Legal action on posts/threads

Re: A new forum - just for me!

pboyles said:
Any explanation for the deletion of the Fat Prophets posts that exposed their links to previous scams?
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Hello PB

There will have to be as my recent post about legal action promised, but I can't do it yet as the situation does not permit it.

You'll not be surprised to learn that the person from FP placed the entire matter in the hands of their solicitors.

We then received the letter of demands and had no choice but to pass the whole thing to our legal firm given the nature of these demands.

The posts were removed as a result of the initial review of the case and the relevant law.

At some point i'll be able to say more but for now i'll have to ask you to bear with me until the matter is concluded.

Steve
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

the hare said:
Lets help him out with a few options from the t2w book of excuses

a) what posts ? I was completely unaware of this !
b) teh office junior did it
c) we where advised by our lawyers to do it
d) mr Sharky made me do it
e) I should have known that pboyles would see through the old "lets wait a few weeks and quietly delete stuff" plan. That's in the past, lessons have been learned etc etc etc
f) there was a technical fault and some post where lost
g) its none of your business, your banned (again)

Perhaps someone could start a poll, Perhaps they could offer an iPad as a prize for whoever comes up with the best and most plausible excuse 😆
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Come on Hare I thought we were past this.

a) Yes I was fully aware and have been since the whole FP thing started.
b) We don't have one, that was someone elses office junior.
c) CORRECT, Well done!
d) He does not do that, never has.
e) You should be grateful that we did not respond to threats and left the posts in place for a considerable length of time. I have already made it clear that I will explain each case as far as I can on conclusion but we are not there yet.To expect a full report at this stage is naive on your part and is more about mischief making than concern for what is happening.
f) No
g)It is everyone's business so why would you be banned for asking. It seems to me that you want to be banned to prove that you were right all along.

As you know, I don't often reply directly to your posts of this nature. I have made an exception in this case as I really did think we were making progress as your more recent contributions have been less confrontational.

I'm at a loss to figure out why you behave in this way so here's an open invitation for us to talk privately through exactly what is bugging you.

PM me when you are ready.

Steve
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

Steve said:
Hello PB

There will have to be as my recent post about legal action promised, but I can't do it yet as the situation does not permit it.

You'll not be surprised to learn that the person from FP placed the entire matter in the hands of their solicitors.

We then received the letter of demands and had no choice but to pass the whole thing to our legal firm given the nature of these demands.

The posts were removed as a result of the initial review of the case and the relevant law.

At some point i'll be able to say more but for now i'll have to ask you to bear with me until the matter is concluded.

Steve
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I forgot to say PB, i'll be emailing you privately about this later today.
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

Steve said:
I forgot to say PB, i'll be emailing you privately about this later today.
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Steve

No problem, I think in this case they really brought it on themselves. First they raised their own good character saying they weren't like all the other crooked city firms. That turned out to not quite be the case, then they were offered the chance to disappear with nothing more said. Of course they kept demanding 'proof' and when proof was presented to them they resorted to threats.

What a sorry mess they made of it all.
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

pboyles said:
What a sorry mess they made of it all.
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True, but in the final analysis, they where able to have posts removed with practically no effort on their behalf.

t2w has to protect their own commercial interests, it literally costs nothing to capitulate and click a delete button.

The only downside for t2w is that one or two of their more tenacious members tend not to forget, and no doubt the issue will be raised again at some future date, and the whole problem will reemerge. The catalyst of course will be the same vendor using the forum to market their products and services (despite the no selling rule !)

Fat prophets profits may see a temporary decline in profits, their lawyer will earn even more profits, and t2w will have another mess to sort out, for no benefit whatsoever !

If it can be verified that the member who claims to be posting on behalf of fat prophets is genuine, and the public domain information that they find so inconvenient and embarrassing is from a reliable regulatory body, I really can't see the issue. Having said that, its not me who received correspondence from their lawyer. However someone should seriously ask the question what's the probability of this actually ending up in a court if we do nothing, and if it does, what's the chance of losing. In my experience, these things very rarely get into a courtroom.
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

the hare said:
True, but in the final analysis, they where able to have posts removed with practically no effort on their behalf.

t2w has to protect their own commercial interests, it literally costs nothing to capitulate and click a delete button.

The only downside for t2w is that one or two of their more tenacious members tend not to forget, and no doubt the issue will be raised again at some future date, and the whole problem will reemerge. The catalyst of course will be the same vendor using the forum to market their products and services (despite the no selling rule !)

