Questions & Answers
Blogging about a restaurant and giving a negative review
We are food bloggers and were invited by a restaurant to review their food. Once we arrived, the owner said she did not know of this.
When we showed her the written confirmation from her husband she refused to accept it.
They wasted our time and money, making us come all the way to her restaurant just to be told to get out.
She was becoming hostile so my sister took out her phone to take a video of her screaming at us.
But when the lady noticed the phone she attacked my sister. She pulled and scratched her very badly. She left a big mark on my sister’s arm.
When the police came we were told to delete the video which we did in front of them itself.
Once the police left, she threatened us that if we ever mention this to someone, post about it on Instagram, or leave a bad review on Zomato, that they will take us to court.
Can she do this? I only want to write an honest review on Zomato where I explain our situation and post the pictures of my sisters arm.
Or can she make a case on us?
Dear questioner,
I would like to speak about a few points:
1. Reporting the incident to the police
You should have reported the incident to the police and requested them to open a police complaint about the restaurant owner for assault.
I do not understand what happened when the police attended to the restaurant. Did you or did you not file such complaint?
2. Recording an incident by phone
Please note that taking the video of such incident in itself was not a crime. However, posting it online and writing about it may be interpreted by the police as unauthorized use of media content that is used for defamation.
In this case, it would have been much better for you to refuse to delete the video and to insist to attach it to your police complaint about the assault.
3. Posting a review and telling your story of the incident:
It depends on how accurate and honest you are to post such review and what photos are you going to use. I can only help you after reading the review you wish to post. So, you can draft it and send it to us to review it before posting.
On the other hand, any mention of facts that happened during the incident that has nothing to do with the restaurant review will most probably be interpreted as an attempt to talk negative and harm the restaurant’s business, especially that now you have no proof or evidence that the incident actually occurred and no video.
I advise you to proceed with your police complaint and only after seeing its ending results you can decide whether you still want to post such review or not.
Regards,
Ahmed Elnaggar
