NeoScale web man posts Better Off Dead invoice
'I want my $4,400'
Ensure Ease of Recovery with Asigra’s Agentless Software
Think of it as the technology world's equivalent of the Better Off Dead newspaper boy hunting down his $2.
Earlier this week, the website of encryption specialist Neoscale displayed the following message.
NeoScale owes its webmaster, of the last 5 years, $4400 USD
The message appeared just as UK-based security outfit nCipher announced that it had acquired some of NeoScale's assets, including technology and employees. It would seem, however, that at least one of NeoScale's former contractors didn't get taken care of as the company sold off its good bits.
An nCipher spokeswoman told The Register that an employee from a company called Marketing Tactics sent her a number of invoices, seeking compensation for work done on behalf of NeoScale - a company with $40m in funding . The spokeswoman informed the chap that nCipher would not be handling the invoices, since it was only purchasing NeoScale assets and not existing liabilities.
The Marketing Tactics fella responded as he saw fit, posting both the note about the webmaster fees and the nCipher spokeswoman's response on the NeoScale website.
Both notices have since been removed with NeoScale.com now redirecting to nCipher.com, although you can see trails of the web anger via a search.

I want my $4,000
"Lots of things are going to come out of the woodwork (during an acquisition)," the nCipher spokeswoman told us. "But we bought NeoScale's assets from a company called Hercules Technology. We didn't buy the business or take on any of their liabilities.
"It's very unfortunate that they haven't paid their webmaster." ®
Regcast training : Hyper-V 3.0, VM high availability and disaster recovery
COMMENTS
Re: Shurly
The debt to this guy counts as a liability and since they didn't buy liabilities they don't owe him. But somebody does - and that somebody just sold an asset that wasn't really theirs ... it all depends on what the contracts involved look like.
Actually I think they're treating this website defacement surprisingly decently.
Shurly
The guy claiming the money did some work that could be considered an asset? like some webdesign work? So it would be a kind of unpaid-for-yet asset... mabey...
Dear Sir
I am Barrister Tunde Owolabi, Manager of Bills/Exchange at the Foreign
Operations Department of Ecobank Nigeria Plc.
In my department, we discovered an abandoned sum of Four Thousand Four Hundred United States Dollar (US$4.400.00) in a domiciliary account that belonged to one of our foreign customers, the NeoScale webmaster who died in a plane crash on March 9, 2000.
Etc, etc

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Steps to Take Before Choosing a Business Continuity Partner
Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider
Cloud storage: Lower cost and increase uptime
SaaS data loss: The problem you didn’t know you had