Yes! Lay into those cretinous clients for everyone who can't.
A business which provides advice on trademark law has taken an aggressive stance on poor reviews, accusing its critics of being liars, rivals, and losers.
Trademark Direct helps customers navigate the law to register their great ideas. Under the direction of solicitor Kate McCormick and founder Mark Kingsley-Williams, it has taken a refreshingly combative approach to negative reviews of its services left on the Trustpilot website.
A person calling herself Nikki left a one-star review stating, “The advice I got was not from a lawyer but a made up person called Richard who I was later told doesn’t even work there! Is this a sham company?”
On the contrary, replied Trademark Direct, which accused Nikki of being the fictitious party: “Hello Nikki, we have no idea who you are, we have no recent clients called Nikki, you are not an authenticated client. We think you are a loser competitor and Trustpilot is unreliable in vetting valid users”.
The existence of a reviewer calling themselves M SV was similarly called into question. M SV said in their pan, “We are still waiting to hear from them and if they unable to make any application then they will have to refund us”.
TMD was having none of it. “We have no idea who you are, Desperate competitors leaving fake reviews on Trustpilot is not new, and Trustpilot has been sued in the US for failing to make sure reviews are real”, it replied.
The TMD team conceded that some of its dissatisfied customers were real, but that didn’t mean they were blameless.
“Hanna, it's a shame to see you're continuing to make untrue statements and false claims”, Trademarks Direct responded to her one star review.
“At your request funds were repaid to the bank account in your other name, IRYNA BUKUR… You had previously pretended that Hanna and Iryna were two different people, but this is not so. Making false accusations of fraud is serious under law, and you may want to reconsider. The high court has previously fined someone £25,000 for a defamatory claim made on TrustPilot so legal action can be taken”.
Plenty of lawyers have at least one client they can’t stand, but where most bite their tongue, TMD does the Lord’s work and goes on the offensive, providing relief by proxy to an entire profession.
Joel H’s one star review earned a blistering response in which TMD accused him of being a childish fool guilty of attempted extortion.
“It's a shame that, as we advised you would happen, the examiner did not accept your trademark application for reasons explained", it said.
"Its a shame also that you did not pay any attention to the correspondence you were sent and so missed the deadlines. It then came as no surprise that you should then try to make out this was in some way a fault of Trade Mark Direct demanding a full refund and posting a bad review as a typical shakedown. Amongst the thousands of professional grown up clients we have the pleasure to serve there's a handful who are not”.
TMD ably turns the tables on the reviewers, giving them stinging write-ups.
“Following your rudeness and misogyny on the phone yesterday, the attorney who spoke to you has been on sick leave due to stress”, the company told ‘Joe’ in response to his negative review.
“Your bullying behaviour and bad review were a typical shakedown trying to avoid paying fees for advice received. Shameful behaviour, and inexplicable for someone who supposedly advises people on their 'personal brand' It goes without saying we would never have you as a client again.”
Another poor review prompted TMD to react as so many businesses wish they could: with withering sarcasm.
“Our application didn't appear to meet the requirements for registration”, said Angelica, from a consultancy called Truth. TMD explained that after rectifying a “small, easily remedied hitch…your application has now of course been registered. If this is deserving of a one star review I can only Marvel at the perfect service clients of Truth.ms must receive!”
Asked about its pugnacious approach to customer relations, the company did not respond. ROF rates them 5 stars.
LawyerUp lets you receive expressions of interest from top firms and companies when they like you for a role. Joins thousands of other legal professionals and grab it on the App Store and Google Play.
Comments
90
29
I love this approach.
33
96
Sounds like the regulator might want to take a look. That’s just not appropriate really, is it?
32
24
Do people really use Trustpilot these days? Googlemaps (I know) is gaining more credibility.
52
21
Other law firms ought to behave like this too
Most other companies in fact.
Make right where the company is at fault but have a spine where the client is being a moron. There’s too much of this, ‘what of our reputation’, it’s easier not to annoy the client further’, let’s just keep quiet, it will blow over quicker…’
Some clients are actually wrong - no one is always right, certainly not customers. Clients have become more demanding in recent years, wanting a perfect service, refusing to take responsibility for their own lack of willingness to engage in any process or respond to deadlines, or to help their lawyers carry out their instructions.
This is by no means true of all clients - as there are many who are great to work with and are professional, forgiving, live in the real world, and understand the concepts of time and money, - but in recent years, the sense of ‘entitlement’ has grown sharply among a small handful of clients and they do need a reality check and some honesty.
The above reviews are actually very restrained, and serve as counterbalance to the client’s version of events - something that is rarely heard these days…
Good work TMD.
25
17
Google reviews are also unreliable. The SRA could build a team for investigating allegations of dishonest reviews on social media.
16
20
For people interested in motor cars I can commend YouTube channel 'Barum Engines'. They are totally honest and happily humiliate their disgruntled customers who try it on. They admit when they, occasionally, drop a bo**ock. We need more like them and Trademark Direct.
25
17
I think they are taking a bold and brave approach. It is right to call our grown up bullies and liars and they should be commended for doing so. Far too many of us don’t because we are cowards, because we are afraid of negative publicity, because we are worried about causing offence, because our HR/PR depts tell us not to. This is refreshing. #callitout
29
26
Disclosing content of privileged advice. Sharing personal information that was not already in public. Good thing there are no rules against solicitors or data controllers doing that.
21
26
It is likely that responding in the manner as indicated by the anonymous comment dated 19 August 23 at 08:22 could potentially constitute a violation of the SRA Principles and Code of Conduct.
Moreover, it appears that the comments left by this individual for their customers share a resemblance to the poor sentence structure and construction found in some of the comments posted here in support of the firm. Of notable concern are the grammatical inaccuracies and multiple typographical errors present in several comments, particularly those attributed to Mark Kingsley-Williams.
21
15
I can confirm that Google reviews are equally unreliable. I had a look at the "reviews" of our geographically closest competitors and clearly our competitors are entirely oblivious to these "reviews" that are so far out as reviewing the furnitures! Tragically, the furniture did not match the expectations.
As if often the case, things are very different north of the border, and I saw one firm going up against such reviewers. I wonder what kind of insanity possessed these reviewers when they decided to go up against a Scottish firm, especially as it was a Glaswegian firm, and most serious of all, a Glasgow IP law firm.
29
22
‘’Anonymous 19 August 23 13:40
It is likely that responding in the manner as indicated by the anonymous comment dated 19 August 23 at 08:22 could potentially constitute a violation of the SRA Principles and Code of Conduct.’
Can’t tell if you are poking fun at the 8.22 comment or if you are being serious as you’ve written your post dead-pan like an A level law student who has just come from their first class on conduct. Or maybe you are one of the former clients picking up a law textbook for the first time?
The complainants have identified themselves and chosen to discuss their case - so the lawyers are entitled to reply - and you’ll see they don’t go into any specifics, simply pointing out how the client went wrong - so I don’t think there’s any obvious privilege or breach thingy here - what is it that you think is a breach?
30
20
I support this firm 100%. They absolutely should have the right of reply to people leaving fake or unfair negative reviews.
@Anon 13:40 and 08:22 - so its fine for bullying and abusive people to leave fake reviews, yet outrageous when the firm replies?
17
21
Quick google and it looks like they aren't really operational anymore - Kate McCormick seems to have left in March. Also as they're not solicitors but trademark attorneys they're not SRA regulated....
22
14
Quick question... how many non-chargeable hours do you think TMD has spent posting on this article?