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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."
All this diligent effort to quash her negative review or help them avoid supposed fines - too bad none of that effort couldn't be put to satisfying the customer in the first place or correct their mistake.
Never ever buy anything from kleargear.com. They might ruin your credit for it.
In fact... lets just pop that right into the hosts file right now. Just in case i forget.
Just another shady fly by nite rip off site. Lets get this woman some donations so she can sue the shit out of them.
Which is the whole reason why there's a bad review. Seems Kleargear would want to fix that transaction before spending buttloads on dubious litigation, and win the customer back. But they'll discover how both the Internet AND retail business works soon.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
That's how the system is supposed to work. I'm assuming you went to small claims court, right? Small claims courts can't offer injunctive relief (i.e., a court order compelling her to keep the animal off your property), all they can do is offer monetary relief, and you didn't have any monetary damages.
Frankly I think that's a pretty silly thing to sue over and it must have made you really popular in the neighborhood. There's a ton of effective ways to keep cats out of your yard, ranging from harmless (garden hose) to nasty (anti-freeze), hardly seems like something worth dragging the courts into.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Really they should discover how their State's Attorney General works.
I'm a strong advocate for Corporate Death Sentences and banning corporate officers from owning or running another corporation for X years.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
If it were in any way legal or enforceable it would be in ToS everywhere.
First, it's not clear a contract was established.
Looks to me like if there was a contract at all, kleargear breached it first by failing to deliver the items ordered.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The Streisand Effect is not a rule. It's a rarity. For every story that gets attention this way, there are millions that do not.
When I see a post on Slashdot about censorship backfiring, without fail, someone will blurt out "Streisand Effect" as if it is an inevitable thing that happens when censorship occurs on the Internet.
The trouble here is that assuming this is a rule and not a rare edge case brings with it the danger of promoting the idea that censorship is not able to occur on the Internet. ...as if it is inherently censor-proof. The sad thing is, censorship is very real. The stories that allow us to cry "ha ha Streisand Effect" are the exception. They are interesting and attention worthy, or simply lucky.
I'm glad when the effect occurs, but don't kid yourself.
She let a rabbit *starve* to death. Think about that for a minute. You don't "accidentally forget" to feed an animal in your care for days on end. That is animal abuse plain and simple and would also fall into the category of torture. Both of these are (low-level) felonies in all states to the best of my knowledge.
To be honest, both of these people sound like the dregs of society and not anyone I would want to admit associating with.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
It's not so much that as it is fraud. Claiming someone's responsible for a clause they never actually agreed to, and billing them for it is fraud. Submitting that bill to a collections agency is fraud and harassment. There shouldn't be a lawsuit. The operator of that site should be arrested. And then there should be a lawsuit.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's only "unenforceable" from a legal standpoint, but before it ever even sees a courtroom, it's already intimidated enough people to raise the company's BBB rating from an F to a B, and ruined other people's credit; the couple from TFA have been turned down for loans due to the credit hit they've taken because these guys sent that $3500 "penalty" to collections.
Why pay court costs for a judge to enforce your schemes when you can get the credit bureaus to do it for free?
My sig can beat up your sig.
Well then it seems the couple has suffered real financial harm. Hopefully they can quantify this and collect damages. I hate the sue-happy culture of the US these days, but this case demonstrates exactly what lawsuits are for.
There's no way the company can claim ignorance due to the facts:
-The transaction was never completed, so the contract didn't apply
-The contract at the time (that didn't apply anyway) didn't include the clause about reviews
-The person attempting to purchase the item, and who would have been bound by the contract (but wasn't) wasn't the person who wrote the review
These are all facts that were plain at the time of the company's action; so in other words, they knowingly filed a false credit claim based on a non-existent clause in a contract that didn't apply to someone with whom they didn't do business anyway.
Our prisons are already full, so I think the appropriate penalty would be massive fines against the company, and all legal and executive personnel involved in this action, and if that can't be accurately determined, all legal and executive personnel.
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