Trustpilot has criticised a London-based legal firm for taking legal action against a reviewer who left negative feedback.
A man was ordered to pay £25,000 in libel damages to London-based Summerfield Browne who sued, on the basis the review was false and defamatory.
This case has paved the way for other businesses, including estate agencies, to potentially adopt the same approach, and Trustpilot is worried.
“We strongly oppose the use of legal action to silence consumers’ freedom of speech,” says a message on the website.
The consumer review website contacted Property Industry Eye yesterday to express its concern.
Trustpilot said in a published statement to EYE that it disagreed with the legal action taken against the reviewer:
“We have been watching the commentary on the decision in Summerfield Browne vs James Waymouth closely. Trustpilot had never been contacted by Summerfield Browne, nor had the review been flagged to Trustpilot using our complaints process for reporting reviews, despite that being freely available to anyone.
“We were not a party to the case, and have not been served with any order requiring removal of the review concerned. However, in the event that we are served with an order, we intend to challenge it. Trustpilot have not had the opportunity to make any representation in this case.
“We believe there are a number of errors within the judgement, and it raises significant concerns around freedom of speech. As a public, open, review platform we believe in consumers having the ability to leave feedback – good or bad – about a business at any time. If consumers are left fearful of leaving negative reviews, this could result in consumers being misled about the quality of a business, and businesses being deprived of the valuable feedback from which they can learn, improve and grow.
“Whilst the circumstances of this case are highly unusual, the outcome will ultimately not lead to a positive position for anyone – consumers or businesses – and it is much better for businesses to engage, respond and improve upon the feedback they receive, rather than using legal action to silence consumers.”
Man ordered to pay £25,000 in libel damages for negative Trustpilot review
Could have as big an impact on the review industry as the Bosman case had on football. Going to be watching with interest.
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High time. No excuse for using Feefo or Trustpilot as opposed to Google for a long while now.
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I think many of us have been victims of unjustified negative reviews at one time or another and it’s great to a business tackle someone who has left a negative review for no reason, or which contains false information to be vindictive.
More cases like this would lead to a more accurate review culture.
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Be a brave business to do that after the fallout from this case.
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Good. In theory reviews are an excellent tool for promoting your business, but in reality some appear to be venting platforms for disgruntled tenants. This court case could be the ultimate review of review sites.
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Maybe if the review sites had a better way of addressing grievances from victims of unfair reviews they might not get in trouble.
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Quite. Try doing that with Trustpilot and all you will get is a sales pitch. At least Google has an appeals procedure.
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Google is part of the Tech Woke !
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Perhaps Trustpilot should fund an appeal by James Waymouth.
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I don’t understand what the issue is here. A man left a review which was a damaging LIE – the court wouldn’t have made an award if it wasn’t – and got caught, fair play to Summerfield Browne for taking the action.
I am sure many of us will have false and vexatious ‘reviews’ and if any of you have contacted the review site to try and get them removed/amended then you will know what a fruitless task that is.
The likes of Trustpilot don’t care. Rather than get upset about this they should consider how accurate/true the reviews on their site actually are – this episode asks the question, can you trust ANY reviews on these sites? It proves the only reviews you can really trust are those from people you actually know.
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Good comment. As for trusting reviews – as a consumer the best you can currently get is a Google review, at least you know that Google knows the identity of the reviewer.
From a business point-of-view the likes of Trustpilot and Feefo are dead ducks, with far less coverage, visibility or credibility than a Google review. Those sites – and the likes of allAgents have done estate agents a great disservice by diverting them from getting significant numbers of reviews to Google.
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Yes DH, its just Money to trust Pilot
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Review sites must take responsibilty / have acocuntability or they and their individual named owners will be next in legal action.
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possibly the typo of the week?
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It’s nothing to do with ‘free speech’, or the right to give a negative review. The fact is that, no matter where you say it – on Trustpilot or anywhere else – if your comment is libelous then it is actionable. End of…
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If companies like Trustpilot put more store by verifying the reviews they promote people to leave and allowing you to freely respond to them accordingly (rather than this being a paid option) then this would never have occurred. Instead, review sites of this nature where people can write what they like, truthful or not, and you cannot respond without spending money as the business owner are simply sites that are open to abuse from vexatious individuals and internet trolls. There is a vast difference between ‘free speech’ and ‘defamation’ where the claims written cannot be substantiated. Lets be honest, all of us have those reviews where they have not made any formal complaint directly or even insinuated there may be an issue and then they take to the internet. I have one where a tenant threatened to leave a poor review if we took any money at all from their deposit recently, people should not be able to hold this type of thing over you for their own ends (and we did still deduct the monies owed to our client).
