I nominate Summerfield Browne. They sued a former customer (Mr Waymouth) for £25000 based on his Trust Pilot review. His review might have been libellous, but they could have settled the matter easily. This strikes at the very heart of open and honest reviews.
In the review, Mr 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.”
He previously said he had offered to remove the review in exchange for a refund of the £200 fee (plus VAT) he had paid but claimed the firm had not responded.
Source:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-55981600
Their website hasn’t been updated since 2014 and looks as if it was made in 1995. Perhaps Summerfield Browne should merge with that other famous firm of solicitors: Dogshit, Dogshit and Dogshit.
Nominated by: Anton Pillar
I’m not so sure about this one.
I’d actually enjoy seeing the “influencers” who write a bad review of a business just because the business refuses to give them a free meal,products etc. getting sued.
If you write shite about someone and can’t justify your allegations..you deserve everything that you get….Greedy cheapskates.
( Hope some of the people that I may have been slightly unkind to on this site aren’t of the same opinion)
13
It’s a tough balancing act between an honest review and libel.
If you provide shit service, then you deserve shit reviews, I have no problem with that.
However, as DF pointed out, you get ‘influencers’ trying to blag free shit, and then writing bullshit reviews slagging the company off if the company refuse their blackmail.
The problem comes if you’re telling the truth but have no evidence. You could get sued and that’s wrong. I was once in a restaurant on a works do and told to move tables to allow another party in. We refused at first but agreed to do it in the end. They then got my order wrong (and a few others) and they then told us to finish up and leave as another group had come in needing a table. Some paid up and left, but I and a few others refused. I told the manager to fuck off (I’d had few) and that I wasn’t paying as I hadn’t finished my meal (I’d just got it about an hour late and at the wrong table). I said we had a right to stay as we’d booked. I said he couldn’t just kick us out just because he wanted to make a few extra quid by bringing in another group.
Upshot was a few of us told him to fuck off and refused to pay. We left.
Our employee (civil service at the time) the next day refused to back us after the restaurant owner said we legged it without paying. I put my case to a high up cunt they’d brought in. He didn’t give a fuck, said we had no evidence and said we needed to go and pay in full, in cash and apologise or face disciplinary.
Well, I was about to tell him to fuck off too, and the it dawned on me..
..I’d been an honest and reliable staff member for a few years. I’d covered loads of cunts always off with ‘stress’ and ‘depression’. Some of these cunts would be off for 6 months on full pay, come back for a week to keep their jobs, and then go off again for six months. I hated the cunts. Never got thanked for covering these lazy cunts, so I got revenge the best way possible.
I told the doc I was having stress ishoos (I wasn’t) and got myself the best part of a year off on full pay, before I resigned and went to uni instead.
Does that make me a cunt? Perhaps, but if my employer had backed me instead of covering his pension i wouldn’t have done it.
I won in the end, the stupid cunt.
15
A splendid example of ‘ Don’t get mad, get even ‘.
Don’t blame you, I have inflicted similar retribution, years ago, before becoming self employed.
Very satisfying.
Fuck them.
Morning, Cuntybollocks.
Morning, all.
11
Great minds and all that Jack!
Tell me, are you suffering from a single malt induced hangover, too😗
6
Hobgoblin and rum chasers.😀
I’ve had some strange dreams.
Time for a brew.
Morning, General.
8
Afternoon Jack, Ruff, everyone.
You’ll not believe this, but I used to be sane before I started coming on IsAC.
Still, Mrs B says it’s given me a purpose in life.
2
Great story-you didn’t act like a cunt, you followed the golden rule: don’t get mad, get even👍
10
“Don’t get mad, get even.”
Why do we always use this silly phrase?
I always prefer to get mad AND even.
3
Bertie Blunt Hotheaded Cunt.
Calm down …..
You don’t want to become Buster Bloodvessel.
😀
2
I’ve always been mad, I know I’ve been mad, like the most of us… very hard to explain why you’re mad, even if you’re not mad…
5
PS: I’ve been mad for fucking years, absolutely years, been over the edge for yonks.
Morning Bertie, General.
3
Well played indeed sir.
4
Cheers lads. Morning all.
6
Brilliant move Cunty
4
Splendid moves, Sir!
3
Very classy C you have to play with the hand your dealt or fuck with the dick you’ve got as a long gone friend once said. Excellent example of beating the bullshit with a big stick. Bloody well done, their loss.
3
A clear cut case. Mr Waymouth may have been right in his view, but the Judge summed that he failed to justify his case.
Neither did he attend the on-line hearing or seek representation. Perhaps one of those who is an armchair legal beagle and thinks he is smarter than the lawyers he defamed? Either way, he now has a big fine to pay and this will set precedents for other on-line reviews. Will be interesting to see if this will extend to Ebay.
7
Not attending the on line hearing was really stupid likewise no representation. To put ones case to those in judgement is of the greatest importance. By not turning up or in this case login you are showing disrespect which is not looked kindly open by any members of the judiciary as they do God’s work. Likely outcome you get well stuffed as this man was.
