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Can trainers/institutes really sue people for writing reviews?
That's the MAIN key. We know that all fake 'gurus' never wanted to show their few years real trading account statement along with few years IRS form (or similar if they are in other country), verified by third party (this is important else they could just Photoshop into beautiful statement), because likely negative net or best : break even, or more likely never traded in real trading account, only SIM account. Logic, this is what to say : if you know you r so good in trading why only SIM account? LOL. Fake guru will never win. And you do NOT always need to hire lawyer. I ever won against famous lawyer despite totally no knowledge about law. But Google helped a lot. Eventually the other party run out of money paying lengthy lawyer fees and quiet up. It's a case that I know they could never win
Certain states in the US have anti-SLAPP laws. That means you can’t be sued for a bad online review. You can find the list of those states on the internet. I think it’s about half of the states.
Where there are no anti-SLAPP laws, you can get sued. Generally chances are you would win if your review is truthful, but the mere threat of a lawsuit and the associated costs make people pull a review before a lawsuit starts, which is often the sole purpose of threatening with a lawsuit. That’s why anti-SLAPP laws were introduced.
What matters is where you live, not where the business resides.
Obviously, not all lawsuits are intended only to wrongly silence someone; some are going to be justified -- so there is a balancing of legal rights and interests that needs to be made. The Wikipedia article is interesting in full, for anyone who wants to know more.
In the US, 31 states, plus DC and Guam, have anti-SLAPP laws. Some provinces of Canada do, as do some jurisdictions in other countries.
I learn something new every day.
Bob.
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Getting slightly off topic here but my brother owns and runs a shall we say 'service' business. He has unfortunately learnt the hard way that if a customer is dissatisfied in anyway the results of a public negative review far outweighs the cost to make the customer happy, whether it's his fault/in the scope of the original job or not. Even more unfortunately there are many people out there that know this and use it to their advantage, in some cases going as far to intentionally use it as blackmail. He literally has had people request a discount when the job is finished, under the threat that they will post a negative review if they don't get it, even though they have no issues with the job at all. So while we complain about vendors defrauding people, and protecting the consumer, there are also cases of consumers fraudulently harming vendors.
Many sites have to option of allowing the vendor to respond to a review. But I guess cases of libel can still be brought to court, even in states with anti-SLAPP laws. That is why it is important to phrase your review clearly as an opinion and not as a fact. Everyone can have an opinion, even a crazy one. If you phrase your review as an opinion it is much harder to sue for libel, because you don't make real "claims".
"Opinions, however, are murkier territory. Statements of opinion generally receive protection under the First Amendment. The question then becomes, what is an opinion? Is it usually sufficient for a speaker to preface a statement (one that might otherwise be considered defamatory) with the words "I think" or "In my opinion"?
Not a lawyer. One what grounds is there basis for a lawsuit? Can the Plaintiff show damages? Wouldn't the Defendant be able to prove the claims in their review using evidence from the plaintiffs course and if there were copied or plagerized material it would look bad for the plaintiff and therefore an empty threat. Review away!
