I’m shocked!!!!

[pricescope]

Weirdest and craziest thing just happened.

There is a guy who has his own website and sells diamonds. He’s also very frequent poster on another forum where he teaches consumers about diamonds.

We never talked before.

Tonight he called me and using all the dirty swearing and cursing demanded to remove all the posts from this forum where the name of his site was mentioned.

He said that when one does a search on Google or Yahoo for his domain name one of the pages from this forum comes up first ahead of his own site.

, one of the consumers!

However, this guy decided that I did it intentionally to drive away his business! He threatened to sue me for thousands dollars per each day those posts will stay in the internet.

I would understand if it would be negative information... This dealler obviously doesn’t understand the simplest things about the internet and the benefits of the positive feedbacks from a consumer forum as well as the links from other sites. I was willing to explain it to him but he kept swearing and threatening.

So I decided to remove the posts with his domain names. IMO he did himself big disservice.

Sorry, Larry, let's do not refer to his site or mention his name in the future.[/u]

 

[luckyguy]

Sounds like you handled it with a cool head.

 

[slmulkey]

That's crazy, I wish I knew who it was I wonder if someone could really succesfully sue you for something posted on the forum. It seems rather unlikely. Of course I would have removed them too, it's not worth the trouble to keep the posts on, especially since they were positive

 

[Rook]

Absolutely not. What would his complaint be? In order to sue he would have to have actual damages. I guess if he was overburdened with extra business from the free advertising. Also this is an open public forum and we all have a freedom to speech.

Allthough there may not be a valid legal claim, it would still be a pain in the you know what to have to get rid of the guy once he started something.

 

[Rook]

Leo, is he related to a company that is listed as a vendor on this site? If so do you plan on removing them? I would think that would be an appropriate action as well!

 

[pricescope]

----------------
Leo, is he related to a company that is listed as a vendor on this site? If so do you plan on removing them? I would think that would be an appropriate action as well!
----------------


No he's not...

 

[sylvesterii]

wow, that is so strange. i wonder what larry has to say about it? i always though his posts were very friendly, informative and interesting.

i sure hope that wink doesn't mind when i talk about how my 8* is getting set right now, and i cant wait to see it. yes wink from http://www.winkjones.com/ Winfields. i have had nothing but a great time with this whole process.

sounds like this guy is a big stick in the mud, and needs to re-plan his business strategy of selling diamonds online if he doesn't want positive feedback!!!

 

[student]

I hate having to put up with people who behave like that!

Keep up the good work.

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

I have rubbed shoulders with the same guy and let me tell you he can be the meanest and nastiest person.
I would very much like to meet him oneday to see just what he is like man to man

He is not anyone any of you would bother with and has never posted here.
Good ridance. Do not loose any more sleep over him Leonid. Or I will ring you up and abuse you

 

[golfer]

Leonid,

I can't speak for laws outside the United States, but in the US you've pretty much got blanket immunity when you're running a forum like this. (Thank AOL lobbying for these laws). Even if the post is defamatory -- i.e., deliberately untrue.

I imagine the law may be different in Canada, where you are, but I'd be utterly shocked if it was very different. As a moderator, you might have some responsibility to remove known defamatory info, but obviously this would not apply -- nor would 99.99% of negative posts.

 

[pricescope]

Golfer, I agree with you. Actually I was thinking to fight for the freedom of speech at first. But then I decided the guy is doing disservice to himself and doesn't deserve the positive links. Just not worth getting dirty.

Hope I'll have guts to keep accurate but negative info on the forum

 

[rsilvers]

Well it must not be www.diamondcuttersintl.com because I can still find that in your database.

 

[pricescope]

----------------
Well it must not be www.diamondcuttersintl.com because I can still find that in your database.
----------------


yeah, it wasn't them

 

[Googleman]

He needs to do a little more research to understand how Google and Yahoo do their search engine placement. It is not as if you control Google and intentionally got placed above his sight! Yahoo/Google are complex and perhaps if he spent some more time trying to understand search engine placement and less time cursing people out he would have more success!

 

[student]

Yes, please do keep accurate negative posts up if at all possible. It's a great service to the consumer. If dealers knew they could get negative posts taken down by rattling their sabers, pretty soon they would all do this and consumers would have no way of sorting out which are the better vendors and which are best avoided.

 

[student]

P.S. Sounds like his reason for complaining was that he didn't want people looking for his site on Google to find out where they could compare prices. It's a bit naive for a web vendor to think his customers won't be getting comparative pricing information.

 

[pricescope]

When I see a negative feedback I use to notify the company or dealer to let them tell their side of the story. Then other people could judge and participate in the discussion.

That was with Diamond.com and AffordableDiamondsOnline.com.

So far it was working all right.

This one was absolutely crazy situation.

 

[Greentree]

The issue is that Leonid was strong-armed into removing the otherwise inoffensive postings of the author, Larry, without Larry's permission. That could lead to others making similar demands upon Leonid to remove postings due to some offense, real or imagined. Nevertheless, PriceScope is a free service. I have no problem with Leonid managing it as he pleases. Sometimes there are tough calls to make.

