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LHR obtains cease-and-desist declaration due to valuation blackmail

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LHR obtained a cease-and-desist declaration against a client’s customer after the latter had attempted to extort a price reduction by threatening to post a negative review.

Price reduction or negative rating!

A customer had complained about one of our client’s products, whereupon the client offered a price reduction and asked whether this offer was acceptable. The customer described the offer as “outrageous” and demanded a half price reduction. Otherwise, he would return the product at our client’s expense and leave a “corresponding” review.

By the way, I work for the trade supervisory office!

In addition, he had tried to emphasize his threat by pointing out that he was employed by the trade supervisory office.

The customer was obviously not entitled to a half price discount. But even if such a claim had existed, the relationship between ends and means would in any case be considered reprehensible. It is obvious that the threat of negative reviews is not intended by the legal system to enforce claims.

Omission and successful complaint to the supervisory authority

LHR made it clear that this threat should be regarded as attempted coercion and blackmail and advised the client to take legal action to stop this review blackmail. LHR obtained a cease-and-desist declaration from the client in which he undertook to refrain from such behavior towards our client in the future and to pay a contractual penalty in the event of non-compliance.

In addition, a complaint was lodged with the supervisory authority, which was upheld by the Regional President of Cologne.

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