Shady internet merchant "fines" customer $3500 for writing bad review

[Dan Druff]

Note: You can only see the video above if you have flash.

Anyway, the site kleargear.com is the culprit here, burying some bullshit, ambiguous clause into their their terms of use, supposedly preventing customers from ever badmouthing them.

When the company was unresponsive to customer service requests in 2008, a customer wrote a bad review on ripoffreport.com: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/KlearG...ternet-1007535

The company sent a threatening e-mail to the customer, demanding they remove the review, or be fined $3500. The customer didn't remove it, and kleargear.com sent their $3500 "debt" to a collection agency!

Unbelievable... these crooks should be forced out of business.

[BeerAndPoker]

This story alone will hurt these fuckers way more then the $3500 they are trying to extort. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few days kleargear aka klearripoff makes a statement washing away this debt from the negative impact it will have on them but as word gets out kleargear's reputation will suffer beyond repair.

[vegas1369]

The sad part of this is that in the future this might become common practice, but from what I gathered from CNN a few days ago they added this into their TOS after this woman made her transaction. So, if that's the case she really should have nothing to worry about, other than lawyers fees, which this shill company should have to pay.

[SrslySirius]

Is there no consequence to sending fraudulent debts to collection agencies? Seems like it should be illegal, or at least stricken from credit records.

[anonamoose]

This story alone will hurt these fuckers way more then the $3500 they are trying to extort. I wouldn't be surprised if in a few days kleargear aka klearripoff makes a statement washing away this debt from the negative impact it will have on them but as word gets out kleargear's reputation will suffer beyond repair.

sure seems like business is slow there...

oh wait

[ftpjesus]

Is there no consequence to sending fraudulent debts to collection agencies? Seems like it should be illegal, or at least stricken from credit records.

Yeah it involves filing a lawsuit under the FCRA these idiots (kleargear) has no idea the hell that can be brought down on them especially if the FTC gets involved which they easily could as this is an open and shut case.