Regal Dodge - Sunnyvale, CA

This dealership is now Sunnyvale Dodge (under new ownership?)

Visit Geno's Garage for Truck accessories.

Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 18:22:24 -0400
From: webmaster@nep1.net

DEAR MR. DAVID FRITZ,

REGARDING ILLEGAL POSTING OF REGAL DODGE, Avoid Service page located at: http://dodgeram.info/survey_dealer/CA/Regal.htm

REMOVE THIS ILLEGAL INFORMATION POSTED ON YOUR WEB SITE USING OUR NAME AND POSTING AN OPINION PAGE WITHOUT OUR AUTHORIZATION OR KNOWLEDGE REGARDING THIS, WE CONSIDER THIS SLANDEROUS AND MISLEADING AND THERE ARE PLENTY OF COPY PROTECTION LAWS REGARDING THE USE OF A COMPANIES NAME, REGAL DODGE

YOU HAVE TILL FRIDAY AUGUST 30, 2002 TO REMOVE THAT PAGE OPINION AVOID PAGE AND IF YOU FAIL TO DO SO, WE WILL TAKE ALL LEGAL NECESSARY STEPS TO TAKE IT OFF PERMANENTLY WHICH MEANS WE MAY HAVE TO INFORM YOUR HOSTING PROVIDER ABOUT THIS INCIDENT AND IN MOST CASES, WOULD REMOVE YOUR SITE OFF THE WEB.

WE DEMAND THIS BE CORRECTED ASAP AND IN THE FUTURE, DO NOT EVER POST ANYTHING ABOUT THIS CAR DEALERSHIP AGAIN.

SINCERELY,

REGAL DODGE WEB MASTER

Well, that sure convinces me that they are focused on customer relations! So, I sent them this:

Dear Regal Dodge Webmaster,

I am always willing to work with a dealership to get the other side of the story included in the survey page. If you would like to send your version of what might have gone wrong with these customers, I will be happy to add that to the page. If you would like to send information about how you are working to improve customer relations, I will be happy to post that. If the dealership has satisfied customers, feel free to encourage them to submit a survey.

Would you please cite the law I am breaking by posting opinions submitted by Regal Dodge customers? Do you really want me to replace those opinions with your email threat? That will really show people that Regal Dodge is concerned about customers! If you manage to convince my web host service to take the site down, Regal Dodge is not going to be very popular with the large number of Dodge owners who use my web pages to get information about their vehicles.

Come on people, give me something that will help your dealership page instead of giving Regal Dodge a bad name as the dealership that killed a popular and busy web site.

Thank you, Dave

And this was the reply:

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 11:51:28 -0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)
From: Mary Tanasy

As a responsible web master and site owner, we believe it imperative to investigate anything before posting comments about another person or company on the web, just simply submitting anything from anyone submitting to a site by a simple web form or e-mail does not constitute truth or fact and actually is irresponsible to the site owner to do so without 1st verifying the information from the company, owner or manager. There can be incidents of a terminated employee for example that had a grudge for being fired from a company and has nothing better to do but vent anger on a web site to try to hurt or discredit a company. It could also be from a hacker as well. Also regarding the use of a copy righted name is also breaking the law without the owners permission or knowledge to do so. Show us proof that these people were legitimate and did you verify it's authenticity by a database etc. with the VIN numbers, DMV or dealer’s invoices for proof of purchase or service from the alleged prospective customer? If you are going to have an Opinion web site, it should be approved by the Chrysler Corporation or an authorized government agency. If you are using their logos and the company name, you need to be authorized to do so. There would also be a need to make darn sure that they were the actual customers and you in fact knew it was and that they were completely correct and exercised the proper channels of resolution by informing the manager and/or the owner for that company. There is a lot of illegal activity on the world wide web to discredit reputable companies by spoofing them and other methods with abuse of e-mail to forge headers to pretend to be the other person but actually was forged to make it look like that. Currently at our main web site for are Web services is receiving a lot of e-mails to us trying to send viruses; e-mails with forged headers to pretend it came from our company when it was from a hacker and other harmful e-mails from some other countries to try to hurt our server because we help the Communities. We also help the Disabled and Needy with our site and it won awards for the best top 10 sites in the world and has about 3,000 to 7,000 visits per day. We also helped Law enforcement and the FBI with illegal porno sites posing as the girl-scouts old domain and the FBI swiftly shut that site off permanently and we also help police the web to make it a reputable place for everyone to enjoy and we go after the unethical sites that try to harm others and report them swiftly to the proper law enforcement agencies to act on them.

You need to Remove the page you illegally posted on Regal Dodge immediately because it was illegally put up and was not verified by you to be authentic and in the future, if you ever want to post anything about the company, you need to bring it to the attention of Regal Dodge and acquire permission to do so and not simply post anything from Tom, Dick or Harry.

Regal Dodge Webmaster

So, I have removed the submitted ratings from this page. Instead of posting from every "Tom, Dick, or Harry", I posted straight from the horses mouth. I don't think this is going to help Regal's cause. BTW, the sumbitted ratings on now on a plain page with no reference to the dealership's name.

The first message I received was all caps - considered by experienced web users to to be very rude. The second message was unreadable until the text was highlighted and pasted into a text editor. Here is a screen shot of of a piece of it.

My reply:

This last email is very difficult to read - it uses a background that renders the text illegible (IMO, you need to rethink using blue background with blue text, and the green bush completely obliterates the text in front of it). One thing I did see was "if you are going to have an Opinion web site, it should be approved by the Chrysler Corporation or an authorized government agency."

Are you trying to tell me that I need the approval of some person, corporation, or a government agency before someone can post an OPINION? Oh yes, California... Well, the rest of us live in the USA. I still don't see what is illegal here. I have removed the ratings submitted by your customers and replaced them with our correspondence, which may say more about your company than any comments submitted by others.

Have a wonderful week!     Dave

If the government and/or companies can get away with bullying people into removing "un-approved" opinions from the web, I am going to pull the plug on the network, the telephone, and all media (electronic and printed), and move to someplace very remote! IMO The attitude of Regal Dodge is outrageous and dangerous! (OOPS, I did not get approval from the government or from Regal before posting my opinion)!

Here are the Ratings submitted about this dealership (with the dealership's name removed).

Click Here to submit a survey report for your dealership

This page was edited on: February 26, 2007