Allen wrote in this week to say, "The issue between Lowe's, their attorney and I were settled amicably and in a timely manner last year." He wasn't able to provide further details due to the terms of the settlement. Lowes-sucks.com is now a placid "coming soon" page.

Congrats on your success, Allen! Your tale is proof of how one consumer's voice, telling their true story, leveraged online, can force a company to play on equal terms. If you would like to get started doing something like what Allen did, check out our post "How To Fight Companies Online And Win."

PREVIOUSLY: Lowes Resorts To Legal Bullying Instead Fixing Their Horrible $3500 Fence Job
RELATED: Intellectual property laws abused in quest to shutdown Lowes-Sucks.com [Ars Technica]

After Bank of America made one too many errors on his account, costing him "thousands of dollars" Avi had finally had enough.

"I said, 'Listen, you know, if you guys don't work with me on this issue, you know, I'm just going to tell everyone how much I hate the bank,'" Oslick said.

So he did. He says Bank of America called the police, who showed up at his door and asked him to take the sign down. He said no. According to Avi's website, the cop said, "Sounds good to me." You can visit his site at www.ihateboa.com.

Man Displays Anger With Company On Side Of House, Internet [NBC10] (Thanks, Everyone!)

The immediate goal of our service is to stop defamation by positioning links on the Search Engines and by appeals to law to remove negative information. We send cease and desist letters and if necessary, file legal actions against the perpetrators and Internet service providers contributing to the unjust defamation of our members.

I wonder how long it will take ComplaintRemover to push this negative link down on the search engines?

Apparently he gets sued, like, every damn day:

First, he was sued in Florida by the infomercial company GlobalTec, which sells day-trading software. GlobalTec alleged that, by posting reviews of GlobalTec products that turned up in Google searches, Leonard was infringing the company's trademark. With the assistance of Public Citizen, Leonard filed a motion to dismiss, pointing out that, among many other problems with the lawsuit, he lived in Arizona and had no connection with the state where he had been sued. Last month, the court accepted Public Citizen's arguments and dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction.

Next, Leonard received a subpoena from Video Professor, an infomercial company that sells video-based courses, demanding that Leonard turn over IP addresses and other personally identifying information about everyone who posted reviews of the company's products. Leonard objected, again with the help of Public Citizen, and yesterday Video Professor withdrew its subpoena, although it did not drop its lawsuit and is apparently still pursuing another subpoena to discover the identity of a Wikipedia user, who the company claims defamed it in the online encyclopedia.

So it came as no surprise to Leonard when he learned of yet another lawsuit against him, this time in Michigan, brought by the Infomercial company Lifestyle Lift, which performs a facelift procedure that it claims takes only about an hour.

The Hazards of Running a Consumer Review Website [CL&P]

DirectBuy also intimated that they hinted they might prosecute the case in Canada, which has no First Amendment or comparable version of the CDA (which protects site owners from liability for information their users post).

InfomercialScams enlisted the aid of The Public Citizen Litigation Group who sent back their own letter:

Before you spend your client's money on suing in Canada, you might consider whether Leonard has any assets there, and whether an injunction obtained in Canada would be wroth the paper it is written on... Instead of suing in Canada, why not bring suit in Tashkent? At least you'd get an exotic trip out of it, and litigation in a totalitarian state would be more consistent with the view that the Internet makes it too easy for consumer criticisms to be heard.

The best way for companies to get complainers to shutup is to fix the problems they're complaining about.

Seeing as legal bluster will probably wither in the face of actual, and, most likely unexpected, opposition, perhaps the real victim is DirectBuy, for having their name run through the muck by the amateurish council they've retained.

DirectBuy's C&D
The Public Citizen Litigation Group's Response
Don't Post This Cease-and-Desist Letter, Or Else [Consumer Law and Policy Blog]
Direct Buy Complaints [InfomercialScams]

(Photo: ntlworld)

Allen ordered a fence from Lowes. It cost $3500. It sucks. If you lean on it, it becomes dislodged and loose. His dogs were able to escape just by pushing on the gate. There's a two-foot gap underneath the bottom of the fence. Allen refused to pay until Lowes fixed it.

Lowes didn't feel like fixing it, sending Allen to deal with the installer, who pingponged him back to Lowes. Lowes doesn't care they didn't do the job. They just want their money. So they sent Allen's bill to collections. Allen is enraged and starts a website, Lowes-Sucks.com. Correspondence, history, more pictures, and phone recordings are up on the site.

Now Lowe's is sending him cease and desist letters for infringing their trademark.

So let's see, Lowe's is paying enough attention to pay lawyers to shoot off some letters, but not enough to actually fix their crappy install. Real classy, guys. Real classy.

LOWE'S Home Improvement Sucks

Trouble is: They don't know who the hell they are suing. Target has asked for the help of AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo, INC in searching for "John Doe," an unknown blogger believed to live in Georgia.

"John" shared Target's loss-prevention policies (sent to him by an unknown Target employee) on several websites including Targetunion.org and uses the screenname "Target Sucks." What did "Target Sucks" have to say about Target's lawsuit?

"I didn't sign any confidentiality agreement with them and really don't give a rat's ass if they like it or not."

The real test will come not from the results of the lawsuit, but from the response of Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo, INC. When a big box store comes calling about a user who allegedly violated their confidentiality policy &mdash which company will refuse to violate theirs?

Then again, if Target waits around long enough, AOL might just accidentally post "John's" search queries. Anyone searching for "pecans" and "I fucking hate target" ... ?