What's your thoughts on this lawsuit filed on another board? Will this threaten all the internet and your ability to tell the truth about your experiences with a company?

The internet is about information and freedom of speech. If we get silenced by a lawsuit, our ability to tell it like it is may forever be shut down.

Here's the link:

http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/streetbeasts-lawsuit-how-you-can-help-148014.html

Looks like this is becoming common practice. :rolleyes:

Horrible. Thats all I have to say on SB part. That lawsuit, I would hope will be thrown out on its own merrit

That reminds me of that lawsuit, if it ever became one, from Allied-Signal. The makers of Fram, that tried to threaten the guy(s) that run that oil filter study thats on the internet. I dont think anything ever became of it though.

think how much better the money would be spent improving their product and reputation

Quit making sense Andy!;)

I don't know anything about the lawsuit you're talking about, but the concept of slander and libel applies to the internet just like any other speech forum.

I don't know anything about the lawsuit you're talking about, but the concept of slander and libel applies to the internet just like any other speech forum.
Not if it's true and after dealing with the company before they changed their name (because of similar charges) They are not to be trusted.:noway:

Quit making sense Andy!;)

I can't help it! :)

Not if it's true and after dealing with the company before they changed their name (because of similar charges) They are not to be trusted.:noway:

I didn't make any assertion that the charges are true or false. I said that slander and libel laws apply to the internet just like any other arena of speech, which they do.

When you sign up to join a particular website, there is always the Terms Of Use (TOU)/ Terms Of Service (TOS) agreement, that nearly everyone just checks off instead of reading it through. Most websites do NOT allow the "User," Freedom of Speech because of their TOU/TOS.

Some sites do NOT allow links to other websites, news links or other information, unless it's related to that particular site, including member and political 'bashing', etc. if not, then it's out of bounds or off limits.

Quite obviously, TC has their Rules as well and as I've seen in the past, the Moderators here deleted certain provocative or 'off color' posts.

Certain political sites have no restrictions whatsoever, and I've read horrible things posted about our current CinC and candidates on the Right side of the aisle, with impunity. The owners of those sites do nothing to remove those posts, nor repremand their posters.

What it all comes down to depends on the owners of the website to decide what the "users" are or are not permitted to post, and thus, Freedom Of Speech does NOT apply.

P.S.-Beware of using the GOOGLE search engine, due to their collection of information, and selling it to marketing firms and providing information to the CDC. So much for privacy.


Respectfully,
John R.

I called them once just getting an idea of what was involved in thier cars and how much..... I felt very pressured from the onset of the call, and after not getting the answers I was looking for, I gave up.

think how much better the money would be spent improving their product and reputation Yes. My thoughts exactly. Some companies and individuals put more effort into hiring their attorney to threaten people with a "Defamation of Character" suit, then it would take to simply please their customers and do the right thing in the first place. I think that people and companies like that are just so used to deceiving people and telling lies, that they have long forgotten even how to be honest, and they make up so many lies that they begin to believe their own lies.

I called them once just getting an idea of what was involved in thier cars and how much..... I felt very pressured from the onset of the call, and after not getting the answers I was looking for, I gave up. I know exactly what you're talking about. I made the mistake of doing biz with this guy Dennis Reinhart who has dealt many of his customers a band hand on various occasions. People would leave their car with this guy for certain performance upgrades that they agreed to, only to return the next day to pick-up their car and find that the bill was double of what he quoted because he did many other things to their cars that weren't even discussed the day before when they dropped the car(s) off!

The same guy also threatened the Ford Thunderbird internet board with a "Defamation of Character" lawsuit through his Attorney, because the board owner allowed numerous posts to remain on his board that board members wrote about how this guy sold faulty transmissions to them and wouldn't make good.

The board owner was not intimidated at the least, and not only did he leave all the post complaints up on his board, but he posted a copy of the letter he received from this loser's attorney. Last I heard, nothing ever happened with the suit. But this Dennis Reinhart guy was ridiculous to deal with over the phone, even before you made any purchase from him. It was like walking on eggshells to talk to the guy. I couldn't even ask the guy a simple and sincere question w/out him getting very defensive.

