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Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review
sabri writes "Jen Palmer tried to order something from kleargear.com, some sort of cheap ThinkGeek clone. The merchandise never arrived and she wrote a review on ripoffreport.com. Now, kleargear.com is reporting her to credit agencies and sending collectors to fetch $3,500 as part of a clause which did not exist at the alleged time of purchase. 'By email, a person who did not identify him or herself defended the $3500 charge referring again to Kleargear.com's terms of sale. As for Jen being threatened — remove the post or face a fine — the company said that was not blackmail but rather a, "diligent effort to help them avoid [the fine]."' The terms and conditions shouldn't even apply, since the sales transaction was never completed."
First, it's not clear a contract was established. And even if it was, unilateral changes generally are unenforceable. And even if it were there when the attempted purchase was attempted, this is an unconscionable contract clause, against public policy (1st amendment, etc) and should be thrown out.
This person's best bet is to dispute the credit reports, counter sue for whatever they can think of to recover legal fees.
If it were me, I'd just send them a letter telling them to go F themselves and I'll see you in court. Bring it. My lawyer, however, would likely wish that I not do that.
They already are. They're removing all comments from their facebook page.
The only people who get rich by going to court are the lawyers.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
And now they have disallowed all commants on their FB page.
She needs to go to http://cfpb.gov/ right away and report this. It'll come off her credit reports ~30 days or so later. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was setup for exactly this kind of thing.
Fuck Ajit Pai
And now their FB page has been deleted.