Complaint about a zombie post of mine

[Chefwifelife]

I had an email from MN report team today to inform me that a post of mine from June 2019 has been reported as possible libel for defamation.

I’ve read the post several times and stand by the post as honest. I’ve informed MN that I don’t want the post deleted.

I can see today that several of the posts by other members on the thread have been deleted.

I was intrigued if there were similar posts on Mumsnet so Googled this company and found that a few days ago there quite an unpleasant exchange on Trust Pilot with a customer who had left a negative review about them.

AIBU to stand by my original (ancient) post or should I just be done with it and delete it? I don’t want to feel bullied into removing an honest post asking for others experiences.

Has anyone been in this situation?

FYI MN have been great throughout.

Found it. Sounded like a fair review to me and you came back to say all was resolved so not sure what the problem is

Thanks @MNnicknameforCVthreads

Wow, they don’t like negative reviews, do they?
Their trust pilot responses to customer comments are awful

Personally I wouldn't remove your post. It was fair and appropriate. I've also just read some of the trustpilot reviews. Clearly some of the replies to your original post were made by the person who replied to a poor review on trustpilot.
They seem to take the "you've given us a bad review so we're going to slag you off" line, rather than the "you've given us a bad review so let's see if we can resolve this to the customers satisfaction" line. Bad bad move on their part!

thespottedzebra the posts have a very similar run-on writing style to the company on TrustPilot.

Yes, it's veeery important to consider your valuable time and the cost of transport to the shops....

I don't get the point at all about the massive cheap shops being able to buy huge quantities in bulk. Nobody is contrasting the retail price paid by the consumer with the trade/wholesale price paid by PL, which is obviously going to be far lower per unit - it's comparing the retail price that anybody (individual or company) could pay to buy just one of them from PL.

Also, it's one thing to deride the inferior perceived quality of pound-shop goods when compared to your supposed far superior ones, but boasting about the fact that you only ever pay far higher prices for the exact same goods that you could have bought from PL (and by implication that your customers will then have to pay more) doesn't make you look especially smart.

Does selling at least 9,000 gift sets a month ('thousands per week') really denote a 'small business'?

I'm afraid they're creating a Barbara Streisand effect here! They actually have mainly great reviews on Trustpilot with only that one bad one. I wouldn't usually be put off by one bad review in a sea of good ones, but I would certainly be put off by the tone of their reply!

I'm always happy to buy from a company or book a hotel with mainly good replies if there's only a few bad ones, because I know you can't please everyone.

I read your post and you came across as very reasonable. It's their reply to that Trustpilot review that's put me off. You can tell a lot about a company by the way they respond to criticism.

I’m not a parent - I could have bought better than the selection there. I don’t think you should take it down!

@Handsoffmyusername they have two less positive reviews that have been reported for possibly violating TrustPilot’s standards. It’s not out of the question that there might have been others that have been deleted permanently.

@FallenSky

This happened to me a few years back, but with a school! I think I agreed to it being deleted even though I stood by what I said (which, incidentally, was how it was weird how many comments about said school had been deleted!). It just wasn't worth the possible headache. The stubborn part of me felt like saying "see you in court!" though!

I think many of us can guess which school that will be, and the assiduousness with which they pursue any postings which are critical of them is far more damaging to their reputation than the posts themselves ever were.

[quote MNnicknameforCVthreads]@EnjoyingTheSilence

I’ve PM’d you the thread link![/quote]
Could I have it too -I'm clueless!

Well, they've just shot themselves in the foot, haven't they? Their response on Trustpilot is revolting. Looks like the really sycophantic reviews are the only ones they can tolerate.

With that, I'll be off to Poundland.

@bonjonbovi

Well I will never use Keep Em Quiet after reading this. Thanks for the heads up.

Me neither.

I can't see how giving your personal view or opinion about a product, and stating factual things such as what was included, can possibly be open to you being sued.

