Negative online reviews are usually no reason to panic, but for one consumer it has proved costly.
A disgruntled man who left a negative review of a legal firm on the TrustPilot website, referring to their service as a “a total waste of money” has been ordered to pay £25,000 in libel damages.
Philip James Waymouth claimed that London law firm Summerfield Browne had provided him with a service “full of errors” that showed a lack of understanding of the law.
He then left a scathing review accusing the company of being “another scam solicitor” after engaging with them online.
He had hired the company in a dispute over the enforcement of a court order for a fixed fee of £200, court documents show.
Waymouth wrote in his review: “Once they have your money they are totally apathetic towards you. You will learn more from forums, YouTube and the Citizens Advice website about your case, for free.”
Many businesses, including estate agents, have received negative online reviews in the past, but very few have considered taking legal action against those leaving discouraging feedback.
But acknowledging the importance of reputation management and customer feedback, which can sometimes help people decide if they want to engage with a brand, Summerfield Browne refused to accept the negative feedback received from their client and decided to take legal action, stating that the claims were false and defamatory. This has paved the way for other firms, including estate agencies, to potentially adopt the same approach.
The company claimed that demand for its service had dropped since the publication of the review.
It also turned out that Waymouth had not engaged with Summerfield Browne’s complaints procedure before leaving the negative review, the High Court in London heard.
Waymouth offered to remove the review in exchange for a refund of the £200 fee plus VAT he had paid but claimed Summerfield Browne had not responded.
In the review, Waymouth alleged: “I paid upfront for a legal assessment of my case.
“But what I got was just the information I sent them, reworded and sent back to me.”
Waymouth was not legally represented and refused to attend the remote hearing, claiming he was living overseas.
In his ruling backing Summerfield Browne, judge Master David Cook said: “It is beyond any dispute that the words complained of had a clear tendency to put people off dealing with the claimant firm.
“It is a serious matter to accuse a solicitors’ firm of dishonesty and any such allegation is likely to deter those who are unfamiliar with the firm from using its services. There is supportive evidence that the number of inquiries fell dramatically after the review was posted.”
Comments (23)
The lesson here is, do not make false accusations and be specific of your experience and do not make recommendations. Entering into making ‘recommendations’ for others is often defamatory. Just because you didn’t like how they behaved, doesn’t mean that is how they will treat another person or that another person may object! Far too many views delve into having “a go” and tell you what you should do. It should be for the reviewer to make their decision based on factual information without coercion. Far too much has become the norm and are personal opinions … “don’t touch this shower”, “they won’t help you”, “don’t touch them with barge pole”.
There is an estate agent in Cornwall that is selling my house. So far there have been two breaches of the Property Ombudsman scheme and a distinct lack of information flow from them as to what is happening. A quick slae is turning into a protracted sale with no firm mortgage offer so they cannot proceed!
That said, their reviews are all five star so perhaps it is me. Time will tell. I will not leave a review, if at all, until the end
Nothing to stop you from reviewing your experience but it should be up to the reader to assess action they may want to take. Too many reviews tell people what they should do.
My reviews are as honest as I can make them . For example, DPD usually get five star reviews, but if they give a bad service I do give them a bad review. That way people can see that they are not always perfect. Some reviews love them, others hate them. It’s the same with other delivery companies.
Solicitors Regulation ( sic) Authority are a joke. !
There needs to be an effective means of recourse against solicitors.
As for the courts, they are often seen to ‘side with’ a solicitor ( fellow legal professional ) over a Litigant in Person.
As for Judges, they are increasingly loosing public trust with their decisions and sentences.
Brave/foolish move by the solicitors to take a case against the reviewer. Whereas beforehand it was perhaps a little damaging to their business having the negative review there if someone chose to read it, now the case is plastered all over the media. And a lot of people are likely to not touch such an obviously litigious firm with a bargepole. Would you? They may have won the case but I bet their business loses in the longer term.
Absolutely – and any company HAS THE CHOICE whether to use Trustpilot. You reap what you sow.
