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Their TrustPilot reviews[0] are a fun read now. This feels like an excellent example of the Streisand Effect[1]. I guess we'll see how suffers more, the man or the firm.

0: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.summerfieldbrowne.com

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect




Apparently from original reviewer:

I didn't lie in my review of Sommerfield Browne and them suing their own client for gain shows everyone what they are. Their friends and family will back them up, as will the other lawyers. I submitted my case based on written law and the judge said it did not apply to me and ordered me to omit the law from my submission, before the trial hearing. The fact is the judge put £6,000 costs on me before the case was even heard - I was literally priced out of justice. I could not attend or I would be accepting these costs. I cannot fight a rich solicitor in front of a biased judge. Seeing there was no justice here I decided not to give the court legitimacy by attending.


> The fact is the judge put £6,000 costs on me before the case was even heard - I was literally priced out of justice.

Wouldn't there be fee shifting in the UK? By that I mean that the losing party pays the winning party's legal costs. That's supposed to be the default in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_(attorney%27s_fee...

> Seeing there was no justice here I decided not to give the court legitimacy by attending.

In most jurisdictions there is a higher court you can appeal to if you don't get the result you wanted at the trial court. Denying the trial court's legitimacy and refusing to participate in the judicial process will not help that appeal.


And now he's on the hook for a shitload of money...

Cunning plan, that.


Not to mention a potential charge of contempt of court.


> Alert >This profile has seen a significant increase in reviews. >Although we understand you want to voice your opinion about things in the news and issues trending on social media, Trustpilot is a place for feedback based on genuine buying and service experiences. >Due to this, this profile has been temporarily closed for new reviews.


> oh no, no, no, we’re not locking this page for censorship and manipulation reasons! We’re locking this page for “integrity“.

Thing is, in this case the can be doing exactly the right and wrong thing for the same reasons. There doesn’t seem to be a win here except to not be a publisher of reviews that will (intentionally) upset unpaying and please your paying customers.

I liked the old internet.


> I liked the old internet.

Where people would generally conduct themselves in a cordial manner. We would not engage in doxxing, brigading, posting negative reviews of goods or services we have not used, impotently try to manipulate search engines and we would not incite others to do so.


What was so good about the old internet that we don't have anymore? I'm curious, as I've been online since 1994/1995. I can't imagine going back to it.


1994 is after eternal September https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

I have used Internet since 1989. Of course not at home, because that didn't exist.

In the early days every Internet user was implicitly trust-worthy. They all worked at universities or the like and meeting a scammer was highly unlikely, basically unheard of. I have visited several of them on another continent, just introduced by email. We helped each other buying goods that you could not buy in your country of residence before Amazon existed. We exchanged collectibles like paper money. It just worked, the check was in the mail a week or 2 later.

The first thing we had to learn is that aol.com addresses could not be trusted. That was still kind of easy, but since then it's only been downhill.


Well I was on BBSes before that, and I've hung out with random people IRL via message boards who turned out to be very nice. But - I've also seen some of that, more recently on discord, and on IRC a few years back. I think that that aspect (trust) is an emergent phenomenon from interacting with a smaller group.




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