Fat prophets profits may see a temporary decline in profits, their lawyer will earn even more profits, and t2w will have another mess to sort out, for no benefit whatsoever !

If it can be verified that the member who claims to be posting on behalf of fat prophets is genuine, and the public domain information that they find so inconvenient and embarrassing is from a reliable regulatory body, I really can't see the issue. Having said that, its not me who received correspondence from their lawyer. However someone should seriously ask the question what's the probability of this actually ending up in a court if we do nothing, and if it does, what's the chance of losing. In my experience, these things very rarely get into a courtroom.
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But anyone seeing the references here to Fat Profits will glean the necessary insight to be wary of that firm😎
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

Once a vendor's lawyers have written to you to request removal of posts, what is the legal position if you post that this vendor has requested this and in particular what the vendor requested be removed? That after all is factual, as you have the letter requesting it.

Then you could have a sticky thread with all of those who have threatened T2Win with legal action and why. Which would be nice 🙂 Discussions like this and references to particular companies are easily lost as time goes by.
 
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Re: A new forum - just for me!

Shakone said:
Once a vendor's lawyers have written to you to request removal of posts, what is the legal position if you post that this vendor has requested this and in particular what the vendor requested be removed? That after all is factual, as you have the letter requesting it.

Then you could have a sticky thread with all of those who have threatened T2Win with legal action and why. Which would be nice 🙂 Discussions like this and references to particular companies are easily lost as time goes by.
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I posted this on another thread. It is not a criticism of anyones, former posts.But a suggestion for Steve to help avoid T2W spending too much on legal advice?

Maybe if criticisms of these people were simply reported, " it is said in such a newspaper or other media that xxxx company is under investigation or fined or people say that yy lost money and blames K company which allegedly did such and such".
This third party sort of reporting is safer than direct allegation?

 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

True, but in the final analysis, they where able to have posts removed with practically no effort on their behalf.
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I am not sure they would agree with this, the individual concerned spent a great deal of time behind the scenes attempting to get things removed and demanding that we reveal information about the member's making the posts. We refused and then came the threat of action along with further demands. We refused again, hence the letter from their legal firm.

Interestingly, these things are often referred to as if they are one or two lines threatening action unless we do what they ask. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every one of these that I have been involved in has been in great detail, citing on a line by line basis the law that has been broken and why.

If what they are saying is accurate, then yes, these posts will be removed and I'm not hiding from this. That's the way it is.

t2w has to protect their own commercial interests, it literally costs nothing to capitulate and click a delete button.
Click to expand...

Yes we do but we also have to protect a member's right to say what they want to say. It certainly does not come free, the cost is not only the hours of time spent behind the scenes dealing with the problem, but also the reputational cost as this current exchange illustrates.

The only downside for t2w is that one or two of their more tenacious members tend not to forget, and no doubt the issue will be raised again at some future date, and the whole problem will reemerge. The catalyst of course will be the same vendor using the forum to market their products and services (despite the no selling rule !
Click to expand...

I hope the tenacious members don't forget and I welcome these things being raised. Yes it can be a pain in the backside and takes a lot of time and money but at least there is an opportunity for important stuff to be made public. Even if ultimately we have no choice but to remove some of it.

Fat prophets profits may see a temporary decline in profits, their lawyer will earn even more profits, and t2w will have another mess to sort out, for no benefit whatsoever !

If it can be verified that the member who claims to be posting on behalf of fat prophets is genuine, and the public domain information that they find so inconvenient and embarrassing is from a reliable regulatory body, I really can't see the issue.
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I can't comment on this yet as i'll end up referring to specific posts. Once the matter is concluded i'll provide as much detail as I can about what gets deleted and why.

Having said that, its not me who received correspondence from their lawyer. However someone should seriously ask the question what's the probability of this actually ending up in a court if we do nothing, and if it does, what's the chance of losing. In my experience, these things very rarely get into a courtroom.
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This is a common observation but not entirely accurate. A great deal of these end up closer or indeed in court as it is a fast developing area and the case law is developing accordingly. In fact, we now have to consider several recent rulings that may affect the way we deal with these matters in the future and I'm seeking guidance on this at the moment.
 
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Re: A new forum - just for me!

neil said:
I posted this on another thread. It is not a criticism of anyones, former posts.But a suggestion for Steve to help avoid T2W spending too much on legal advice?