JWVW – however, if you don’t have a Trust Pilot account any disgruntled nobbo can set one up in your name and then anyone else can pile in with the negative reviews. By setting up your own one, at least you have a chance of controlling the narrative – which with trust pilot is how PBs have managed to bury all of the bad ones.
Blimey – well I didn’t know that! Meanwhile, Summerfield Browne still claim to be ‘members’ of Trustpilot on their website. They clearly don’t use a PR firm to help their cause!
I had someone 1 star my company yesterday on Google and no word of a lie the reason…
“I wanted a hardware shop not an Estate Agent”
He had obviously googled a well know hardware shop near us (happens to be a similar name as same family) but because he clicked on our page and not the hardware store he hit 1 star and said the above!
Google said – They see no wrong doing with the review! WTAF Google and the bloke who did the review.
Anyway, I am off to 1 star Subway, as I waited 30 minutes and not a ******* train in sight!
This made me chuckle …
Albeit, incredibly irritating that Google seem to accept anything in the way of reviews and they’re essentially unchallengeable.
Haha, it’s more annoying he has taken the comment down and left the 1 star, so I only have screen shots now to prove the comment made the review stupid and no comment now looks potentially dangerous. Anyway, I have managed to narrow the name down to two who live in the North West of England… I will resolve LOL.
Being Agents…the response could reasonably be:
”Dear sir,
Thank you for leaving your review…
We know where you live
Kind regards”
😉
We challenged a Google review on the basis we had never dealt with the person and he had opened a Google account that week and lodged 200 reviews adversely against local businesses, Google upheld the review, I give up!
We’ve challenged several, as we have multiple reviews posted by persons with whom we’ve never had any business dealings with whatsoever…As per usual, suspicion falls on competitors or mistaken identity, as we have a very similar name to another Agency group who by all accounts (having read their hundreds of appalling reviews about them), do not have a good reputation at all!
Not a single one has been removed, in either scenario.
Sound like you need to have a word with HelpHound.
Had the same, 1 star review on as many review sites they could find worst of it all the review started with “whilst not the agents fault”. So we did no wrong but still our fault.
Good on those solicitors, people damage businesses. Allgents need a court case next for ignoring untruthful reviews. Do not go near this company.
This is old news, but it does show that solicitors can move quickly when it is their own livelihood under threat. When first reported two weeks ago, the solicitors argued they had lost business quoting that the amount of new potential clients dropped significantly after the negative review went on line, given the pandemic, it was not clear to me why Mr Waymouth did not counter the solicitor’s position, and it would be interesting to see the detailed analysis of new enquiries before and after the review as some pundits have commented that the intel was anecdotal, rather than factual. Maybe Mr Waymouth will engage a solicitor and appeal. Reading the Law Society Gazette daily, it is truly mind blowing how the legal fraternity sometimes carries on, the dishonesty of some of its members who are sporadically struck off or fined, and the disconnected world they seem to orbit, in the last 10 days one of their number at a senior level was sacked/resigned due to a racist tweet, which he still felt was OK – madness – his chambers felt otherwise. On a separate topic, for example AML and where solicitors are in the mix, I just read that if subsequently to matter a client is found to have committed fraud and the solicitor failed to pick up on it, then the solicitor will not be automatically liable? Whereas, a typical agent in breach would no doubt find themselves in very hot water (maybe in need of legal advice). Personally I would have thought that solicitor’s should have a higher rather than lower threshold, and that they were the ultimate guardian’s of the law, but then they do regulate themselves.
I have no idea what the point is here as you’ve lost me totally however I think it’s about time someone was held to account for false reviews. It is wrong that people can simply make up anything (and they do) and there be no recourse by the business owner! This may deter others from doing the same!
Nothing like tarring the whole of the legal industry with one brush Andrew! And as for your comments regarding AML they are totally baseless.
An own goal by these daft solicitors. Their Trust Pilot reviews have been swamped by 1 star reviews since this story broke and Trust Pilot have suspended the account supposedly due to their disapproval of the solicitors action…..
ditto – far more important because of its reach – Google.