In this world, there are many different effects that in one way or another affect our lives and perception of reality: the placebo effect, the Barnum effect, the ostrich effect, and perhaps the most popular in the contemporary world, the Streisand effect. Thousands of people have already suffered from it, including, for example, Beyoncé and Barbra Streisand herself. Literally everyone is well aware of it, but every year more and more thousands continue to step on the same rake.
The Streisand effect in business looks especially weird, because there are entire specialized courses on working with negative feedback from clients, where they tell in detail what to do and what not to do when a client is dissatisfied with something in the work of your business - whether it's justified or not. But still, the Streisand effect even here looks as inevitable as death, Thanos, or the fact that LeBron James will soon pass Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in points scored in the NBA.
However, in the story that we are going to tell you, it would be more relevant to mention, for example, Wayne Gretzky or Conor McDavid, because it took place in Canada. A post written by user u/Yo_F**kmylife in the Petty Revenge community has managed to rack up nearly 9.3K upvotes and over 200 comments in just a few days, so let's find out what happened there.
More info: Reddit
The author of the post tells how they once hired a lawyer for their case and got scammed by him
Image credits: Rusty Clark ~ 100K Photos (not the actual photo)
So, according to the author of the original post, they hired a lawyer to solve one of their cases, and were extremely dissatisfied with his work. In other words, as the original poster themselves admit, the lawyer scammed them and their family to the point where they’re seeking recourse in court. Of course, no one will be happy about such a situation, so the OP did what many would have done in their place - left him a 1-star review.
Image credits: Yo_F**kmylife
The author left a 1-star review and the lawyer has found nothing better to do than demanding that they delete it, threatening legal action for defamation
And now the question is - what would many business owners or professionals do in the place of this lawyer? That's right, we would probably try to settle the controversial issue peacefully, and also work in the future as efficiently as possible in order to earn more positive feedback. But no - the lawyer, apparently, was extremely offended, and demanded that the OP immediately remove that 1-star review, threatening otherwise to sue for defamation.
Image credits: Yo_F**kmylife
The client just added the info of the threats to the review - and the lawyer got deluged by random 1-star reviews from all over Canada
And here the original poster acted quite predictably - they did not delete the original review, but edited it, adding information about the threats from the lawyer. And this is where the Streisand effect comes into play - a wave of upvotes hit the OP's review, while random 1-star reviews began to arrive at the hapless lawyer. As a result, now the average rating of the ill-fated lawyer is steadily approaching one, and the OP's family plans to meet with him in court to sue their money back.
Image credits: Yo_F**kmylife
In the OP's own words, of course, they previously consulted with another lawyers they know, and found out that that very lawyer has no leg whatsoever to stand on, and that there is no defamation in the review whatsoever. Thus, the original poster is confident that soon the court will deliver a verdict in favor of their family, justice will prevail, and the Streisand effect will once again confirm its absolute inexorability.
Image credits: Yo_F**kmylife
Most people in the comments sided with the author, claiming that such behavior from a lawyer is completely inappropriate
Interestingly, according to commenters, factual reviews are absolutely legal in Canada and courts have previously opined on them. "To be specific, reviews can't be defamatory," one of the people in the comments wrote. Moreover, some commenters also suggest that the original poster, if they win in court, write another review, telling probable clients that this lawyer could not even defend himself.
Image credits: Ed Bierman (not the actual photo)
However, the situation affected not only Canadians. For example, one of the people in the comments admits that they're not familiar with the regulatory system for lawyers there, but threatening a client over an online review sounds like something their law society would be definitely interested in hearing about. As you can see, most likely, the lawyer who offended the original poster and their relatives will face hard times in the near future...
Image credits: Salvatore Barbera (not the actual photo)
If you are interested in the topic of unexpected and extremely silly decisions made by people in business, then you might enjoy reading this post of ours about the boss who stole Super Bowl tickets given to his partner by his client (especially since the Super Bowl is coming!). In the meantime, we are already looking forward to your comments on this particular tale below this post.