Metricon sending legal threats to members of Facebook page

https://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victo ... 1661800021

“Members of a Facebook group dedicated to people left “disappointed” by Metricon are receiving legal threats for talking about their experience.”

Lol. How not to draw attention to yourself.

This is unlikley to help their business in the slightest

joined the facebook group for a squiz at whats going on. lol is all i can say.

They should be doing the exact opposite.

Taking the criticism on the chin and working on solving their customer's issues head on.

I remember on this forum back in 2018 when Wisdom was copping a lot of heat, Mark Scully would actively engage his customers on here and then he started Facebook live sessions where customers could talk to him and ask questions.

I called him back then and spoke to him about it as It was a really clever and ballsy thing to do.

It takes some confidence to be able to hear negative things about your business and front up.

It's amazing how despite what is commonly known about what constitutes good and bad business practice, that the people at the helm can continually make decisions that run contrary to that knowledge. Muppets.

That sums up Metricon's "Business as Usual" mentality - with their scarce financial resouces still focussed on marketing, sales, and multiple legal actions against their poor suffering customers. At this risky stage, for their brand's survival, they should invest their limited cashflow in the actual construction. Buyer beware!

Can the builder really / actually come after you if you put up a picture saying - this is what you get with Builder XYZ - ?

"This is what you get when...." implies all of their work is bad, rather than just your example of the poor work. Not to mention thats rarely where it ends either. People get workd up and say much worse things, often becoming slanderous in an attempt to cause their business harm because they feel wronged. So yeah they could depending on the context.

Remember that there are thousands of happy and satisfied customers too.

The output is only as good as the trades doing the job some of the trades are good, others not.

If your pictures and facts are genuine, and you don't defame anyone (read the defamation law first) you are entitled to comment about your Metricon issues and unsatisfactory experience publicly. This benefits eveyone, including Metricon.

Good to know Metricon is now taking the customer feedback seriously with lawyers fees at around $750 per hour. Those detailed comments with photo evidence on facebook will surely assist Metricon management to assess their performance and conduct the necessary counselling and make appropriate personnel changes to improve their current build quality and often cynical, dismissive behaviors as documented by facebook and other forums.

Onwards and upwards! In the meantime however, until they actually lift their game, caveat emptor!

Hi Perthgirl,

Noname is correct.

So I have personal experience with this when in 2018 I posted photos in this forum of defective work by a builder ( not Metricon) and they sued me for defamation.

I had to engage a defamation barrister and went through the whole process of spending a ton of money and here is what I learnt:

1. In NSW businesses can not sue individuals for defamation ( not sure about other States), but there is another avenue they can get you on which is harder to prove ( cant remember the legal term) which kicks in if you are actively encouraging other people to not do business with the company in question.

2. You need to keep your comments to being just about your own personal experience with your build and you can not generalise as per Noname's post and say that they are terrible on every job as they might very well have heaps of happy customers.

Whilst I managed to do everything that protected me legally with my posts, it was still a pain and very costly to defend myself.

So the key takeaways are always be very careful about what you publish online and only refer to your own personal experiences and be completely truthful in what you write. Do not exaggerate and do not generalise.

So in conclusion, be honest, measured and accurate in what you say online, and remember that no matter how bad your experience might be, and how angry you are, when big companies come after you, it can cost you a lot of money to defend yourself.

I ended up on friendly terms with the builder ( again not Metricon) after all was said and done, and when I heard his side of the story I actually felt sorry for him.

Same as with the company in question ( Metricon). The main person who caused all this drama has now left this world and there are a bunch of mostly nice people in there who are trying to clean up what was left behind.

They are building 3 homes in my neighbourhood and seem to be progressing them quite quickly.

Anyhow, I hope everyone enjoys their Monday

Cheers

Simeon

wow 1 person gone, all the rest angels! hahaha

I know 3 top builders who have staff employed just to troll the internet and social media sites to eliminate the bad reviews or comments. They will use legal help if they have too or if they come to an agreement if they fix x,y,z you have to remove all content about them and they have legal documents for you to sign already preped for these situations. I guess its a sign of business standards nowadays

That's still a win for the client IMO. Take it where you can

Metricon is extremely sensitive to negative social media. If you experience any difficulty getting them to acknowledge and rectify construction defects i suggest posting clear pictures and honest, balanced, polite details on facebook, insta, productreview etc. Its a faster, more efficient and effective method of communicating with Metricon than calls, texts, email, or via NSWDFT, DBDRV, QBC... etc i understand.

what happened to the couple in NSW who won case at Tribunal but refused to pay for completion of house? was all over the pages a little while ago

They may have signed an agreement to make no further negative comments about Metricon?

are you talking about the one with the photo shopped expansion joints ( allegedly)?

Allegedly?

I was being sarcastic