Indian-origin founder, 16, alleges customer harassment over tech issue: 'Threatened to contact professors'

Om Patel is the founder of BigIdeasDB, a startup he launched in early 2024.

A 16-year-old Indo-Canadian technology founder publicly accused a customer of harassment and intimidation in September 2025, after what he described as a short-lived technical error on his startup’s platform that was resolved within minutes.

Om Patel, the Canada-based founder of BigIdeasDB, said the dispute began when a customer experienced difficulty logging into the service shortly after purchasing a subscription. According to Patel, the issue was caused by a mistaken code deployment and was fixed almost immediately, but the customer responded with repeated threats even after receiving a full refund.

Patel is the founder of BigIdeasDB, a startup he launched in early 2024. In an interview with Indieniche earlier this year, Patel described the platform as “a tool that helps founders identify validated startup ideas by analysing real user complaints from sources such as G2 reviews, App Store reviews and Reddit threads”. He began learning to code at the age of 12 during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the company has since reported revenue of over CAD 23,000, roughly Rs 15 lakh.

According to screenshots shared by Patel on X, the customer, identified as Adam, sent an email at around 9.45 pm accusing the platform of being fraudulent and demanding an immediate refund. The email alleged that the content was fabricated, claimed the login redirected to localhost, and warned of reputational and financial action if the money was not returned.

someone just tried to destroy my startup and reputation over a 30-second bug fix despite immediately fixing the issue, he > called it a "complete scam" > threatened chargebacks > threatened to contact stripe to "remove our integration" > said he'd spam "every hackernews… pic.twitter.com/DD6LqDXrwa

— Om Patel (@om_patel5) December 30, 2025

The email read: “Hi, as you know, this product is clearly a scam. The content is fake, the login does not work (redirects to localhost), the platform is broken. Either refund immediately or I will: Charge back via credit card

– Contact Stripe and ensure they remove your integration

– Comment on every Hackernews article and Reddit post mentioning this platform.”

Patel responded within four minutes, explaining that a faulty update had caused the login issue and that a fix had already been deployed. He told the customer that the issue would be resolved within 30 minutes.

In his response, Patel wrote: “Somehow, a pull request was merged into main with a redirect to localhost (that's why you weren't able to get in) after the Stripe Webhook was created.”

He added: “I can assure you this product is NOT a scam, just a simple misunderstanding and that's 100% on our part.”

Despite this explanation, the customer continued to demand an immediate refund. Patel said he processed the refund without dispute. However, he alleged that the messages did not stop even after the payment was returned.

After the exchange concluded, Patel posted screenshots of the emails on X, saying the customer had attempted to damage both his business and personal credibility over what he described as a minor issue.

In his post, Patel wrote: “Someone just tried to destroy my startup and reputation over a 30-second bug fix.”

He said that the customer, despite the problem being resolved, had: “called it a ‘complete scam’, threatened chargebacks, threatened to contact Stripe to ‘remove our integration’, said he'd spam ‘every Hackernews article and Reddit post’, even threatened to contact my professors at MIT (???).”

Patel stated that the subscription had been purchased only minutes before the complaint was sent. “All in a span of minutes after purchasing a subscription,” he wrote.

He said he had refunded the customer immediately. “I offered a full refund immediately. No questions asked. Problem solved, right?” he wrote, before adding: “Wrong. Even AFTER processing his refund, he continued with threats and hostile messages.”

Patel suggested that his age played a role in the customer’s conduct. “Some people think they can bullyyou because of your age,” he wrote.

He also said: “Imagine being so entitled that a 30-second technical glitch makes you try to destroy a 16-year-old's entire future.”

In the same post, Patel shared advice for other founders dealing with difficult customers, writing: “Stay professional always. Document everything. Offer refunds when appropriate. Don't let threats shake you.”

The founder's post went viral and attracted a number of varied comments. One user called the customer a "boomer".

"You’ll meet plenty of these just don’t be emotional," another user suggested. A user wrote, " It’s not about age man. Some people just love doing this. You need to remember the Joker wasn’t a made up character. He was inspired from reality. One that is real and rare and you found it."