Garage Door Opener Company Bricks Customer Hardware After Negative Review

from the you're-really-not-helping dept

So if there's one thing we've probably repeated more than others around here, it's the idea that in the IoT and copyright maximalist era, you no longer truly own the things you think you own. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about video game consoles, software, smart home hubs, ebooks, DVDs or routers -- in the always-connected, copyright mad, instantly-upgradeable firmware age, companies are often quick to remove some or all functionality at a whim, leaving you with little more than a receipt and a dream of dumb technology days gone by.

But we've also noted repeatedly that part of this new paradigm involves companies using this capability to punish customers for poor reviews. This is, it should go without saying, an idiotic policy that almost always invokes the Streisand effect and makes the "problem" of a negative review significantly worse than if the company in question had done nothing at all.

Case in point: internet-connected garage opener Garadget, which is taking heat this week for bricking a customer's 'smart' garage door opener after the customer in question left a negative review on Amazon. Earlier this month, a Garadget user posted to the company's message board, complaining about problems with the iPhone app that controls the garage door opener:

Just installed and attempting to register a door when the app started doing this. Have uninstalled and reinstalled iphone app, powered phone off/on - wondering what kind of piece of shit I just purchased here...

Not really uncommon in the internet of broken things era. The user then followed that up with a one star review over at Amazon making the same complaints:

Junk - DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY - iPhone app is a piece of junk, crashes constantly, start-up company that obviously has not performed proper quality assurance tests on their products.

At this point the company had several options. They could have ignored the complaints, or perhaps done something crazy like use the input to make a better product. Instead, Garadget boss Denis Grisak apparently thought it would be a good idea to inform the user on the company's message boards that his product would no longer be allowed to access the Garadget servers:

Martin, The abusive language here and in your negative Amazon review, submitted minutes after experiencing a technical difficulty, only demonstrates your poor impulse control. I'm happy to provide the technical support to the customers on my Saturday night but I'm not going to tolerate any tantrums.

At this time your only option is return Garadget to Amazon for refund. Your unit ID 2f0036... will be denied server connection.

Yes, nothing teaches somebody a lesson about impulse control quite like -- exhibiting extremely poor impulse control. Only after the entire fracas went viral via the internet of shit Twitter account and over at Hacker News did Grisak begin to realize the error of his ways, posting a follow up forum statement indicating he was fully aware that the Streisand effect was in full bloom:

Ok, calm down everybody. Save your pitchforks and torches for your elected representatives. This only lack the death treats[sic] now.

The firing of the customer was never about the Amazon review, just wanted to distance from the toxic individual ASAP. Admittedly not a slickest PR move on my part. Note taken.

A quote from a random guy.

PS: Anybody has Streisand's phone number?

That's really a halfhearted apology, especially considering the "toxic" user had what appeared to be entirely legitimate complaints about app functionality. Perhaps the idea that "there's no such thing as bad press" is actually true, but it's just as likely that Grisak's overreaction ensured that countless potential customers -- worried that the product they buy would be arbitrarily nuked -- may look elsewhere for their next garage door opener.

Filed Under: bad reviews, denis grisak, garage door opener, iot, ownership, reviews
Companies: garadget

Med Express Ordered To Pay $20k In Sanctions For Frivolous Lawsuit Over A Negative eBay Review

from the slappety-slapp-slapp dept

Back in 2013, we wrote about an Ohio medical equipment company, named Med Express, which had sued a marginally dissatisfied customer, Amy Nicholls, demanding she take down her eBay review. Her review wasn't even that bad. It just expressed dismay that the product she ordered arrived postage due, meaning she had to pay more than expected to get it. She found that to be a nuisance and expressed it. The lawyer representing Med Express, James Amodio, told Public Citizen's Paul Levy directly that he had filed the lawsuit to get the review taken down, even if it was entirely truthful. Here was Paul Levy, at the time:

I contacted James Amodio, Med Express’s lawyer, to explain to him the many ways in which his lawsuit is untenable. He readily admitted that, as the complaint admits, everything that the customer had posted in her feedback was true; he did not deny that a statement has to be false to be actionable as defamation; but he just plain didn’t care. To the contrary, he told me that I could come up to Medina, Ohio, and argue whatever I might like, but that the case was going to continue unless the feedback was taken down or changed to positive. And he explained why his client was insisting on this change — he said that it sells exclusively over eBay, where a sufficient level of negative feedback can increase the cost of such sales as well as possibly driving away customers

