mycompanynamecheat" is coming in second place, which affects my business badly and I am losing all my clients.
I approached the client many times. I even offered a complete refund for whatever he has paid to me, but I am not getting any replies from him. I have only his Email ID, domain name and address. He lives in USA and I am from India.
As a small company, I don't have a budget to hire a lawyer in California and fight the case with him? I am planning to file a defamation case and sue him, asking for money as a compensation. Maybe I can spend up to $2,000 in this case. What is the best possible way for me to tackle this situation?