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Use Google. It’s free. And it’s coverage/visibility/influence is 10 x Trustpilot.
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So a review company doesn’t’ like the idea that reviews may just be illegal or defamatory. Who hasn’t heard of fake reviews, harassing reviews, defamatory reviews?
Time Review sites were banned. They do not have control and the false negative reviews are far more damaging than they are prepared to let on and can deal with? Reviews are given far to much opportunity go outside the rules. It is the norm to tell other people what to do. That is not a review, it should be factual on their own experience and nothing more. The common practice to slander and ‘advise other people’, is where some people have inadvertently followed the lead from others in many cases and not realised what they are actually doing and then you have the ones who know only too well what they are doing!
Review sites should monitor and remove statement that are clearly, not the reviewers experience. Its a free for all, which as a business model they are unable to keep in check.
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Not banned – regulated. Why would any business use Trustpilot in preference to Google, for instance?
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Does anyone really believe all reviews?? So many false reviews out their I no longer take them at face value and treat them all with extreme caution.
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Readers would need a lot more information than the snip-it above ( and long-gone is the Era of Investigative journalism.
Two things I’d say, First that there are ineffective ( lets put it nicely ) legal firms and often in a court setting, a judgement will be found in favour of a fellow profession, rather than the lay-man ( especially if they are self-represented. )
That being said, from reading more about this story on another post, I understand ? that the customer ‘suggested – threatened – blackmailed, ( – you could use a choice of words ) that if the firm refunded his fee, he would remove the negative review.
Whilst this might have been seen genuinely as a ‘just’ lever to use against the solicitors, it doesn’t sit well.
Which is one of a number of reasons that a lot more needs to be known about the case.
What’s written above in this short article is next to worthless in order to allow a reasoned opinion to be formed.
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More info? There’s a link to the judge’s finding in this article: http://www.helphound.info/2021/02/a-review-is-damaging-your-business.html
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Thank you for the link Malcolm, might have been helpful if PropertyIndustryEye had provided that ? Having read the case, I don’t think EITHER party comes out of it well. As for them ‘ Requesting the case be published ( on Bailii ) – that’s like shooting yourself in the foot.
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You’re welcome. Agreed, neither party emerges with much credit: the lawyers have done untold damage to their reputations on both Trustpilot and Google. I wouldn’t recommend the legal route to any business.
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We’re all used to Tripadvisor where there are different opinions of hotels, restaurants and so on. The establishment involved can reply to the reviewer and put things right. Seems to work perfectly well.
I doubt anyone reading this knows the detail of the case, but it seems to me that this firm have used their position of power and legal knowledge to smash the little man in the street.
Quite unbeleivably, they continue to advertised Trustpilot on their website. The reutational damage to their firm through huge coverage in the press and online will far outweigh the £25,000 awarded to them in this case – which they may, or may not recover.
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They would appear to have smashed their own reputation along with winning the case!
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‘ Hoist by their own petard ‘ 😉 very fitting
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Judgement was made with one side not being involved, so as to the ‘truth’ that is one factor we can not be sure of. But the concept of removing or posting reviews is a well used mechanism, which is both useful and flawed. The only certainty being, the more ‘power’ exerted to take down a review = PR suicide for the company involved. In this case Trustpilot will do all it can to keep that review in play, as it is a site that posts reviews, the solicitor may give flawless service – but strong arming a position causes a ripple that often becomes a Tsunami of bad press – and as site is now suspended … they are now well and truly in the treacle.
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.., and not getting any sympathy Andrew. – as I say, nobody’s come out of it well. Can’t see the solicitors getting their money from Sweden. The only thing they sought here was to save their reputation.
If I’m not mistaken, Trust pilot ( certainly some review site ) have a right of reply, and a lot of people will wonder why they just didn’t use that ?
If even some of what the customer says about their service is true, — well then all they’ve brought on themselves has been deserved.
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I think what Trust Pilot are saying, is its alright for the Solicitors firm to use the fact that the client didn’t use Their complaints procedure, – but at same time, neither did Solicitors use Trust Pilot’s complaint procedure.
A thoroughly Wrong legal decision ! Legal chums looking after legal chums.
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