Can you be sued for a bad review?!

[NoelEdmondsbeard]

Have a query ery which I hope legal bods will be able to help with.

I recently received a gift of a high chair for my 5 month old. At first I thought it was great but last week my daughter cut her palm on a plastic rectangle mount on the chair which was within easy reach.

I also noticed that the 5 point harness lock on the chair presses against the middle bar and could potentially could open.

So not a great product. I planned to go on Amazon to post a review of the item as nobody had pointed out these issues on the site and that is where my family member bought the product. Straightforward I thought.

However , a good friend has warned me not to. She swears blind that if I was to write a review I could potentially get sued, particularly as I am questioning the safety of the product.

She has forwarded me news articles of mainly restaurant owners, threatening diners after bad reviews but I am not sure this is usual and my situation is different.

Again everything in my review will be factual.

Is my friend wrong?

Your friend is wrong. You cannot be sued for an honest review. I know some businesses do threaten to sue people who write bad reviews. However, they never do. If they ever get as far as consulting a lawyer they will be told that they cannot successfully take action against someone for a review which is truthful and/or expresses an honest opinion.

You absolutely cannot be sued for an Amazon review of your experience as a user of the product

It's an opinion

You're entitled to it

I've written 1,000s

Never been sued yet

I would write to the company or supplier of the product and request a replacement. Also mention that your baby cut their hand, which they should take very seriously. Placing a bad review on Amazon often doesn’t achieve much because there are millions of bad reviews on the site and people are often unfazed when they see them.

You won't be sued, and even if they tried if you had evidence of your negative points then they would get nowhere.

But, it would seem a little harsh to immediately post a bad review before contacting the manufacturer and pointing out the issues direct with them. Is the part where your DD cut her hand faulty? Would a replacement resolve it?

You cannot be sued for a fair review based on provable, accurate information.

Well, you can be sued. Just not successfully.

Anyone can issue a claim.

You could also raise the issues with Trading Standards at your local council, as they're safety issues with the product. They'll test one and feed back the info to the manufacturer/importer. If they think it's dangerous they'll get sales stopped