You don’t like our products on Amazon? Well we will sue you for that review!

Hey did that 2$ crap was not like the 200$ item displayed in the photo? well tough luck if you complain over the review, as this man found out after a friendly threatening letter from lawyers 1k miles away.

The next time you write an online review, be careful. You might get sued.

That's what could happen to a Florida man who left a negative review about an Internet router he purchased. According to his Tuesday post on Reddit, where he's asking for legal advice, he received a letter from a law firm in Philadelphia threatening to sue him for an "illegal campaign to damage, discredit, defame, and libel" the company that makes the router.

"Your statements are false, defamatory, libelous, and slanderous, constitute trade libel and place Mediabridge and its products in a false light," the verbose letter from the law firm reads in part.

If the man doesn't take down his review within three days, cease all Internet conversation about the product, and agrees to never buy the company's products again, the law firm will sue him, according to the letter. But by going to Reddit and not keeping quiet, the man might have already sealed his fate.

YAY freedom working at best!!! but could this be possible, could you get sued for saying how bad a product is? well...'Murica!!!

Companies, it turns out, have every right to sue people who write reviews on websites that they may feel are libelous or defamatory.

While there is a level of legal protection that third-party websites (in this case, Amazon) have from being sued, which come from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—the same section that protects websites that show revenge porn—the authors of those reviews are not protected.

Oh man things like Sugar free Haribo gummy bears must be a unexploited gold mine them, sue them sue them all!

So what happen to freedom of speech? oh right slander is not covered by that

The right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and is commonly subject to limitations based on the speech implications of the harm principle including libel, slander, obscenity and pornography, sedition, hate speech, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, non-disclosure agreements.

We must feel bad for the poor company them, they don't only make bad products, people actually tell them they do it the nerve of those people, evil amazon backed the customer and banned the company, this is the response to this action from the company lawyers

"All of this is due to misinformation which was blown out of proportion by individuals on a social media site who acted first, before questioning whether the information they had was accurate or not," representatives of the company said in a statement. "This is the reality of this situation. Remember that there is a human aspect to this story."

Of course the lawsuit threat was real but ummm you know poor company...

Source 1, and 2

The only thing i can say about this is: don't be cheap, buy the good stuff and avoid you internet rage over the crap you got to save 10$, also law suits are one of the lowest points of current society, i wonder if lawyers wear paper bags to cover their faces during their normal life
Sorry if it was posted before i made a search for it

Amazon bans seller that threatened to sue customer over negative review

Seems Amazom took care of their end!

Remember the Amazon shopper that was suddenly faced with the threat of a lawsuit after posting a negative review for a router? That shopper was vindicated on Thursday, shortly after the story of his predicament began to spread, as Amazon removed all Mediabridge products from their online store in response to the company’s explosive reaction to the review.

“It’s our sincere belief that reasonable people understand that not only is it within our rights to take steps to protect our integrity, but that it should be expected that we would do so when it is recklessly attacked,” Mediabridge stated on Facebook. “Unfortunately, as a result of our attempt to get this reviewer to do the right thing & remove his untrue statements about our company, Amazon has revoked our selling privileges. Many hard-working employees whose livelihood depended on that business will likely be put out of a job, by a situation that has been distorted & blown out of proportion.”

Seems they messed up pretty good with that letter!

If this makes it to an actual courtroom, then we have indeed reached yet another new low IMO. I would not be surprised though and that is pretty sad in itself.

I am glad to see that Amazon is sticking by the customer. I have never had an issue when buying through them that could not be worked out in some way. It seems that they take good customer service far more serious than the company that sold the crap router.

What's really funny is that this company thought that they could bully this individual into doing what they wanted and didn't consider any kind of backlash... Yet here they sit. If anybody loses their job (as the company states in Spirit Horse's article above) then it is their own fault for acting so ridiculous. Maybe they will think about things for more than a second in the future and not act so ridiculously childish. They should not be in business at all if they can't handle unhappy customers any better than this.

Again... Good on Amazon for sticking by their customer.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe
Amazon knows the custumer is always right, i bet the other company too just...

Well im not a fan for some pretty basic reasons.

I bought one thing, one time from amazon and now i get "would you like" emails every few days for stuff thats has basically nothing to do with what i originally bought and they all get through my spam filter.

GOD DAMN YOU AMAZON. Leave me alone!

a reply to: Indigent

I have spent more time than I care to remember in customer service and I am a firm believer that the customer IS NOT always right. However... Not even Wal-Mart would have the nerve to sue the many customers that complain on and off of their site daily. That is off the scale crazy!!

It reminds me of that time Oprah got sued for saying negative things about beef.

www.cnn.com...

I think that the customer should sue for emotional distress. Why not join in on this litigious society if you've already been dragged into it?

Simply swap an original review with a single line such as:

I regret that I have been forced to remove my honest OPINION about a product due to a legal threat which which you can read below :

[insert text of letter here]

That will do more damage than one bad review ! We weigh up bad vs good reviews and act accordingly. If, however , the bad reviews were as above we would ignore all the good ones for one simple reason : what is the company trying to hide and are those good reviews clients or employees !

