Re: [projectvrm] Non-disparagement clause

[Mary Hodder < >]

It's worse than having a company "ding" you.. there was no actual charge..

The customer wasn't agreeing to pay $3500 in any formal contract.. there is 
no service being provided for the $3500, and the 
"agreement" isn't available to the customer later, as that term is not in the 
Kleargear TOU or Privacy/Data policy. 

Not providing the customer a copy is a huge signal that this isn't an 
"agreement" or "contract" in the normal sense.

Also, the customer was the husband, and the review writer was the wife, who 
didn't ever agree to the "click-wrap" agreement
not to disparage.

I don't think this would stand on multiple levels..

The credit agency should be able to see the credit charge/ click wrap 
attributed to the husband, and the review attributed to the wife.

AND what's up with the review site charging $2K to remove a review ?? That's 
horrendous.

This would make a great class action lawsuit, if an attorney were willing to 
take the case, get the customer list.. and fight it. 

But without a lawyer, I don't know how you would fight this otherwise because 
just filing an injunction against the practice and arguing that in
court is complicated.. and most don't know how to do it.


On Nov 12, 2013, at 11:55 AM, Don Marti wrote:

> begin Phil Windley quotation of Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 10:03:13AM -0700:
> 
> The real failure here is the credit bureaus.  Really,
> some random company can just "ding" a person, and the
> credit bureau will spread it around?   Sounds like
> the problem is on Experian's end.
> 
>> Check out this story that just appeared on a local TV station. 
>> 
>> The woman buys something from Kleargear.com, doesn't get it, writes a 
>> negative review and several years later gets a legal notice from Kleargear 
>> telling her to remove the review or be fined because in their T&Cs they 
>> have a "non-disparagement clause".
>> 
>> "In an effort to ensure fair and honest public feedback, and to prevent 
>> the publishing of libelous content in any form, your acceptance of this 
>> sales contract prohibits you from taking any action that negatively 
>> impacts kleargear.com, its reputation, products, services, management or 
>> employees."
>> 
>> http://m.kutv.com/article?id=12267430/
>> 
>> And just to show that companies that report on sucky companies can be 
>> sucky in their own way, KUTV apparently has JS in place to prevent me from 
>> copying and pasting from the story. I had to View Source to cut and paste 
>> the preceding quote into this email. :(
> 
> -- 
> Don Marti                      +1-510-332-1587 (mobile)
> http://zgp.org/~dmarti/        Alameda, California, USA
>