Thursday, January 8, 2009

Sad Day For The Rumour Mill

Well folks it is a sad day here at the rumour mill. No, the overseas property industry has not cleaned itself up over night (far from it!) If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know exactly who we are talking about. Apologies to new readers who are not aware of the previous posts which are no longer on public view.

It would seem several perfectly innocent people are, have been, (and no doubt would be) threatened with lawsuits by a certain company. We have been contacted through the comments section on the blog by a number of entities about our recent publication of certain articles about certain companies. We are not publishing these comments at the request of the writers, but they do make some interesting reading as to the legal veracity of them. We have also received a number of comments from both the industry and the public praising what we had written, even from another former company owner about which we had commented.

In a nutshell, all and sundry that appear to have any connection to the rumour mill, or any of the pseudonyms we use for posting have been bombarded with legal threats from the said certain companies in question. It would seem we have touched a few nerves here and there by all accounts, and in the never changing habits of a life time, the companies in question have seen fit to threaten everyone and accuse them outright of slander when in fact they have no connection to us whatsoever.

We at the Rumour Mill still stand steadfastly by what we have published. We have removed the posts to protect the innocent from general aggravation and grief from the companies we have written about. This post is not a retraction of statements, nor is it any kind of admission of wrong doing, slanderous behaviour, or anything else come to that. All comments and postings made by us were factual, with concrete proof of what was going on, as everyone saw. The sad situation is that as always, if you have enough money you can buy good news.

The fact that we did republish an article released by the said company, promoting them and in fact praising them on an eventual press release about their activities (which outranked them in the search engines and therefore was promoting them) seems to count for nothing. Needless to say we have removed that article too.

The various mediums we use for promoting the blog have been updated, some will take a few days to update, but sadly the articles are having to be committed to the hidden pile for the time being.

COMING SOON!

We go on a jolly to China and Russia to hire new writers used to writing articles under communist style oppression and get their take on what republishing already public information means to them, the threats they endure in the process and, how world domination and narcissistic personality disorders are not the best things to have.

We also talk to some cats and dogs about marking their "territory" How do they do it, and how do they undo it when they change their name?

4 comments:

tkcdesign said...

I would like to thank your blog for getting important information to the masses and it is truly shameful that any company can get away with silencing blogs by exploiting a loop hole in libel law in the UK.

I too have been threatened with legal action by a company, but maybe it is time for them to carry out their threat and take a misled customer to court for slander...if it is me, so be it. Maybe now is the time for this topic to go high profile. Taking a customer to court would certainly generate interest.

I am quite amazed at how property companies have the arrogance to accuse forums and blogs as well as individuals (customers) of trying to damage their reputation. There is only one factor responsible for damaging a name and brand... and that is the company itself and its unethical selling tactics and contempt which they show for naive customers. Instead of spending vast amount on expensive lawyers you would hope that they would try and tackle these issues concerning their reputation in a professional and ethical fashion.

Instead they prefer to threaten, bully and intimidate genuine complainants. A reputation for bad business practice will never be restored unless they change their ways and start to address and acknowledge all the complaints so far.

My name is Tracy Carrington, if anyone else has encountered problems concerning properties bought through certain agents in Bulgaria then get in touch.

tkcdesign said...

I would like to thank your blog for getting important information to the masses and it is truly shameful that any company can get away with silencing blogs by exploiting a loop hole in libel law in the UK.

I too have been threatened with legal action by a company, but maybe it is time for them to carry out their threat and take a misled customer to court for slander...if it is me, so be it. Maybe now is the time for this topic to go high profile. Taking a customer to court would certainly generate interest.

I am quite amazed at how property companies have the arrogance to accuse forums and blogs as well as individuals (customers) of trying to damage their reputation. There is only one factor responsible for damaging a name and brand... and that is the company itself and its unethical selling tactics and contempt which they show for naive customers. Instead of spending vast amount on expensive lawyers you would hope that they would try and tackle these issues concerning their reputation in a professional and ethical fashion.

Instead they prefer to threaten, bully and intimidate genuine complainants. A reputation for bad business practice will never be restored unless they change their ways and start to address and acknowledge all the complaints so far.

My name is Tracy Carrington, if anyone else has encountered problems concerning properties bought through certain agents in Bulgaria then get in touch.

Lenox said...

There doesn't seem to be an agency in Spain to protect, inform or advise the foreign buyers. So we have massive cases of fraud, wrong-doing, scams and other ills (including corrupt town halls, lawyers and promoters) and demolitions and land-grabs supported by the regional governments.
It can't be good for Spain's reputation internationally.

tkcdesign said...

The recent appeal hearing heard by the NFOPP/NAEA on the 11th December 2008 has been rejected. The findings of the original tribunal on 20th August 2008 remain in place.