How strange that a company who are themselves so sensitive to comments by an unimpressed customer are accusing another customer on TrustPilot of being 'extremely nasty' and accusing them of making dishonest complaints to try and get a refund or free products, etc etc.

They need marketing and comms training.

And customers need to look closely at the items on offer in these packs, pictures available on the website, before parting with their hard-earned.

I don't see why you should have your post deleted OP. If MN (who must have a legal adviser for this sort of thing) feel it is a risk, they can choose to delete. They delete stuff all the time.

So I've now taken the trouble to check out the Trustpilot site.

To be fair lockdown has put everyone, and especially small businesses, under a lot of stress. However when I see that sort of response to a complainant I suspect some of the positive reviews have been written by the company. Companies only need to ask for an order number if they have had a lot of recent complaints.

Let me edit it into a professional response

Reply

Hello Janice, we would like an order number for this to investigate the matter as I don't recall any customer with your name writing in to make a complaint. We would have offered you an immediate 10% refund for any mistakes made by us or to send back the item after the pandemic as we can not physically accept returns - this is also visible on our Delivery & Returns page. Please get in touch so we can resolve this.

(Although actually you should accept returns, store them a week and there will be no active virus).

If you look through Trust Pilot it seems any negative review gets reported as a "false review", which is what they threaten to do to the remaining negative review (and the reviewer also seems to refer to having had to get their review re-instated?).

the ones really out for us

Rarely ends well when a business gets into this kind of mindset about customer reviews. Understandable when you're pouring everything into a business and it feels very personal to you, but still not the way to go.

I think they assume other potential customers will see their angry rebuttal of the negative review and side with them for being "targeted". Except that's rarely how such behaviour comes across!

People want to know that if something does go a bit wrong with their order that the company will help them rather than get defensive and accuse them of lying (which is closer to defamation than leaving a critical review...).

I’ve just read the thread. There are at least two posters on it who I reckon work for the company.
The whole spirit of Mumsnet is to share information and experiences with one another ‘to make love easier’. To that end, if Mumsnet delete that thread I will be far from impressed- I think it should remain.

I've seen other reviews on TrustPilot and TripAdvisor of companies which I personally have used and found excellent - and the vast majority of others seem to have agreed with me. When they've had the odd bad review, the owners have responded with plainly-stated facts and 'sorry you feel this way - as you can see, your views are very much in the minority' and pro-active 'reaching out' to try to address the customer's concerns.

None of them that I've seen have ever laid into reviewers with ad hominem attacks (even those giving so-so 3-star reviews) and told them how ashamed they should feel and what terrible people they must be.

I would also say that any good company which specialises in time/location-dependent products would be expected to recognise that grudging offers of replacements or discounts after the special event is over and gone aren't really going to satisfy disappointed customers.

OMG I went through the faff of finding the thread and biggest anticliamx ever. Cant believe they're complaining. Own goal as they're drawing more attention it whereas it had quietly been relegated to MN annals of history. Unless it was coming in search engines.

@Stannisbaratheonsboxofmatches

I thought libel and defamation were different things? One written and one spoken (can never remember which way around)?

You're thinking of libel and slander. Defamation is a slightly different thing.

Slander is generally defamation through speech while libel is written. Defamation is saying something false or untrue about the individual or company.

Not saying the op said anything untrue though!

Also, I can't even see that OP named the company in the original thread.

You could always copy your original review over to Trust Pilot... It was a thorough and balanced review including photos and an update about the positive way they resolved it.

they should be trying to make things better not go round accusing people of libel for an opnion

i dont think it should be removed otherwise whats the point of review sites if theyre all positives which arent true

Found them on trust pilot, I can’t believe they’re reporting any negative reviews as false! How petty and shady.

Unless it was coming in search engines.

It comes up in my first page of results when I put the company name into a search engine on its own. Not sure if that's influenced by lots of MNers going off to see what all the fuss was about and pushing it up the algorithm.