Negative feedback - threatening email

dirtychinchilla said:
You can't charge a restocking fee, and if they've sent you something faulty or the wrong item, I believe they have to pay postage also.
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That's one of the conditions of the new CCR that makes them slightly fairer to retailers - they're allowed to make a deduction from the refund if "the value of the goods is diminished by any amount as a result of handling of the goods by the consumer beyond what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods"

So if the OP has received the item and sent it straight back, they can't make a deduction, if he's damaged the box and covered the item in sticky fingerprints then they could.

Belly said:
OP: What would a solicitors letter actually achieve? You'd be asked to remove the Trustpilot review? The firm is unlikely to take you to court for damages and as such they would have to pay the solicitor (for his letter) and you'd remove the post even though if contains the truth? A hollow threat in my opinion.
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Why would he remove the review if it was truthful? As I said, I'd be tempted to amend the review with the information that they were threatening legal action.
 
Well within your rights to leave negative feedback, it's up to the company to do their best to right wrongs and convince you to buy from them again. Poor customer service.
 
Thanks all, glad to see I wasn't overreacting - wy wife was astonished I was even bothering to write a letter to that prat but sometimes I don't know where to draw the line between principle and pride.

Anyway, decided to let it go - as much as I'd love to smear him and his company the reality is I'd be taking food off someone's plate however wrong or right they may be and I got what I wanted in the end so that's that.
 
Haggisman said:
Why would he remove the review if it was truthful? As I said, I'd be tempted to amend the review with the information that they were threatening legal action.
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Agreed. The question was directed at the OP, hence the reason why I placed a question mark at the end of the sentence asking him if he would take down a truthful review. I haven’t seen his review; thus far it hasn’t been posted here.

If the review is libellous then the firm might consider it right to seek the help of a solicitor. As I’ve said, I haven’t seen the review.

Has anyone looked at it from the firm’s point of view? A small firm doing its best sends an item to an individual. The individual is NOT happy with the item and wants to return the item and asks for a RMA number. The small firm has difficulties (maternity leave, absence, forgetfulness etc) and doesn’t reply within the time hoped for by the purchaser. Without any further ado the purchaser overreacts, makes a negative review (which we’ve yet to see on OCUK) on Trustpilot. I don’t think that’s fair. As I wrote previously, if I were the purchaser I’d wait until the transaction was complete (within a sensible timeframe of course) before posting a review on Trustpilot.

If I owned a small business and someone made a negative review without me having the opportunity to put the thing right, I’d be annoyed. Most people would.

If things go wrong I often judge people by how they correct their mistakes and realise that at times things can go wrong, do go wrong and happen to most of us.
 
I had something similar with a kitchen company. My wife left some feedback on a forum when someone asked. A few weeks later she was contacted by the company and asked to remove it. The feedback was entirely factual. After some discussion and similar threats of legal action I decided it really wasn't worth the risk. While confident that we would win there was no upside for us and at least a little risk.

So we replaced it with something along the lines of "EDITED: Feedback removed after we were threatened with legal action by the company. Please form your own opinion of this."

They never contacted us again.
 
Belly said:
If things go wrong I often judge people by how they correct their mistakes and realise that at times things can go wrong, do go wrong and happen to most of us.
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Belly that's perfectly fine and I agree with you 100%. I think what most of us are more concerned about was the way in which the representative of the company behaved.

The review was just a normal negative review to say, look their CS seems to be a bit crap - this is echo'ed in all 11 other reviews that the company has so I wasn't singling them out or anything.

He called and instead of being just humble and saying something along the lines of 'look we're a small business, doing our best, pls give us a chance to rectify it and remove the feedback' I would've respected that a great deal and immediately removed the feedback. It's the fact that he called, was astonishingly rude, didn't even try to understand my position or why i was complaining, raised his voice, asked me questions, grouped me into a stereotype and then continued to talk over me while I tried to respond even after I offered to remove the feedback. Then followed up with a threatening email about solicitors.

Sorry but I suspect the 11 other reviews that have rated them at 1/5 stars are well deserved based on the experience I had and it had nothing to do with the business being given a chance to rectify its mistakes. I suspect if the person I spoke to is the business owner, he is mentally ill-equipped to do a better job for his company.
 
Belly said:
If I owned a small business and someone made a negative review without me having the opportunity to put the thing right, I’d be annoyed. Most people would.
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Agreed - however would you try to resolve this by:

A) Apologise profusely, explain to the customer why there was a delay/what went wrong, attempt to come to an amicable arrangement, and ask them if they'd mind updating their review based on this, but understand if they won't

or

B) Threaten them with legal action if they refuse to remove a perfectly factual review

Anyone who's aware of the Streisand effect (which IMO any business trading on the internet should be!) will know that option B) is a ****ing stupid idea ;)

Belly said:
If things go wrong I often judge people by how they correct their mistakes and realise that at times things can go wrong, do go wrong and happen to most of us.
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And again, I agree completely - in this case, something has gone wrong, and instead of trying to fix it, the business is threatening to go legal... IMO they deserve to be judged negatively for that.
 
Haggisman said:
And again, I agree completely - in this case, something has gone wrong, and instead of trying to fix it, the business is threatening to go legal... IMO they deserve to be judged negatively for that.
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I'm glad we agree on some points, Haggisman ;)


Belly said:
if I were the purchaser I’d wait until the transaction was complete (within a sensible timeframe of course) before posting a review on Trustpilot..
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I've no issue whatsoever with the opening post leaving a "Snottagram" on Trustpilot but think it would have been much wiser for him to wait until the end of the transaction - provided of course the review was opinion based along the lines of: This is the worst company I've ever dealt with. I consider the CS didn't...... and NOT: This firms steals your money. They lied to me... points which a solicitor might make a case against the OP.

As with all things there are often more than one versions of the truth and a solicitor might find it impossible to make a case against the OP if his post was opinion based.

Regarding versions of the truth, I attended a course once where we students were told how "The Truth" had been reported. USA had played USSR in a sports tournament. They were the only two teams which entered. USA beat USSR. In USA it was reported that USA came first in the tournament and USSR came second and that only two teams entered. In USSR it was reported that USSR came second and USA was placed one position above the team which came last but didn't mention that they were the only two teams in the tournament.

OP: I hope you get your problems sorted out and let's hope that the firm honours what it said it would do. Then you can send them a Snottagram!
 
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