Ohio company sues eBay user over negative feedback

An American company called Med Express is suing one of its customers after she left it negative feedback on eBay.

Ars Technica reports that shopper Amy Nicholls paid the Ohio firm $175 for a microscope light and was annoyed when she was charged an additional $1.44 in postage over the agreed $12 fee.

She subsequently left negative feedback on eBay – the only time this has happened to the company in the last six months (during in which time it has received 142 bits of positive feedback).

Med Express offered Nicholls a $1.44 refund and asked her to remove the feedback. When she refused, they went legal, arguing that her decision had the potential to hurt its business.

Now US litigation group Public Citizen has come to Nicholls’ assistance, labelling the claims as "completely frivolous".

That opinion might be right, or it might be wrong,” Public Citizen’s Paul levy stated. But harbouring it and expressing it is not a tort. And it is certainly no reason to seek damages, attorney fees, and an injunction. Consumers might well take this sort of bullying into account when they are thinking about whether to do business with Med Express.

For all we know, the reason your client has so little negative feedback might be that it bullies critics by filing or threatening to file frivolous lawsuits every time negative feedback appears, thus inflating its seller rating.”