Legal threat resulting from online review

bucketybuck · 01-09-2015 09:06PM #1

I have recently been threatened with legal action due to an online review I posted. Obviously I don't want to discuss any of the details of that case, but I would be interested in general terms to hear if it is even possible to bring legal action in a case like that?

In summary, say a person used a company for an event, found the company to have very poor customer service and so later submitted an online review stating exactly that. The company sends the person a letter stating that the public comments online are defamatory and that the intent was to cause damage to the company, and as such demand that the review is taken down within 48 hours or legal proceedings will be initiated.

Does the company have any case here? If I can clarify any point I will try to do so, again with the caveat that I want to keep it as general as possible!

desbrook · 01-09-2015 09:09PM

I'd presume the onus would be on them to prove what you said was firstly untrue and secondly damaging?

deandean · 01-09-2015 09:11PM

As I understand it, you are entitled to your opinion.
I trust you can provide info and evidence to support your opinion if called for.

Manach · 01-09-2015 09:13PM

From a case I read a few months back(google likely able to find which one) there was also action for a review on a site. The upshot was it was upheld as being valid due to (AFAIR) it being an honest comment and the underlying negative conseqences of the chilling effect on reviews. So even if there was a clause in any T&C about posting negative reviews, this would not be upheld.

bucketybuck · 01-09-2015 09:14PM

deandean wrote: »

As I understand it, you are entitled to your opinion.
I trust you can provide info and evidence to support your opinion if called for.

What info and evidence would be required for an opinion of "I didn't like their customer service at all"?

As a simple opinion, does that statement even need evidence?

Monkeysgomad · 01-09-2015 09:15PM

bucketybuck wrote: »

I have recently been threatened with legal action due to a Tripadvisor review I posted. Obviously I don't want to discuss any of the details of that case, but I would be interested in general terms to hear if it is even possible to bring legal action in a case like that?

In summary, say a person used a company for an event, found the company to have very poor customer service and so later submitted an online review stating exactly that. The company sends the person a letter stating that the public comments online are defamatory and that the intent was to cause damage to the company, and as such demand that the review is taken down within 48 hours or legal proceedings will be initiated.

Does the company have any case here? If I can clarify any point I will try to do so, again with the caveat that I want to keep it as general as possible!

If your review is YOURS and 100% truthful don't take it down. They cannot take legal action because of a truthful review. They are just thinking of ways to get that down so it won't damage their business. Don't take your review down as long as it's true.

desbrook · 01-09-2015 09:15PM

bucketybuck wrote: »

What info and evidence would be required for an opinion of "I didn't like their customer service at all"?

As a simple opinion, does that statement even need evidence?

Surely the burden of proof is on them not the OP ?

DK man · 01-09-2015 09:19PM

I'm not a legal expert but if such a case were successful then all reviews that are in someway negative would not be possible and the site would become obsolete.

The nature of such reviews is to give your honest opinion about your experiences and you can hardly be sued if you are telling people about your own experiences and your rating of them.

If however you were a competitor and your reviews were to do damage to another company then I'd say they may have some grounds to take a legal case....

Will be interesting to see what the legal folk have to say

fed up sick and tired · 01-09-2015 09:21PM

bucketybuck wrote: »

What info and evidence would be required for an opinion of "I didn't like their customer service at all"?

As a simple opinion, does that statement even need evidence?

It would be a stupid and irresponsible thing to say without evidence.

You should at least have addressed your concerns to the company in question and given them a right of reply before you tarnished their name.

If at that stage you didn't like what you got back, you would have evidence.

There are a lot of stupid people behind computer screens who think they can say whatever you like about people or organisations, with impunity.

Blank out the names, dates, and places, and put up here what you wrote. Noting to worry about then, surely ?

fed up sick and tired · 01-09-2015 09:24PM

Monkeysgomad wrote: »

If your review is YOURS and 100% truthful don't take it down. They cannot take legal action because of a truthful review. They are just thinking of ways to get that down so it won't damage their business. Don't take your review down as long as it's true.

Who decides that ?

bucketybuck · 01-09-2015 09:26PM

fed up sick and tired wrote: »

It would be a stupid and irresponsible thing to say without evidence.

