The Car Dealer & The Blogger

One of the cool things about having your own website and blog is that you can vent your spleen whenever you like, and take aim ot whoever you like.  But spare a thought for Mr English and domain name registrar Go Daddy.

Mr English is a disgruntled customer of Hunter Holden, a car dealership on Sydney's lower north shore. This follows a run-in last February after his car, which he'd left for servicing, was stolen from the Hunter premises. Adam Kaplan, director of Hunter Holden, placed the matter in the hands of his insurers and arranged a replacement vehicle for English. The insurer sought to settle the claim without an admission of liability and offered to pay Mr English the indemnity value of the car at the time of loss.

But Mr English wasn't happy with that offer, and this being the dotcom age and all, he decided to take his customer complaint one step further and established a website called www.hunterholdensucks.com which included an invitation to “share your comments about Hunter Holden Automotive.”

Surprise, surprise, Kaplan wasn't all that impressed, so he successfully sought a court injunction in June to close down the website. That was later upheld in the NSW Supreme Court in Adam Kaplan & Anor v The Go Daddy Group Inc & 2 Ors, where Justice White said that English had established the site for "the purpose of disparaging the second plaintiff, its business and products," referring specifically to the word “SUCKS” that was displayed in large letters across the top of the website.

But what about free speech? Well, that argument didn't wash with the judge because "the name of the website and the comments posted on it do not relate to matters of public interest or concern.” In other words, English's website must remain shut down.

The moral of the story? Be careful what you blog. As for Hunter Holden's website (same address without the word "sucks"), it boasts of their customer service but does make one unusual admission: “We know we are not perfect, but we will always take action when things go wrong.”

(via Crikey)

Comments

[Trent]

Hello All,

I am the (main) defendant in this matter. I must be careful what I say for obvious reasons. But let me state for the record some things that people should be aware of;
1. My car was near new, and had approx. 3000klms on the speedo when it was delivered to Hunter Holden at St Leonards. It was a $60,000+ vehicle.
2. I was telephoned by an employee of Hunter Holden who asked me if I had collected the car...(which I had not, as the interior and other parts were not on the car I was initally told because of the servicing/warranty issue) then I was told that the car was "missing", but they will find it, this had heppened to other customers and they have dealt with it.
3. I got the train to the dealership as they would not deliver a loan car to me.
4. The loan car given to me ran out of registration ( the label expired) not long after I was given it to use (it was not a similar vehicle to mine, smaller and had a bad odour) I called the dealership several times and no one responded to my complaint that the car could be out of registration and I did not want to risk using it.
5. The car sat in my street unused and returned to the dealer after many weeks being left in the street. This was after threats by Adam Kaplan that he would report the vehicle stolen if I did not return it, after I rejected his "off the record" offer of $45,000 for my vehicle.
6. I was eventually forced to claim the loss against my insurance company as I coul dsee this going for an indefinate period....it had been around 12 weeks at this point getting nowhere.
7. One thing that still sticks in my mind and my legal counsel is that Adam Kaplan (One of the directors of Hunter Holden) said to me "It's no different than leaving your car in the car park at a Westfeild Shopping Centre, if it goes missing you just claim against your insurance company".
7. Days before the plaintiffs filed the proceedings ( approx 2 weeks ago) the legal representatives of Adam Kaplan and Hunter Holden wrote to my legal counsel asking that if I was to pay $45,000+ the matter might not go any further.
8. Follow this case and you will see just how Hunter Holden, Adam Kaplan and other staff have handled the matter when dealing with me.
9. I will be in court defending this matter.
10. Do I think this SUCKS, you bet I do!

[Car Dealer Finder]

Car dealers should blog and since it brings more open market it can help to get more elict base then normal marketing tactics