A couple of days later, Med Express's President, Richard Radey, showed up in our comments, appearing to apologize for the lawsuit, and saying it was a mistake and he was instructing his attorneys to drop the lawsuit. He also claimed that the lawyers were doing a lot of this without his knowledge, but he clearly signed an affidavit claiming that the review included "false" information. Paul Levy, once again, pointed out that if this was all a big mistake, it seemed odd that Med Express had filed a bunch of similar lawsuits:

Of the current crop of lawsuits, the suit against Nicholls isn’t even the worst. I haven’t yet been able to see the original documents from the transaction on which Med Express’ lawsuit against Guam resident Tan Jan Chen is based, but the lawsuit against Scranton-area resident Dennis Rogan is over a two-word “neutral” buyer feedback stating “Order retracted.” Apparently, Rogan bought a piece of equipment on eBay but Med Express had to refund his money because, as it explained in a message accompanying the PayPal refund, “This should not have been still listed—we removed this item a few weeks back-it broke.” As in Nicholls’ case, the statement over which Med Express sued for libel was true, but even worse than in Nicholls’ case, Rogan had not even left “negative” feedback.

Also, thanks to a friendly Popehat signal, Nicholls (and Rogan) had found pro bono legal support from Tom Haren and Jeffrey Nye (along with Levy), who quickly filed a response and counterclaims, meaning that even though Radey claimed Med Express was dropping the lawsuit against Nicholls, it couldn't just walk away.

And... because of that, Med Express just got hit with $20,000 in sanctions for filing a bogus lawsuit. You can read the decision here. Even without an anti-SLAPP law in Ohio, the court clearly recognized that this was a frivolous lawsuit. Not only that, the court found that Radey himself appeared to be playing word games in his own testimony to the court.

Specifically, during testimony Radey claimed that he had seen the reviews give "1" ratings in "all of those categories" (on eBay you can rate a seller on 4 different categories). However, as a representative from eBay told the court, the sellers don't actually get to see those ratings -- and, neither Rogan nor Nicholls actually gave Med Express a "1" in every category (in fact, Rogan only rated Med Express in one category and gave the company the highest rating, a 5). That's called lying by Radey.

The deposition of [eBay's] Ms. Long shows that Mr. Rady's testimony was false.

Radey then testified again, in which he tried to tap dance around his earlier false testimony. The court explains here:

Mr. Radey also testified again. His testimony varied from the first hearing in that he attempted to clarify his prior trial testimony wherein he testified he saw Defendants Nicholls and Rogan rated him with all 1's in the detailed seller ratings categories. This time he testified he must have jumped to the conclusion Nicholls and Rogan rated him with all 1's (as opposed to his prior testimony that he basically watched it happen almost live). Mr. Rady also testified he called Ebay years ago and Ebay gave him the idea to file suit against Ebay and buyers leaving negative feedback. The negative feedback could be removed by court order. The testimony wasn't credible.

Apparently, Radey and Med Express went through five different lawyers during this whole process, and back in July, their last lawyer withdrew from the case, citing "irreconcilable differences with the client." And the company has not found a new lawyer.

In the end, the court is not at all impressed by Radey.

The Plaintiff's complaints had no merit, legally or factually, when they were filed.

The court then lists out the four indications of a frivolous filing, noting that Med Express's suit violated all four.

The Plaintiff's suit was for an improper purpose. The goal was to thwart Ebay's seller ranking system for financial gain by obtaining an injunction against out of state defendants unlikely to be able to defend themselves. The Defendants did absolutely nothing wrong. They simply participated in Ebay's feedback component in exactly the manner in which Ebay intended. While Mr. Rady may perceive Ebay's seller ranking system to be unfair to sellers, the remedy wasn't to attack the buyers.

The Plaintiff's complaint was not warranted under existing law, could not have been supported by a good faith argument for an extension, modification, or reversal of existing law, and could not be supported by a good faith argument for the establishment of new law. The Defendants did nothing more than accurately recite a statement of facts and express their opinion.

Meanwhile, in Levy's blog post about this (linked above), he notes that it appears that Radey has been seeking to avoid all the negative publicity about this by changing the name of his business on eBay.

