Nick, I have heard from several other Certified Master Inspectors that they have run into some scum bags advertising that they are a CMI when they are not. They fly our logo, use our marketing and use our credentials as their own. This most definitely harms those of us that are truly a CMI as well as the validity and credibility of CMI in general.
Certified Master Inspector is supposed to mean the “Best of the Best” <<a quote from the CNI site itself. When a non CMI uses the CMI designation when they are not a CMI it affects the entire designation and all staff board members and CMI Inspectors. This Fraudulent advertising needs to be stopped.
Nick, we need you help here to keep the CMI designation from being abused, diminished etc… We need to keep it a meaningful designation for all involved as well as the Public. If this fraudulent use of the CMI designation is continues soon it will mean nothing.
NACHI has a good legal counsel right Nick? so please lets get something going g here to stop this from continuing.
I never beg anyone for anything, I am just asking Nick and his legal team (the developers of the CMI designation) for some help in keeping their own CMI designation a meaningful designation for all involved.
Oh, I never berate Nick, just some heated discussions and arguments. If you only new 1/2 of it and could see my private emails with him…LOL, To be quite honest Nick is one of my most respected mentors in the industry. I have learned so much from him and of course Ben the education guru. If I believe Nick is in the right about something, and was being questioned or needed any backing, I would be 1st in line to have his back.
Anyway thanks for your useless comments, they added so much help to all members involved here…
Fighting CMI infringement is a constant battle. Yesterday, we served another imposter with a lawsuit. I’ll ask Mark to post it here next week. It never ends.
Awesome !! Maybe if mark drew up a very nasty intimidating Intent to file suit that may scare a good percentage of scum to take down cmi logos and stop advertising as a cmi. Well it could help a bit.
LMAO, classic…
Jealous? maybe, maybe not remember he does give away lots of widgets to his clients so he is now a Certified Expert Inspector. At least that is better than nothing since he isn’t even Certified in Virginia as a Home Inspector.
Some just use the term, “Master Inspector” since CMI is not listed on the Principal Register. Until that is done, “Master Inspector” is free for anyone to use.
Yup, true, this particular guy has the logo on his site. Then I called him as a potential client…LOL he didn’t even know what a cmi was when I asked him like a harry homeowner …LOL
We don’t sue every inspector who infringes on our marks or steals our intellectual property. The police don’t fine everyone who speeds. It’s something our legal department does when it isn’t busy with pressing matters that members need us to handle urgently, so we never want to get every infringer. Anyway, on Friday we filed another lawsuit against an ASHI member pretending to be a CMI, and once we get service on him, we’ll post the lawsuit.
Cease and desist letters rarely have any effect on a thief who is already stealing and such letters don’t recover damages. Lawsuits are better. We didn’t waste time sending a cease and desist to the ASHI inspector we sued on Friday. We just sued him.
Furthermore, a cease and desist letter implies that we would be fine with the recipient if they would simply stop (“cease and desist”) infringing. Why would we want to do that? “If you stop stealing from us, we’ll forget about everything you’ve stolen.” That’s stupid. I’d rather capture evidence of their infringement over time to establish damages in preparation of winning or settling a lawsuit.