Woman Fined For Bad Review Striking Back In Court 249
An anonymous reader writes "Here's an update to the earlier Slashdot story about KlearGear.com 'fining' a couple for a bad review left four years earlier on RipoffReport: Not only did KlearGear report this as a bad debt to credit reporting agencies, but KlearGear is hiding behind a DomainsByProxy domain name to making finding their real identities harder. Now Public Citizen is representing the couple and is going after KlearGear for $75,000. The TV station that broke this story, KUTV, now reports that RipoffReport will likely be on the couple's side. The BBB and TRUSTe say their logos were used by KlearGear.com without permission, and credit reporting agency Experian is also investigating."
Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Waiver of rights (Score:5, Interesting)
I seem to recall it beeing seedier than even that.
IIRC, at the time the transaction was said to take place, KlearGear had not yet even PENNED that clause in their contract, and as such any such term was never a term even presented to the customer at the time of said transaction.
In the venerable wors of Darth Vader: "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it further."
Essentially KlearGear is claiming a breach of contract that was never even presented to the customer, as grounds for their dickishness.
If true, the woman's lawyers are going to can their spammy asses.
Re:Waiver of rights (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually the idea is readily demonstrable in the real world. Take the right to keep and bear arms, which society still hasn't figured out how to effectively take away even in the most controlled of environments, as evidenced by the plastic shank sticking out of some poor bastard in the prison shower. It is the quintessential 'natural right', one that all human beings are born with, and one that is impossible to completely deprive them of. Free speech is the same, you can punish someone after the fact if you're an oppressive regime that doesn't recognize it, but you can't actually stop them from exercising it in the first place.
Re:Waiver of rights (Score:5, Interesting)
IIRC, at the time the transaction was said to take place, KlearGear had not yet even PENNED that clause in their contract, and as such any such term was never a term even presented to the customer at the time of said transaction.
That is even worse for KlearGear; as it changes the violation from harassment, FCRA violations (for reporting a false loan, from which no goods or services were exchanged) and FCBA violations --- into fraud.
Changing your "terms" after the fact, and pretending as if your new terms apply to a previous sale, so you can extort your customer, is fraud.
Re:Waiver of rights (Score:5, Interesting)
They're allowed to talk about it, and in a negative fashion, so long as they stick to facts and their opinions. (NDAs are a bit different.)
For that matter, the clause saying you can't badmouth them apparently didn't exist at the time those people interacted with that company. So the company is trying to retroactively change the agreement, which is illegal.
The threats the company sent, sure look like blackmail, or at least some form of illegal attempt to influence imo. (ianal)
Don't forget that the company never delivered the contracted goods, so the contract was invalidated by them for failure to fulfill the contract. Heck, even the credit card company agreed to that and revoked payment.
That company also used the logos of the Better Business Bureau and TRUSTe improperly, without permission, and I believe, illegally. I know of know other reason to fake having endorsement by such "trust" organizations as those for any reason other than to run a con. Add that with the companies attempts at avoiding contact and keep as many details secret as they can, and you really have to wonder about their motives. In my case, it's more of a just how extensive and widespread their guilty actions are rather than a more common question of their guilt.
By the way, if that company were to legally prevail, it would be a horrible precedent. It would probably by about 3 seconds before most companies had the same kind of B.S. 'agreements' employed. You wouldn't be able to say or do anything bad about any company lest you be 'charged' a huge penalty. You probably couldn't even recommend a competitors product or store to a friend, since that would be an action that negatively affects a company. And when it comes to abusing laws, it's it's not a matter of if, it's only a matter of when.
Re:Waiver of rights (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem in this case is that KlearGear failed to fulfil their part of the contract (didn't deliver the goods), but then are trying to say the other party is still bound by the contract terms. You cannot hold the other party accountable to a contract while you willfully ignore it. There is no longer a valid contract because KlearGear broke it. The negative reviews are basically the woman saying KlearGear broke the contract.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Question for anyone who knows: how the hell did KlearGear report a debt to a credit reporting agency in the first place? The credit reports are indexed by SSN, and they only have other identifiers like credit card numbers to go by if you don't have that. They paid by PayPal. Doesn't PayPal hide your credit card number from the merchant? With just a name, how did they report it? Does anyone know?
Re:Good (Score:2, Interesting)
There's probably a good chance that they are planning to go out of business in the next few weeks. Take money from people, ship out whatever you don't think you can sell to others, sell whatever product you have on hand to others for cash, then sweep everything out of the company coffers and let the company get sued into oblivion.
Since the company doesn't own anything, you can't squeeze blood from a turnip.
The people who own this company might be evil but their not dumb.
Re:Waiver of rights (Score:4, Interesting)
The idea that 'people have natural rights' is not falsifiable.
Good thing that's not the assertion then. Instead, the Founders asserted that "Free people have a bunch of rights, and a government that tries to deny the people these rights does not govern over a free people. Since the American people are to be free, Congress shall pass no law abridging freedom of speech. And the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. And so on."
The Bill of Rights is a definition, intended to define governments into two categories based on how free their people are. The category that the Founders intended the US to fall into was "A government that governs free people." Other governments, ones that don't recognize the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights are "Tyrannical governments that lord over their citizens." Because the Founders gave us a definition, the statement "The US is a Free country" is falsifiable.