Maybe if criticisms of these people were simply reported, " it is said in such a newspaper or other media that xxxx company is under investigation or fined or people say that yy lost money and blames K company which allegedly did such and such".
This third party sort of reporting is safer than direct allegation?
Click to expand...

Thanks Neil, this is an excellent point and I think we could leave so much more if we were more careful in what was said. Bring things to people's attention and let them draw their own conclusions without resorting to 'scammer' 'dodgy' 'liar' etc etc.

This is the very point I was making in my recent summary post about legal action:

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/ceo-exchange/166820-legal-action-posts-threads.html
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

Shakone said:
Once a vendor's lawyers have written to you to request removal of posts, what is the legal position if you post that this vendor has requested this and in particular what the vendor requested be removed? That after all is factual, as you have the letter requesting it.

Then you could have a sticky thread with all of those who have threatened T2Win with legal action and why. Which would be nice 🙂 Discussions like this and references to particular companies are easily lost as time goes by.
Click to expand...

That's a good idea Shakone and I agree that it is easy for stuff like this to get lost. I'm currently exploring with our legal advisers how much more I can get away with saying without compromising our position. I'll come back to this once I get an answer. This might be a while as I'm using this current situation as a 'test case' to check how our revised procedures are (or are not) working as we have to get better at the reporting even though we are often hamstrung legally.
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

surely If i state that I think what a guy is selling is not value for money and that he is deceiving by intent or making false claims then why are you worried.He would have to prove otherwise. I don't believe anyone that has threatened legal action can prove their case. They are just silly threats. Can you pm me with who has made these threats.
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

Steve said:
That's a good idea Shakone and I agree that it is easy for stuff like this to get lost. I'm currently exploring with our legal advisers how much more I can get away with saying without compromising our position. I'll come back to this once I get an answer. This might be a while as I'm using this current situation as a 'test case' to check how our revised procedures are (or are not) working as we have to get better at the reporting even though we are often hamstrung legally.
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You know more than me about legal issues of course. But as a rule of thumb, if what you post is the truth, and you have a letter sitting in your desk which immediately proves the legal threat is fact, then I'd be surprised if they could do anything about you posting that.

If these things are pages long, then perhaps just a one line summary, Fat Prophets threatened legal action unless we removed posts referring to...

Also if threads with their name in the title are going to remain, there could be some sort of warning attached to the thread title. Or if this is too much work for each case, then moved to a separate forum with warnings attached. I just would like to avoid the case, where a vendor comes and has a nice thread which they want, and all criticisms have been removed because of threat of legal action, and a newcomer has no way of knowing that. At the very least the vendor should have to have their thread sit in the dodgy forum...
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

Lord Flasheart said:
surely If i state that I think what a guy is selling is not value for money and that he is deceiving by intent or making false claims then why are you worried.He would have to prove otherwise. I don't believe anyone that has threatened legal action can prove their case. They are just silly threats. Can you pm me with who has made these threats.
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The legal issue is not about the truth of the actual post(s) made, it is about how they are made and if they are potentially in breach of any law. I'm no expert on the complexity of these laws, defamation is complex enough, overlaying the internet onto this just makes it even more of a minefield.

This is why we have to pay for legal help. They may be silly threats to the observer but I assure you they are not silly as far as the complainant is concerned and they are most definately not silly as far as the law is concerned.
 
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Re: A new forum - just for me!

Shakone said:
You know more than me about legal issues of course. But as a rule of thumb, if what you post is the truth, and you have a letter sitting in your desk which immediately proves the legal threat is fact, then I'd be surprised if they could do anything about you posting that.

If these things are pages long, then perhaps just a one line summary, Fat Prophets threatened legal action unless we removed posts referring to...

Also if threads with their name in the title are going to remain, there could be some sort of warning attached to the thread title. Or if this is too much work for each case, then moved to a separate forum with warnings attached. I just would like to avoid the case, where a vendor comes and has a nice thread which they want, and all criticisms have been removed because of threat of legal action, and a newcomer has no way of knowing that. At the very least the vendor should have to have their thread sit in the dodgy forum...
Click to expand...

I agree. Regardless of how much we could/could not include, at least there would be reference to it rather than complete disappearance.
 
Re: A new forum - just for me!

T2W is not high enough in terms of profile looking at his previous cases 🙂
 
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