You should at least have addressed your concerns to the company in question and given them a right of reply before you tarnished their name.

If at that stage you didn't like what you got back, you would have evidence.

There are a lot of stupid people behind computer screens who think they can say whatever you like about people or organisations, with impunity.

Blank out the names, dates, and places, and put up here what you wrote. Noting to worry about then, surely ?

Why do you assume I didn't have any contact with the company? Where else would I have encountered their level of customer service?

The tone of your reply sounds familiar to be honest.

Boskowski · 01-09-2015 09:27PM

You don't ned to gather evidence if based on your actual experience. If this was true then TripAdvisor would be shut down in the morning. You could turn this around saying there are a lot of shoddy companies and organisations out there thinking they can shut down negative reviews simply by threatening legal action.

It would simply go into code language like job references. "Company attempted to meet expectations."

bucketybuck · 01-09-2015 09:28PM

fed up sick and tired wrote: »

Blank out the names, dates, and places, and put up here what you wrote. Noting to worry about then, surely ?

I have no problem with people seeing the review. I just wish to be overcautious about having it discussed in a searchable medium.

Reati · 01-09-2015 09:29PM

Highly unlikely they have a case they could win. You should show how they deal with feedback from customers by posting the letter threatening legal action against you. In the IT age, that kind of behavior shouldn't go hidden.

01-09-2015 09:29PM

desbrook wrote: »

Surely the burden of proof is on them not the OP ?

Burden of proof is on the OP, he is making the claim. Which is a good thing, otherwise I could make a statement about something you do in private, and you would somehow have to prove a negative that no-one was witness to

bucketybuck wrote: »

What info and evidence would be required for an opinion of "I didn't like their customer service at all"?

As a simple opinion, does that statement even need evidence?

No.

Was that the entire extent of your statements? Doubtful. If you're not willing to take it down, consult a solicitor

bucketybuck · 01-09-2015 09:34PM

28064212 wrote: »

No.

Was that the entire extent of your statements? Doubtful. If you're not willing to take it down, consult a solicitor

The tone of the review is not much different in my opinion. If I knew some way to show the text without it being searchable I would do so.

And I do have full access to a solicitor thankfully, should the company wish to press forward with these threats the matter will of course be handed to them.

dalta5billion · 01-09-2015 09:37PM

Relevant:
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2009/act/31/section/20/enacted/en/html#sec20

Senna · 01-09-2015 09:39PM

A hotel in Northern Ireland treatened to sue a wedding couple over a negative review about their wedding.
Rightly so, it never made it pass a solicitors letter, the hotel had ruined the couples day and the review was justified. The only thing was 90% of the review was the couples opinion of the hotel, but they included things like "we heard this" and "our uncle told us that". The hotel argued that this was hearsay and not justified to be in the review.
As long as your review is your opinion and not hearsay from other people, you are fine.

desbrook · 01-09-2015 09:42PM

28064212 wrote: »

Burden of proof is on the OP, he is making the claim. Which is a good thing, otherwise I could make a statement about something you do in private, and you would somehow have to prove a negative that no-one was witness to

No.

Was that the entire extent of your statements? Doubtful. If you're not willing to take it down, consult a solicitor

Apologies -burden of proof would be with the OP . Just read up .

Dubkent · 01-09-2015 09:46PM

From a guy working in I.T there is not a thing they can do to you. If the company or whatever is on tripadvisor and agreed to be on TripAdvisor they are open to the rating system and would have agreeing to it in the terms and conditions. They would have to log a case with TripAdvisor and TripAdvisor would then decide whether to take it down or not and would have to make a case the person was lying

It's kinda like boards if they allowed you to post streams of matches, links to illegal downloads it would be boards who would be in trouble, not you.

Just eat, booking.com all have rating systems, theirs mobile phone review sites, games review sites.

bucketybuck · 01-09-2015 09:49PM

28064212 wrote: »

Burden of proof is on the OP, he is making the claim.

Just to come back to this, what claim am I actually making?

For example, if my review contains comments such as:

"every response I got was curt."