What I've found is that when it seems like you're walking on eggshells to talk to someone like that, it usually means you're being manipulated, or the person is at least trying to manipulate you. And yet these individuals and companies make themselves out to be the victim, and they honestly believe that they ARE the victim! They're deceived by their own lies so often that they cannot even see the truth any longer. It's pretty sleazy. :yes:

Whether the website engaged in libel or not, whether they slandered the company named in the ariticle or not, there's no way for us to know because we don't have all the facts. I couldn't even tell you if this IS a SLAPP suit or not because again, we don't have any of the facts.

I googled his name and came up with a mix of good and bad. I thought I had heard of him before. a couple pages in, I find this comes up: http://removenegativelinks.com/ripoff135086.html Looks like he's aware of how the 'net can spread info with a little time.

I find it very interesting that the good honest guys in the car/resto business never seem to go running for their lawyer should a problem arise. There are always problems in any business and I believe most can be worked out in an equitable way. If the first thing a shop/dealer does is scream for their lawyer and threaten a disgruntled customer with a lawsuit, then I believe they have something to hide. It's easier for some of these guys to hide behind a lawyer than it is to stand on their own two feet and defend their own reputation. Of course if their reputations were any good in the first place, they wouldn't have the need to call a lawyer every month. Just my .02

I googled his name and came up with a mix of good and bad. I thought I had heard of him before. a couple pages in, I find this comes up: http://removenegativelinks.com/ripoff135086.html Looks like he's aware of how the 'net can spread info with a little time.Oh, believe me Bryan, I was a customer of his very briefly, and that's all it took for me. The guy seems to like dealing with people who don't know much at all about cars, and who don't ever do their own wrenching, because those are the types of people he can lie to and get away with it. He tried laying one of his lies on me, and I caught him in it red handed over the phone. It was something he was telling me about my car, that had to do with so called "needed" performance parts that he wanted to sell me in addition to those I had telephoned him about.

He had obviously thought that I was simply going to take his word for it, and spend the extra $$ on the gimmick parts that he had, and then when I questioned him on it, he realized that he was talking to someone who has turned a few wrenches in the past ( unlike some of his other customers ) and he didn't know what to say since there wasn't any way for him to lie his way out of this one, so he then completely contradicted himself and stated the exact opposite of what he had just told me 60 seconds prior to that.

There are many guys from my old car club who have been ripped-off by this guy. He's out of Florida and he's just plain bad news. But he continues to get business from unsuspecting people, mostly those who don't know much about cars at all, but who have some cash in the bank to spend on hiring others to install go-fast parts on their cars. I can be more specific about him, but I won't waste anymore space in this thread about the guy.

I find it very interesting that the good honest guys in the car/resto business never seem to go running for their lawyer should a problem arise. There are always problems in any business and I believe most can be worked out in an equitable way. If the first thing a shop/dealer does is scream for their lawyer and threaten a disgruntled customer with a lawsuit, then I believe they have something to hide. It's easier for some of these guys to hide behind a lawyer than it is to stand on their own two feet and defend their own reputation. Of course if their reputations were any good in the first place, they wouldn't have the need to call a lawyer every month. Just my .02You're absolutely correct. I agree completely.

I purchased a complete supercharger kit for my small V8 daily driver from a company in Michigan called Trilogy Motorsports, which is actually an engineering company which employs 90 people, and does business worldwide. Not only was their product the best aftermarket stuff I had ever purchased, but their CEO (Jerry Barnes) and their engineers are the best people that I've ever done business with. I never regretted the $6K I spent on their product. it transformed my daily driver into a fire breathing street brawler, knocked 1.6 seconds off of my 1/4 mile ET,( it actually was a full 2 seconds faster with the addition of drag radials) and was the most dependable go-fast parts I've ever used. The kit was very well put together.

I knew of 160 people who bought the same kit from that company, and the only guy I knew that had a problem with their product, was well taken care of once he called them up about it. I mean the CEO of the company literally sent a loaner car out to the guy for him to drive at the CEO's own expense, and they picked-up the customer's car with a flatbed truck, and took it to one of their authorized garages, and the guy had a brand new supercharger on his car, and the car delivered back to his house within a week. Talk about customer service! This is the only American company I ever dealt with that still thinks that the "customer is always right"...and last I heard, the guy's business is thriving as a result.

You just don't find very many companies like this in America anymore. It's sad.