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Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

popehat.com

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Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#31

Post by incongruity »

kbenson wrote: post #25

Isn't there yet another way the contract is invalid (since they go through a few already)? It's stated in the article that the customer never received the item they paid for. Isn't the contract contingent on both parties following through (the customer paying, the business delivering paid for service or goods)?

Also, according to one of the original news reports, the husband ordered and (supposedly/arguably) agreed to the terms - but it was his wife who posted the review. She never agreed to the terms and thus cannot be bound by them.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#32

Post by im3w1l »

tlrobinson wrote: post #13
guyht wrote: post #3

Reviews are a tough spot. On the one hand, reviews can be very damaging to businesses, so it is important that some measures are in place to ensure that the review is honest and genuine, and on the other hand its important that consumers can openly review a product/company without being scared of reprisals. Clearly, in this case, KlearGear are in the wrong, but I also think that there are cases where legitimate busin…

I don't think explicit "reviews of reviewers" is necessary, with enough data you can compute a trustworthiness score based on how their past reviews match up against other reviewers, or an Amazon style "Was this review helpful?" poll (which I suppose is a review of reviewers). I assume this is how Yelp and others do it.

Sounds vulnerable to a sybil attack.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#34

Post by D9u »

crazygringo wrote: post #20

> But a lawsuit isn't at the heart of KlearGear's despicable tactic. Ruining the credit of its critics is. ...If that fine is not paid, the delinquency will be reported to the nation's credit bureaus. Question: what ability do most companies have to report something to credit bureaus? I mean, selling my stuff with just Stripe and a DBA, I certainly can't, as far as I know. Credit-card companies themselves certainly c…

The article states that Kleargear hands off delinquent accounts to a collection agency... Kleargear generates a fraudulent invoice for the alleged breach of contract, and if no payment has been remitted in the 30 day interim, the account goes to collections.

You, and I, could do the same. (hopefully without the fraud)

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#36

Post by [deleted] »

crazygringo wrote: post #20

> But a lawsuit isn't at the heart of KlearGear's despicable tactic. Ruining the credit of its critics is. ...If that fine is not paid, the delinquency will be reported to the nation's credit bureaus. Question: what ability do most companies have to report something to credit bureaus? I mean, selling my stuff with just Stripe and a DBA, I certainly can't, as far as I know. Credit-card companies themselves certainly c…

[deleted]

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#37

Post by omarali »

D9u wrote: post #34
crazygringo wrote: post #20

> But a lawsuit isn't at the heart of KlearGear's despicable tactic. Ruining the credit of its critics is. ...If that fine is not paid, the delinquency will be reported to the nation's credit bureaus. Question: what ability do most companies have to report something to credit bureaus? I mean, selling my stuff with just Stripe and a DBA, I certainly can't, as far as I know. Credit-card companies themselves certainly c…

The article states that Kleargear hands off delinquent accounts to a collection agency... Kleargear generates a fraudulent invoice for the alleged breach of contract, and if no payment has been remitted in the 30 day interim, the account goes to collections. You, and I, could do the same. (hopefully without the fraud)

Can a collection agency affect your credit without having your ssn? Credit card providers ask for ssn. So do utility companies. But buying something from a company doesn't involve providing an ssn.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#38

Post by harshreality »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #28
corresation wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They reported it to credit bureaus, destroying their credit. They should be sued and penalized for that (in normal dealing that would be fraud if not extortion), however the threat and consequence is very real. http://m.kutv.com/article?id=106632

For anyone who hasn't experienced it: Credit score literally determines your quality of life in America. I couldn't get internet for a new apartment at age 21 because I was "unknown risk" since I'd never bothered to use credit very much. To be clear, I hadn't missed any bills. I just hadn't used much credit, so they had no data by which to calculate a score for me. Therefore AT&T completely refused to do business wit…

Credit score (and stable credit history, utilization, limits) determines your quality of life when your quality of life involves post-paid credit-based services. And whether and on what terms you can get a car loan or home mortgage or margin on an investment account.

If that's surprising I don't know what you're thinking.

I'm surprised though that AT&T didn't let you post a security deposit in lieu of good credit.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#39

Post by greenlander »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #29
tokenadult wrote: post #11

As the blog post kindly submitted here points out, the company's conduct appears to be fraudulent, and there isn't the tiniest chance that the woman who made a legitimate factual statement about the company in an online review will have to pay even one cent to the company. Good on Popehat and other sites for spreading the word about how scummy that company is. (By the way, the title of the submission here is misleadi…

But when those reports are fraudulent, as here, the consumer can also dispute the report, and the consumer should be able to come out with a clean credit record in the end. This isn't what happened. See here: http://m.kutv.com/article?id=106632 Specifically: Jen and her husband also disputed the ding with the credit bureaus but because Kleargear.com says the charge is valid the the ding remains. I've personally exper…

I have successfully removed bogus credit dings from my report. You have to follow a lot of steps and document everything well. If the creditor or agency doesn't respond correctly, you can sue them in small claims court for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The lawsuit always gets their attention!

I followed instructions from this site: http://whychat.5u.com/

No lawyer is needed if you just follow the right procedure and are ready to go to small claims court.

Re: Woman Facing $3,500 Fine For Posting Online Review

#40

Post by tzs »

The title should be changed to match the title at the site, which is "New From KlearGear: Free Speech, Only $3,500 Plus Shipping And Handling".

Their ridiculous non-disparagement clause purports to apply to all forms of communication (or perhaps to all forms of communication that are "published", depending on how you read the thing). In this particular case, they are trying to enforce it against an online review, but that's an irrelevant detail. The title here emphasizes that irrelevant detail too much.

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