2
This cunt got himself in a tangle.
Online reviews can be a powerful tool.
I had a boiler fitted by a 5 star rated company who’s work was good but not outstanding so I gave them an honest review about the small details they’d missed.
They tried to get the review pulled but failed as I had evidence.
Needless to say they will not be working on my oven.
The cheeky blighters.
6
Unkle Terry-get Pimlico Plumbers to service your oven, then push the fucking boss in to give it a proper testing👍
6
Rob, Rob, Pilfer, Steel and Rob.
All lawyers firstly, look after themselves and secondly look after their ilk.
I made a will, wrote the fucker, passed it to the legal beagle, who then rewrote it incorrectly, Passed it back to me for signing….. I had to then correct it and got charged handsomely for the privilege.
I believe there are ‘write your own will’ kits available on-line knowadays that are legal. Not that I am now leaving owt to any fekker.
Happy Sunday Cunters, the sun is shining I’m off fishing again, that is all GTF!
7
What sort of fish you chasing? Plaice? Barbel? Jessie the carp? Salmon? sea bass? Not pollock I hope, I hear they are real cunts.
1
The BBC link in the nom describes Summerfield Browne (SB) as “London-based”. Never one to bother about accuracy dear old Auntie once again gets it wrong; they are (in fact) a Market Harborough (Leics)-based firm with “appointment-only” offices in Leicester, Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham and the West End.
“Appointment-only”, because SB is a “modern and progressive law firm… operating a new… business model… which reduces… overheads and… fees”.¹
Kieran Cox of Nelsons (a law firm which also has a Leicester office) writes of “the court of public opinion” here:
https://www.nelsonslaw.co.uk/summerfield-browne-waymouth/
Lots more “court of public opinion” stuff here:
https://forums.theregister.com/forum/all/2021/01/21/trustpilot_review_libel_28k/
… and a bit more generalised waffle about “The Streisand Effect” (ffs) here:
https://hn.ui.dev/post?id=26076391
… 13 pages of threads on pistonheads (was Mr Waymouths claim originally concerning the internal combustion engine?) starting here:
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=10&t=1915473
Reddit was a bit late to the party:
https://www.reddit.com/r/business/comments/lg20o0/man_to_pay_25000_damages_over_negative_trustpilot/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_title
As a barrister who enjoys criminal work, but who also does some Chancery work to actually pay the bills, I’m not very interested in defamation. This certainly highlights some shortcomings of TrustPilot et hoc genus omne, less so for SB… and Mr Waymouth is clearly in need of help
(but from a differing profession to my own).
¹ a précis of Tessa Rhodes, a Director of SB from her video introduction on their extremely clunky and unslick website. This “pared-back look” is almost entirely intentional I expect. Rather as with Aldi’s / Lidl’s” (slightly disingenuous) no-frills approach to Grocery, doubtless SB wishes to project or reinforce their “VFM” credo and ethos.
E&OE
(Multiple hotlinks in a comment can sometimes cause WordFence some grief and dumps the post into the MQ. Such is life – DA)
2
Yes, I know. Hence my follow up
Thanks for posting – that really did take almost 15 minutes. I’m having the grapefruit now…. ☕
1
erratum
«Kiren Cox»
Niiice – I would (have).
0
A Barrister, punting posts around on a website that nominates subjects as ‘cunts’ in between working the Chambers?
Shurely shome mishtake? All a bit hoi polloi and lowbrow for you, Mr Cif?
8
No mis(h)take, Paul, you’ve struck an albatross in your pithy assessment! I personally have always felt spiritually more aligned with Les Dawson than, say, Jacob Rees-Mogg, but it’s curious how life turns out. Nevertheless, you can (and perhaps do) speak for yourself in this direction.
Very high marks with your Mr Cif double-entendre but you should be aware that I have neither the time nor inclination to “contribute” to any other blogsite. Quite literally, isac is the only place I waste my time making comments – and I’m unsure why I do. Certainly not a desire for approbation, maybe the opposite: I don’t know. Unlike yourself, I’ll be bound.
Fine, crisp morning hereabouts.
2
Shit eating shit…..all parties deserve all they get.
7
I had a similar experience to Cuntybollocks, in a well regarded restaurant.
Lots of people I knew had encouraged me to go and try it, raving about the fact that the chef/owner was a creative genius and the prices reasonable.
I booked a table for my wife’s birthday.
The place was a converted church with a bar and the exposed kitchen, dowstairs and the tables on a large mezzanine area, up a set of steel steps.
That night, as we sat waiting for our order, all the restaurant staff were milling around an area where half a dozen tables had been pushed together, obviously a large group were coming in.
Sure enough, in comes a group dressed up up to the nines, including our local mayor, MP, ex MP and other dignitaries.
We had already been seated for 20 minutes, as had half a dozen other tables, yet the staff ignored us all and the “top table” were eating their starters before everybody else.
