Company gets kicked off Amazon after threatening to sue a reviewer

Let this be a lesson to any company selling products on Amazon: going after a customer for a negative review can get you booted from the store entirely. A company called Mediabridge Products has had its Amazon selling privileges revoked after aggressively intimidating and harassing a user for posting a harsh review on one of its routers. Unfortunately for Mediabridge, that Amazon customer also frequents Reddit and chronicled the entire saga there. The original overview has since seemingly been removed, but Ars Technica has been following the story closely.

After discovering the negative review — which quickly rose to become the "most helpful" negative feedback — Mediabridge threatened to sue the customer, claiming he was waging an "illegal campaign to damage, discredit, defame and libel Mediabridge." All because of a single router review. The reviewer, who goes by "trevely," eventually altered his original submission in response to the warning. But not before the wrath and fury of Reddit's community was unleashed on the company.

Redditors quickly came to defend one of their own

Even after Amazon sided with its customer, Mediabridge isn't offering any apologies. "It’s our sincere belief that reasonable people understand that not only is it within our rights to take steps to protect our integrity, but that it should be expected that we would do so when it is recklessly attacked," the company said in a statement. "The reviewer has since changed his review completely to remove the libelous statements, but unfortunately not before having an army attack us on the internet." It's also not holding back in criticizing Amazon's decision. "Many hard-working employees whose livelihood depended on that business will likely be put out of a job, by a situation that has been distorted and blown out of proportion."

The router in question has since been slammed with a barrage of negative reviews — many far worse than the original. Trevely's complaint accused Mediabridge of fabricating positive reviews for its products and making a business out of selling rebranded hardware. "Make no mistake, these libelous statements you made in a public forum are false and you cannot support them with any proof," the company said in its letter, promising Trevely's blistering review would be met with litigation.

• SourceArs Technica
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