"any questions were greeted as hassle"

"A company that has no concept of customer service, I could not recommend them in any shape or fashion"

These are all my opinions, or my assessment of the service I got. Am I making actual factual claims here, or am I stating opinions that require evidence? How do I prove that I found an email to be curt?

fed up sick and tired · 01-09-2015 10:01PM

bucketybuck wrote: »

Why do you assume I didn't have any contact with the company?

Nowhere did you say that you contacted them after the event. You said...

a person used a company for an event, found the company to have very poor customer service and so later submitted an online review

Where else would I have encountered their level of customer service?

At the event in the first place. I judge customer service primarily by the provision of the service, not primarily by their complaints procedures.

The tone of your reply sounds familiar to be honest

Tell it to TripAdvisor

frostyjacks · 01-09-2015 10:09PM

It sounds like the business owner is bluffing. He knows there's nothing he can do about the review; otherwise he wouldn't be asking you to remove it, he'd be ordering you.

I know of one business owner who will to extreme lengths to counter bad reviews on TA. I guess solicitor's letters are the latest trick in the book. If they put as much effort into improving their business they probably wouldn't get the bad reviews.

fed up sick and tired · 01-09-2015 10:12PM

bucketybuck wrote: »

Just to come back to this, what claim am I actually making?

For example, if my review contains comments such as:

These are all my opinions, or my assessment of the service I got. Am I making actual factual claims here, or am I stating opinions that require evidence? How do I prove that I found an email to be curt?

You have to make the case that it is so. The other side make the case that it isn't. And someone else, who is hopefully impartial and rational, decides.

bucketybuck · 01-09-2015 10:20PM

frostyjacks wrote: »

It sounds like the business owner is bluffing.

This is my opinion as well, by the way, I'm not overly worried about this and do have the solicitor to back me up if needed. I do find it an interesting question though.

bucketybuck · 01-09-2015 10:22PM

fed up sick and tired wrote: »

You have to make the case that it is so. The other side make the case that it isn't. And someone else, who is hopefully impartial and rational, decides.

Is stating that I believed responding emails to be "curt" defamation?

stevenmu · 01-09-2015 11:11PM

Dubkent wrote: »

From a guy working in I.T there is not a thing they can do to you.

Wait, I'm a guy working in I.T too, we're legal experts now?

That's great news, I've a long list of people I want to sue ...

hullaballoo · 01-09-2015 11:45PM

I love amateur hour, we should do this more often.

OP, defamation is one of those aspects of the law that comes in for the most amount of criticism from almost all parties, including professional lawyers who litigate on the behalf of plaintiffs etc. and make money from it. It is, frankly, a circus.

That was supposed to be addressed by the government in the form of the Defamation Act 2009 but then when it was published, it ended up being just the same as the old law in most respects and it's difficult to criticise others publicly without risking the threat of a defamation action no matter how unmeritorious it is.

Your options are to ignore the threat, remove the post or to engage your own legal representation to deal with it. Taking advice from people on the Internet is inadvisable when dealing with legal (and medical/other sensitive) issues.

Peregrinus · 02-09-2015 01:43AM

Obviously without knowing (a) the facts of what happened on the day, and (b) exactly what you said about it in your review we can't tell if the company might succeed in an action against you. It would be difficult for them to succeed, as long as the factual claims made in your review were true (and you could prove their truth) and the opinions you expressed were fair comment based on a fair presentation of the facts.

The latter point is important. If you present true facts, but omit other true facts which would give a rounded picture that showed your opinion to be unreasonably held, the business owner could in theory succeed in an action against you. To qualify as "fair comment", expressions of opinion do in fact have to be fair.

Tubberadora · 02-09-2015 03:47AM

As somebody that has used trip advisor from both the side of the customer and the side of the business I think there maybe more to this than the op is letting on.
For a start, how did they sent you the legal threat? Where did they get your name address etc?

Peregrinus · 02-09-2015 03:58AM

Tubberadora wrote: »

As somebody that has used trip advisor from both the side of the customer and the side of the business I think there maybe more to this than the op is letting on.
For a start, how did they sent you the legal threat? Where did they get your name address etc?

Well, if he was a customer of the business they presumably already had a name and contact details from him. And he may have said enough in the review about the event, the time, etc for them to identify which of their customers had posted it. (Especially if he had already complained directly to them about the same issues.)

Legal threat resulting from online review

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