Is this defamation? Am I not Justified?

TicaLLioNStaLLyN · 02-21-2012, 09:14 AM

So there is a Canadian paintball company, who I won't mention for now, who makes and distributes their own brand of "TPX First Strike breach and clips". I ordered and received this product and wasn't pleased. The breech is all scratched and rough with some metal shaving taht i had to pry off the threads. I was also curious if they used a stronger spring to feed the FS rounds like their competitor? My FS rounds were feeding sluggish and I had a cpl breaks in a cpl clips. when I e-mailed the company it took 4 days for a response and all I got was its due to the acid bath. Ok fine...basic but finally a partial answer to my e-mail. I wait a couple days and inquire to the finish of Gunhead's product. They have a mirror finish and their response was very informative.

Now their return policy is a little out there if you ask me, 25% restocking fee? ridiculous. Now I send an e-mail back to this canadian company's return dept regarding an RMA# and a possible waive or reduction in restocking fee as it is THEIR BRAND that is poor quality..not tippmann, not tiberius, THEIR OWN! I let them know taht it would go a long way to show taht they stand by their products etc.....Nothing

I send another e-mail to their returns AND sales team and push the envelope abit being frustrated and angry without getting a response in over a week. I let them know that without a response I will gladly be making a review of their product compared to their competitors on youtube and submitting across all the forums so the public will see the poor quality of their product (which is visually evident) and subsequently their customer service.

They responded

"First you need to submit a RMA form available in our website on the left column , sale team cannot do ANYTHING for RMA.

Also this e-mail was forwarded to our legal counsel due to the threats of defamation you did to the ************** Corporation they will not be in charge of any reply sent to you from now."

The RMA form link brings me back to their homepage, being useless. Sales team should've seen that I included their returns dept on the e-mail and on their site they even say to contact the returns e-mail address listed. Still I have no response and doubt I will get one as they seem to hide behind lawyers and poor products rather than strong customer service! Makes me ashamed to call them a canadian company!

All I wanted was a full refund, for their poor product! I still plan on doing a full review when my Gunhead product arrives to show the comparison in quality etc.

My Question here is this...If I go through with this comparison etc am I liable to be sued for defamation?

I don't believe so because I am not stating anything false, nor that I don't 100% believe to be true....not to mention acts of free speech blah blah to protect little guys like me for my opinions and speech. Would they sue wolf if he gave them a bad review haha? I feel as if i'm being threatened to be quiet about their poor product when they won't service me in the first place!

Am I wrong here? Thanks and i'm sure you all can figure out what company it is if you connect the dots

Punisher 281 · 02-21-2012, 10:05 AM

Reviewing a product isn't considered defamation. Just make sure everything you say/write is true. I would say something about their customer support being so poor that they threaten to file a lawsuit against you if you say anything negative about their product.

SupaSteve20 · 02-21-2012, 10:37 AM

People write reviews all the time for so many different things. think about Restaurant reviews, Hosptial reviews, cars, etc. Hell theres magazines that come out every year (Consumer Reports) that review everything.

They are just trying to scare you. They know that bad publicity has a snowball effect and if other people have complained to them and see your public complaint they might follow your lead.

If they choose not to help you out immediatley it means they dont care. They have your money and dont care about after sale service, their goal being for you to forget about the hassle and just keep the product.

Wanna get real ballsy, go to you local College Law School, grab a 3rd level tell him whats goin on and he might write a nice legal letter for you!!

Paper_Cut · 02-21-2012, 11:14 AM

I don't think that is defamation. In order to qualify for defamation it must meet 3 criteria:

they first must prove that the statement was false.
that person must prove that the statement caused harm.
they must prove that the statement was made without adequate research into the truthfulness of the statement

They cannot touch you because any review is considered an opinion, to be defamation you must represent it as fact. Then if you post about the emails you have the correspondence to back up these claims.(hold onto the emails.)

Read up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_defamation_law

I think it is nothing more than trying to intimidate you. If they really have contacted their "legal department" they would have been told that they don't have a case and if they were to take you to court it would allow you to sue for damages.

automagsrule · 02-21-2012, 11:40 AM

They are bluffing, you are now obligated to call said bluff.

TicaLLioNStaLLyN · 02-21-2012, 02:34 PM

but they dont respond to anything now haha...

SKI008 · 02-21-2012, 03:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SupaSteve20

Wanna get real ballsy, go to you local College Law School, grab a 3rd level tell him whats goin on and he might write a nice legal letter for you!!

Do that, threaten to sue for their black mail attempt, profit.

****ty company is ****ty. If I were you I would post on every forum I knew about this incident. If they won't make things right for you, make sure you make them hurt.

steve_81 · 02-21-2012, 05:34 PM

You can't get sued for doing an honest review, They are bluffing. Make sure that review gets spread across the internet to every Paintball related forum you can find.

pbbuddy12 · 02-21-2012, 06:01 PM

Yeap. All scare tactics on their part. They may be holding off on responding as their "lawyers" are going back to law school trying to find something to slap against you to keep you quiet, which they won't. Don't be afraid of them. From the sound of it they have had many problems of this exact nature before and simply do not care to even talk to customers anymore. Spread a full review with pics across the internet, even could send them a link to your review on here after you post it and simply say I tried to come to a reasonable resolution with you guys, keep the emails you have sent and received for records.