Idiot leaves libellous review for law firm & gets sued.

[Stick Legs]

In this morning’s Times;

An individual fell out with Summerfield Browne over a £200 bill and left a nasty review on Trustpilot.

Unsurprisingly SB sued him, and won £25000 (which hopefully they’ll give to charity or put it in some sort of pot for ProBono work).

Now I think this is well & good as too many people struggle with the line between opinion & fact and you can’t just write anything you want on the internet about someone.

[trickywoo]

Stick Legs said:

you can’t just write anything you want on the internet about someone.

Unless you are Elon muskrat of course.

[unident]

Stick Legs said:

In this morning’s Times;

An individual fell out with Summerfield Browne over a £200 bill and left a nasty review on Trustpilot.

Unsurprisingly SB sued him, and won £25000 (which hopefully they’ll give to charity or put it in some sort of pot for ProBono work).

Now I think this is well & good as too many people struggle with the line between opinion & fact and you can’t just write anything you want on the internet about someone.

You can’t? Have you seen some of the comments on here?

[Tony1963]

unident said:

You can’t? Have you seen some of the comments on here?

But everyone here is a clueless, racist, sexist, Brexiteering f-wit, so it’s not libellous.

[Johnnytheboy]

Tony1963 said:

But everyone here is a clueless, racist, sexist, Brexiteering f-wit, so it’s not libellous.

Don't be so hard on yourself.

[Jack ketch]

The solicitors do appear to suffer from a degree of denial of fact; something often seen on this site. One of the complaints raised was that they do not have the various offices around the UK that they show they have. Their reply was, “You claim that we advertise that we have offices in various places but we don’t, is both misleading and untrue”. Their website states, “We have offices in London, Birmingham, Cambridge, Oxford (all by appointment only), Leicester and our administrative office is in Market Harborough, Leicestershire”.

Have I missed something obvious or are they really that poor at defending negative comments?
Rick

[carinaman]

https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/disgruntled-clie...

[anonymous-user]

How much is something like this to instigate?

My impression of defamation was that it's super expensive and runs into six or seven figures.

[Gareth79]

Full judgment is here: https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2021/85.ht...

Interestingly the bad review is still live, and there's now a large number of bad reviews resulting from the news, including a pretty serious allegation!

I'm also quite surprised that a single review appears to have had such an effect, it implies that much of their work is one-offs and not repeat business?

[anonymous-user]

After reading it I thought there could be a risk of a 'Streisand effect'.

On this occasion they have this guy's details, but people (trolls) could easily write a lot of negative reviews from different countries / anonymously.

[irc]

After a quick read if the report it looks to me that the claim was based on the headline. Had he just called it "poor service". would he have been ok with the same description of the issues with the firm?

[ReverendCounter]

Tony1963 said:

But everyone here is a clueless, racist, sexist, Brexiteering f-wit, so it’s not libellous.

Do you feel like you're in good company?

[anonymous-user]

Looks like costs were awarded against him on an indemnity basis - that has the potential to make the £25k damages look like a walk in the park.

Stupid games etc.

[NickCQ]

I wonder if this will lead Trustpilot to tighten up what people can use their platform to say. Are they involved in the case in any way?

[Seesure]

Gareth79 said:

Interestingly the bad review is still live, and there's now a large number of bad reviews resulting from the news, including a pretty serious allegation!

Seems to be a lot of negative reviews as of today...!

And the review from "Sarah" is pretty strong to say the least !!! I would imagine the named individual will be tamping !!

[PF62]

Stick Legs said:

An individual fell out with Summerfield Browne over a £200 bill and left a nasty review on Trustpilot.

Unsurprisingly SB sued him, and won £25000 (which hopefully they’ll give to charity or put it in some sort of pot for ProBono work).

The individual is in Sweden and it appears that SB don't have the individual's address in Sweden, so they might have fun collecting their winnings.

[SmoothCriminal]

Sarah's review has been flagged what was the jist of it.

[ChocolateFrog]

SmoothCriminal said:

Sarah's review has been flagged what was the jist of it.

What was the jist?

[anonymous-user]

I read them earlier. I think 'Sarah' accused the owner / a partner of sexual assault, as that review is now missing.

Wasn't a subtle one star review.

[Seesure]

ChocolateFrog said:

SmoothCriminal said:

Sarah's review has been flagged what was the jist of it.

What was the jist?

"I was sexually assulted (sic)

(named person), tried it on with me. touched me up inappropriately. I felt disgusted and used. He tried to excuse his behaviour and said it was in his religion and culture.

Totally unprofessional and I had reported his behaviour.

Do not trust this Solicitors!"

Looks like a troll is stirring it up ... not the wisest of things to do unless they think they can hide behind the internet and not be tracked...