Don't get angry get even, within the law, information is a killer.

Mediabridge is a company that should not be operating. I know I will never buy anything of theirs.

First they screw up the initial product by misrepresenting it. They bait and switched him, or so it would seem.

Then when the guy complains, they support his assertion of a bait and switch. see, it could have all gone away with a simple refund in exchange for removing the review. No harm, no foul, no one's the wiser. Instead, they keep the money and demand the review be taken down. I am not reading about any investigation into his claim, but perhaps there was one. Who knows.

But the kicker: when the rest of the world wants to smack Mediabridge around for their arrogance, they still don't find humility, and continue to attempt to wear the victims cloak. Their most recent statements sound like the excuses of a cheating spouse.

Ill share a tip: if you have a complaint about a company, say it on Twitter. It usually takes less than 20 minutes to hear back from them, and they usually are all too happy to give you free stuff to stop complaining.

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

Ill share a tip: if you have a complaint about a company, say it on Twitter. It usually takes less than 20 minutes to hear back from them, and they usually are all too happy to give you free stuff to stop complaining

Free stuff?!? i found my new occupation, to the twitter!!!

Well done Amazon for sticking by the customer, but HEY AMAZON!!!

WHAT ABOUT THE BILLIONS IN TAX THAT YOU AVOID EACH YEAR!!!

By avoiding tax you leave the honest British worker to pick up the bill!

Go ahead, sue me for telling the TRUTH!

I just checked on Amazon and Mediabridge products are still being offered for sale. Looks like the router in question has 105 total reviews. 72 five star reviews vs. 14 one star reviews, with an average of 4 stars.

Router Reviews

Not sure what to think on this one, but suing someone for a negative review may take the top spot for worst customer service ever. I've never heard of Mediabridge before this, but I sure won't be buying any of their products. There are several other ways a good company would have handled the situation without resorting to legal means. If any Mediabridge employee's lose their job they won't need to leave the building to find out who, why or how, just ask who had the brilliant idea to sue over a bad review.

What I will take away from this story is not only is the customer service horrible at Mediabridge, but the management of this company is in the same boat as well.

The owner of this company has a bad business philosophy, it's obvious. Surely he/she is entitled while everybody else owes them something. His employees probably don't make any money anyways and will do better finding other work.

a reply to: Indigent

I'm with the consumer on this one regardless of which side of the law it officially falls on.

This happens often from what I can tell, here is another example...

Woman Fined For Posting A Negative Review Online

(KUTV) For Christmas several years ago, Jen Palmer's husband ordered her a number of trinkets from the website Kleargear.com. But for 30 days, Kleargear.com never sent the products so the transaction was automatically cancelled by Paypal, Jen said.

Wanting an explanation, Jen says she tried to call the company but could never reach anyone. So frustrated, she turned to the internet writing a negative review on Ripoffreport.com.

"There is absolutely no way to get in touch with a physical human being," it says. And it accuses Kleargear.com of having "horrible customer service practices."

That was the end of it, Jen thought, until three years later when Jen's husband got an email from Kleargear.com demanding the post be removed or they would be fined. Kleargear.com says Jen violated a non-disparagement clause. It turns out that, hidden within the terms of sale on Kleargear.com there is a clause that reads:

"In an effort to ensure fair and honest public feedback, and to prevent the publishing of libelous content in any form, your acceptance of this sales contract prohibits you from taking any action that negatively impacts Kleargear.com, its reputation, products, services, management or employees."

The clause goes on to say if a consumer violates the contract they will have 72 hours to remove your post or face a $3500 fine. If that fine is not paid, the delinquency will be reported to the nation's credit bureaus.

It's a sad world when corporations are considered as people, and the corporations seem to have more rights than actual human beings

a reply to: Indigent

Well hold on.

Just because you have a right to speak your mind doesn't mean you aren't responsible for what you say.

The question here is did anything he say was untrue?

I don't think that suing your customers is a good idea. But sometimes other companies play dirty. And how are they to know whether this isn't the case here.

a reply to: grey580

I think no matter what he said, what they did made them more damage.

a reply to: Indigent

Don't forget facebook.

I got a years supply of Dixie paper plates once because their plates have wax that softens with really hot food and sticks to my table.

I didn't want anything for it. I just wanted them to know about their design issue. But I was happy to accept their offer.

a reply to: Indigent

I don't disagree with that.

It's an over reaction for sure.

However you can't just make up stuff that's not true. Keep that in mind.

Slapp
Strategic litigation against public participation

fap - anti-slapp

I'm always disappointed when I can't see the original unedited review that is the cause of the suit.

originally posted by: Seiko
Slapp
Strategic litigation against public participation

fap - anti-slapp

I'm always disappointed when I can't see the original unedited review that is the cause of the suit.

There you go

a reply to: bigfatfurrytexan

That makes me wonder if they are young owners. They may have come out of the education system with distorted views of reality. Everyone is a winner, everyone gets a trophy, Politically Correct (don't say bad things), etc. That would explain their inability to accept the situation and continue to play the victim.