Med Express changed its eBay moniker from Med Express Sales to Medical Specialists, apparently to try to avoid the negative associations caused by its lawsuit; a recent check of eBay suggests that, although Med Express was still in business as of the second sanctions trial this past spring, it has changed its selling name again.

Either way, it looks like he's going to have to pay up for his bogus lawsuits. Hopefully this is a lesson to others who think about filing similar SLAPP suits, even where there are no anti-SLAPP laws.

Filed Under: bad reviews, defamation, feedback, frivolous lawsuits, richard radey
Companies: ebay, med express, medical specialists

New York Guest House Burns Own Reputation To The Ground By Trying To Charge Customers $500 For Bad Reviews

from the not-so-much-a-T&C-page-as-it-is-a-suicide-note dept

The Union Street Guest House in Hudson, New York, joins the small group of businesses who have attempted to levy fees against customers who leave negative reviews. It's an exclusive group that no business should want to be a part of, one that includes the infamous and possibly French geek gadget re-shipper KlearGear.

Page Six was the first to report on this customer-unfriendly clause residing in the rental terms and conditions:

If you stay here to attend a wedding and leave us a negative review on any internet site you agree to a $500. fine for each negative review.

If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event (this is due to the fact that your guests may not understand what we offer and we expect you to explain that to them).

Not only is the clause incredibly stupid and openly antagonistic, but it holds renters responsible for the actions of anyone in their party, including guests whose experience may have been drastically different than the renting party's. It even tells renters to spread the news that no negative reviews should be posted, which should be enough to tell potential customers to rent elsewhere.

Now, the Union Street Guest House has all the negative reviews it will ever need. As soon as this started spreading around the internet, it's Yelp page quickly filled up with negative reviews, forcing the business to offer this "explanation" on its Facebook page.

The policy regarding wedding fines was put on our site as a tongue-in-cheek response to a wedding many years ago. It was meant to be taken down long ago and certainly was never enforced.

Oh. Well, LOL… I guess. I'm not sure the "it was all a joke" defense is going to undo the damage done by its decision to insert this language into its rental terms, no matter what the original impetus. This also doesn't explain why a lousy joke was allowed to be part of the official policies for nearly two years (it appeared sometime between August and October 2012). It's gone now, but there's still an edge to USGH's voice in the amended terms, which indicates the Guest House is in no hurry to hand out refunds, return deposits or deal with chargebacks.

CANCEL AT YOUR OWN RISK, WE DO NOT ACCEPT ALL CANCELLATION REQUESTS...

If you file for a charge-back (request a refund directly from your amex or bank card) or file a complaint to any 3rd party organization during that time you are responsible for any fees associated with it and doing so will only hold up the refund process...

The deposit will not be refunded until we feel that everything is 100% resolved (we reserve the right to refund at any time). If you hold the entire Inn you are responsible for every room. There are no "releasing" rooms prior. If there are any unused rooms you forfeit your entire deposit. All chargebacks and any other fees related to any charges from anyone in your party (that they have not paid) will be deducted from your deposit.

According to Page Six, there's also a bit of an edge to its voice in its handling of earlier negative reviews:

For any bad reviews that do make it online, the innkeepers aggressively post “mean spirited nonsense,” and “she made all of this up.”

In response to a review complaining of rude treatment over a bucket of ice, the proprietors shot back: “I know you guys wanted to hang out and get drunk for 2 days and that is fine. I was really really sorry that you showed up in the summer when it was 105 degrees . . . I was so so so sorry that our ice maker and fridge were not working and not accessible.”

It would seem obvious that there are better places to spend your money, especially since the chance of you receiving your deposit seem incredibly slim. The most objectionable part of the terms has been removed, but only because it went completely public. At no time during the last two years did the Guest House take down this clause, which seems to indicate that it wasn't the inside joke it's now pretending it was.

I don't know why this lesson even needs to be learned at this point. If businesses haven't figured out that attempting to suppress bad reviews almost invariably only results in more bad reviews, this sort of stupidity and inevitable backlash should be viewed as nothing more than culling the herd. If you'd rather try to silence unhappy customers than address the problems in your own business, you deserve to have your reputation torched to the ground. But don't blame the internet. This fire was started by the Union Street Guest House itself.

Filed Under: bad reviews, fines, reputation, reviews, threats
Companies: union street guest house