 

[larry]

I have no problem in Lenoid removing any of my posts. I very much enjoy this fourm and would like nothing more than others to enjoy it as much as I do.

 

[pricescope]

Thanks Larry. Did you guess who was it?

GreenTree, I understand your concern and I'm really sorry about removing the post. Would you be willing to spend your time and money for the lawsuit like this?

As I said I’m trying to keep integrity of the forum but this was absolutely bizarre case.

Let me tell you another story (I'm glad there are not so many of them).

A consumer posted about negative experience with a vendor on this and another forum. There has been long open discussion with many posts from other consumers and some vendors including the one who’s got negative feedback. The vendor apologized for the problems and everything was quite civil. Btw, this vendor has quite a few positive testimonials from other consumers here.

After a while I received an email signed by this consumer asking to remove his posts because he was getting anonymous threats and name calling via email and telephone demanding to remove the posts.

I suggested changing his name and removing the email address from the database. I also asked him to forward me those threatening emails so I could try to figure out where they come from. At this point the correspondence died. I never heard from him again.

I still don’t know for sure whether it was the author of the post or imposter wanted to get rid of this post.

Funny enough, when one makes a search on Google for this company this negative feed back is showing up among other links.

 

[pricescope]

Btw, maybe it's worth reminding not to use your real names or other personal information on the open forums.



The emails you submit during registration are not open and only can be used via the forum interface and by forum members.

Hope these rear cases won't ruin our good spirit.

 

[Greentree]

One undesirable characteristic of tort law is the ability to blackmail a party into taking actions they wouldn't otherwise take by threatening them with an expensive and time-consuming lawsuit. Even if the suit has no legal merit, the respondent must hire a lawyer to answer the complaint. Would he have actually sued? Who knows? You probably did the right thing. The demand just didn't affect enough people seriously enough to warrant all the hassle.

 

[lawmax]

Yikes!

 

[shurikt]

In the category of related, but not quite related:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17253-2002Nov20.html

It discusses forums, retailers, freedom of speech and the threat of lawsuits under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. And it's pretty timely...

 

[fire&ice]

I read your post w/ confusion.I found many of the e-tailers from a pricescope link. If one was to do a search & something positive was said about a vendor - wouldn't one be inclined to visit that vendor & with greater confidence?

Seems like the person shot himself in the foot. Also, they need to find out how the search engines operate. Go figure?

 

[Greatcall]

Regarding : I am shocked.

I have been on this forum for about two months now, and it is true there are a lot more negative views on most topics. This site seems not to promote the jewellery industry. It makes it seem like all people who sell diamonds to be shady characters. I am one of the fortunate ones (who actually got to see and touch my fiancees diamond before buying it) who purchased a diamond from an actual store from a human being (remeber that is how jewellery used to be sold). My recommendation to everyone who is thinking about buying a diamond is: DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THE WEB, ask questions on forums but do not draw your conclusions solely on the basis of what certain biased individuals have to say.

I find some people on this forum to be to analytical (crown angles 8 cuts pavilion depth etc...) confusing and biased. While others to be entertaining and informative. I can see why you might offend some people. My recommendation would don't take it so seriously. Let him sue you, i don't think he will get a penny.

Regards

 

[Garry H (Cut Nut)]

Greatcall on behalf of Leonid I take great offense at your wicked and vicious insinuation!!!!

How dare you imply that anyone who sue's Leonid will not get a penny

 

[WinkHPD]

----------------
On 11/20/2002 11:36:18 PM sylvesterii wrote:

wow, that is so strange. i wonder what larry has to say about it? i always though his posts were very friendly, informative and interesting.

i sure hope that wink doesn't mind when i talk about how my 8* is getting set right now, and i cant wait to see it. yes <ahhheem> wink from http://www.winkjones.com/ Winfields. i have had nothing but a great time with this whole process.

----------------

Lol. I was advised that there was the possibility that anyone Google searching for me might find my listing on Pricescope and that if I did not want that to happen, I should contact PS and Leonid would take my name off. Well I did a price scope search and found that I was listed along with the other jewelers from Boise, but that one or two of them had their email addresses listed in a hotlink format. Instead of contacting Leonid to be removed I contacted him to ask him to please put a hot link on my name and he volunteered to put me at the top of the list for Boise and with a little banner since I had written an article for him a couple of years ago.

One thing led to another and I ended up listing some stones here and that is working so well I am listing more of them later this evening. I am really enjoying the people here, you have a great and friendly discussion group going and it is nice to see how active you have become here in the past couple of years. There are some spectacular experts here sharing a true wealth of information, I hope you all realize that some of the people posting here, are legends in the trade.

I am very impressed what you all together have done and I wish I had come visiting sooner. So sylvesterii, thanks for the compliments, you can say anything you want about me so long as it is true! Or if you want to brag on me it doesn't even have to be true...

Wink

 

[aljdewey]

Wink, I really appreciate your enthusiasm, and I'm glad you've decided to join us.




However, you may want to become more familiar with the format relative to the date. The post you're answering???......it's over a year old now!




heheheh

 

[hoorray]

funny old thread.... seems this forum has grown and evolved, but still gets hit with the fear of change occasionally.

Welcome wink -- I'm glad you are here.