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Write a negative review and we'll charge you large sums of money to punish you...

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  • #1

    Write a negative review and we'll charge you large sums of money to punish you...

    ...even if you were screwed by the company.

    It seems that certain online stores and merchants are putting in a non-disparagement clause in their Terms of Service. You know, the thing you just hit "yeah, yeah, just send me my [item]" when you check out?

    Some of these companies are now saying that if you write a negative review, they're going to charge you. This one couple ordered something, never got it (and in fact the company never claimed the money from PayPal). They wrote a negative review on a site posting negative merchant experiences, scams and frauds and the company sent them a letter saying that if you don't take it down within 48 hours...you'l be charged $3,500.

    Since they couldn't remove the post from the site, they were send the bill and when they didn't pay (and frankly who the @#$% would?) it sent to collections. They're taking it to court but it's an ongoing battle between asshole merchants and the spending public.

    So...make sure that you don't get fucked in the ass with a cactus by these people and read the ToS when you checkout.

    Either that or simply stop posting reviews on your shopping items.

    Which leaves me to wonder when they'll start saying that if you buy from us you *MUST* post a positive review or we eat your babies (or something).

    http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/bes...www.cnn.com%2F
    “There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.” - Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor.
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  • #2
    Frankly I'm going to start writing reviews to the tune of...

    Due to the increasing number of merchants who are using non-disparaging clauses in their Terms of Service and the increasingly difficult to translate legalese used to hide such clauses I am writing a simple honest review of my shopping experience. I ordered item(s) from this online merchant, currency was exchanged through electronic means.
    “There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.” - Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor.

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    • #3
      Well that's one company I'll make sure never to do business with.
      --- I want the republicans out of my bedroom, the democrats out of my wallet, and both out of my first and second amendment rights. Whether you are part of the anal-retentive overly politically-correct left, or the bible-thumping bellowing right, get out of the thought control business --- Alan Nathan

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      • #4
        Friend of mine made a suggestion. If you don't buy from them, then you've never "click to agree"-ed to the ToS. This means that you can write an honest review stating that they have this policy and to be careful of dealing with them.

        And they can't say a damn thing.
        “There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.” - Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor.

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        • #5
          Another option is to write a review that is entirely neutral stating the existence of the non-disparagement clause and that you have no other comments. Both basic facts and neither disparaging on their face.

          There's a case being taken up by Public Citizen where a person made an order in 2008 that was never delivered (I believe) and after being unable to resolve it with the company, the buyer's wife wrote a negative review last year on Ripoff Reports. The company then tried to bill them $3500 for doing so, and has placed a collection against their credit report.
          Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Andara Bledin View Post
            There's a case being taken up by Public Citizen where a person made an order in 2008 that was never delivered (I believe) and after being unable to resolve it with the company, the buyer's wife wrote a negative review last year on Ripoff Reports. The company then tried to bill them $3500 for doing so, and has placed a collection against their credit report.
            That's the case mentioned in the CNN article. Thanks for finding a text version of it. I looked but couldn't find one.
            “There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, where the sea's asleep and the rivers dream, people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there's injustice and somewhere else the tea is getting cold. Come on, Ace, we've got work to do.” - Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor.

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            • #7
              Is this even legal? Just because it's in a ToS and you sign / acknowledge it, it doesn't automatically make what's written in there legal if it was never so in the first place. A copmany can technically write anything in there that they want, but it doesn't necessarily mean it'll hold up in court.

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              • #8
                that's what the lawsuit is about, but it is more or less irrelevant- the main problem is that much of the damage has already been done- for example, a collection is on the person's credit report. that could be difficult to get off.

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                • #9
                  Amazing.

                  So, they don't like people writing bad things about their company, so instead of improving their business to mitigate bad reviews, they simply penalize people who write the reviews, thus gaining them attention on national news about their policy?

                  I guess bad press on CNN seen by millions plus a lawsuit is better than a bad review on some site seen by a few hundred or thousand.

                  That's... an executive short-sight that should earn the people who decided on such a stupid a swift and painful kick to the curb, but we know that's not going to happen.

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                  • #10
                    Hmm. Wonder how a review of...

                    Placed order with X company on AA/BB/CCCC. Never received item. Due to the ToS I am leaving them 3 stars so as not to get sued.

                    Would go over? 3 stars is not a negative review after all....

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Andara Bledin View Post
                      Another option is to write a review that is entirely neutral stating the existence of the non-disparagement clause and that you have no other comments. Both basic facts and neither disparaging on their face.

                      *snip*
                      That sounds very similar to the type of noncommittal comment employers give about an unsatisfactory employee when they definitely do NOT want to give a glowing reference, but know quite well that they have to tread carefully. It would be interesting to see if the company could actually do anything about that, since it's nothing but the truth.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Andara Bledin View Post
                        Another option is to write a review that is entirely neutral stating the existence of the non-disparagement clause and that you have no other comments. Both basic facts and neither disparaging on their face.
                        You could always do that, then finish with something along the lines of "This policy makes it difficult to give my honest opinion about my experience with this company."

                        Originally posted by Mytical View Post
                        Would go over? 3 stars is not a negative review after all....
                        In some areas -- especially video-game reviews -- yeah, it would be. 3 out of 5 stars (or even 3 out of 4) seems to be considered an outright slap in the face these days >_> If a game gets any rating under the 80-85% range, many people (for some reason I cannot explain) interpret such an "above average" rating as "complete shit"...
                        "Judge not, lest ye get shot in your bed while your sleep." - Liz, The Dreadful
                        "If you villainize people who contest your points, you will eventually find yourself surrounded by enemies that you made." - Philip DeFranco

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                        • #13
                          There's some clear 1st Amendment concerns that can be brought into this too. The 1st amendment has been found (I forget the cases. >_<) to be possible for a corporation to violate as well. There have been concerns about how far NDAs go (some Fracking cases for instance,) but I'd think that a court would probably find that, if you can TALK about it, you can talk trash about it.
                          "Nam castum esse decet pium poetam
                          ipsum, versiculos nihil necessest"

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by EricKei View Post
                            In some areas -- especially video-game reviews -- yeah, it would be. 3 out of 5 stars (or even 3 out of 4) seems to be considered an outright slap in the face these days >_> If a game gets any rating under the 80-85% range, many people (for some reason I cannot explain) interpret such an "above average" rating as "complete shit"...
                            If I can offer an explanation, on a yearly basis I'd say many gamers buy, at most, maybe 10 games per year. Some extreme gamers might buy even more than that, but barring that, there are usually about 10 games that are 80% or higher on the rating in any given year. Therefore, why buy a game that's 75% when there's another one that's 80% or greater?

                            I'd also say that a rating system is probably more in tune with school grades than a bell-curve. 50% does not mean average in such a scale, even if such a percentage is described as such on a site. I consider it to mean for every good thing about the game, there's an equally bad thing. If the physics engine is amazing, the gameplay is horrible, and so on. Either that or every thing in the game is mediocre.

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by TheHuckster View Post
                              Therefore, why buy a game that's 75% when there's another one that's 80% or greater?
                              Because ratings are subjective. I would buy a RPG with a horrible score over a fighting game with the best possible score. Why? Because I like RPG's and do not like fighting games. (We are talking the like of Mortal Kombat, etc not like Pokemon)

                              Also, I would rent a RPG and try it and totally ignore any score until I had played it first hand. I mean there are some movies that got really bad reviews I personally liked. Like Star Trek into darkness. So reviews for some of us are just white noise.

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