We had ordered only a main (we are not greedy cunts), yet they received their main course before us.
I called a waiter and politely complained. He waved a hand at the table of dignitaries and shrugged. The cunt.
I told my wife we should leave, she wanted to stay-as it was her birthday, I agreed.
Our meals arrived-mine was gourmet sausages and various vegetables. The sausages were raw in the middle.
Now I called the manager. He took the meal away, without an apology and returned a few minutes later with it, stating: “Chef says its perfectly cooked, perhaps you should have ordered something less exotic”-the snidey cunt.
I didn’t argue-I picked up my plate and walked down the stairs and went up to the “chef”:
“This meat is raw in the middle”
“No it isn’t-it’s just a bit cold-we are very busy tonight”.
That fucking did it☹️
“You and your staff have ignored paying customers tonight and have been fawning over that large table, can I suggest in future that you should close the restaurant and put a sign up saying “private party. Now, unless you eat the whole fucking sausage right now to prove it’s cooked, I am leaving without paying for our sub standard meals. I will happily pay for the drinks.”
I didn’t raise my voice once. He then agreed the meal was undercooked, still not apologising.
We paid for drinks and left.
That place closed within a year.
That was over 20 years ago.
Age has not mellowed me-if it happened today, I would probably threaten to ram the undercooked shit down the chefs throat👍
I took er indoors to a superb Chinese restaurant we regularly used instead. When they learned it was her birthday, they presented a bottle of good wine for free and made a real fuss of her. That restaurant is still trading (pre-pandemic) today!
18
Based on what is described shouldn’t the cunting be for Mr Waymouth for demanding free shit?
3
“And Mr Waymouth had “never fully articulated” why he was unhappy with Summerfield Browne’s work.”
Am I to take it that, if Waymouth had been better educated, he wouldn’t have ended up doing so badly out of this?
I’ll admit that I couldn’t be arsed to read all the waffle but did the solicitors engage with Waymouth to try to ameliorate the issue and improve/qualify the Trustpilot rating? If you are going to trade online you really need to be on top of this side of things.
Whatever, I’d put good money on a court not finding in their favour if they ever upset a BAME!
2
Fuck the legal profession. One of the worst things about getting divorced is dealing with solicitors, both the ex’s and your own. Unnecessary letters that cost a fortune, fixating on minor points to drag out the extremely painful process for the sake of extra revenue. Ultimately it was worth it, as I came away with enough to start again, but it was nearly two years of mental torture. It’s been a year since it was finally over, so I was going to cunt divorce to mark the occasion, but I don’t think I can be arsed. Maybe later…
2
Best advice, never leave reviews.
2
Maybe. Fortunately I have never had to leave a bad review, but I have left good reviews where the supplier clearly cared about my custom and the service received was second to none.
People who make the effort for their clientele should be recognised, IMHO.
4
Agreed. I am constantly asked by surveys if I would recommend whatever and I always say no, because I don’t recommend things. I used to occasionally leave reviews but it’s got to the stage where you’re asked to review fucking everything, like some cunt who put a small package through your letterbox so, unless the experience is particularly good, I don’t even do that now.
2
Lawyers? I used to work in law – thieving lazy pompous arrogant incompetent greedy bastards. (Can’t sue me for libel – it’s the truth! 😀👍)
Bad service? Write “Under duress due to appalling service” on the bill (and photograph the evidence of said on your mobile phone), contact the company owners by email to show you have been reasonable and if no joy crack on down the legal route.
Blagger trying it on? Tell politely to fuck off or you will issue proceedings for libel and damage to reputation – and watch them disappear.
1
99.9 % of all solicitors are money grabbing legal thieves, the no win no fee ambulance chaser cunts are the worst kind of scum imaginable utter fucking vultures, in a court waiting room I was sat in a year or 2 ago I had the pleasure of observing 2 such vermin from opposite sides of the same case organising how best to drag out and prolong the case so they could carry with their bullshit money making scam to milk their clients for as much as they could screw out of them,.
The joke here is that these shit stains are supposed to be there to protect you, you supposed to be able to trust these cunts, then you have the cock ups were they don’t file paperwork correctly and your ex wife can keep coming back for more, or even when your useless bitch of a solicitor Marion Jay, dead now, good fucking riddents doesn’t even bother to show up for your case 3 times in a fucking row, still hopefully now she is sucking the devil’s rancid cock.
Solicitors utter cunts, even worse than bankers and estate agents… cunts
3
Solicitors
Estate agents
Used car salesmen
In that order.
Complete fucking pond life 👎
2
I was once acquainted (ie not really friendly) with a F solicitor who had the same name beginning with “S.” Having done a quick check, I am pd certain she is NOT part of the law firm mentioned in this post; however, if you’d sawn the lady in half, it would have read “fake” all the way through.
2
Also, my late uncle despised a particular firm of solicitors in, I think, Wimbledon. He referred to them as “Ponts^*&^, Sunday, Monday & Tuesday.
1