In case you've missed it I have to draw your attention to a post by Alexander on Fake Plastic Souks.
Briefly, a Kuwaiti blogger posted a restaurant review, in which he gave a couple of positive comments but said he was unimpressed with the food and wouldn't go back.
Fair enough, you'd think.
I'll quote a few lines from Alex's post:
And then there's the comment from a geezer called Mike Servo, who claimed to be the general manager of the Benihana management of Kuwait and who threatened to sue Mark.
"...our rights and name is being used in a wrong way and broadcasting the video without a proper consent from us is really annoying specially Benihana is just opened up its doors to the public. We are seeking and consulting our legal dept. on how we can form a type of law suit against your website to be brought up to the Kuwait authorities."
He goes on to trill: "We want you to give us your information, your name, your number and your address so our lawyer will take it from there and be sure that you in Kuwait were the jury is 100 % clean and fair."
Mark posted up on Twitter yesterday that he had received the lawsuit. Benihana Kuwait actually went ahead and sued a blogger for writing a bad review of their restaurant.
It's something that infuriates me. Justifiable criticism from a customer and a company rushes to the legal system.
Benihana HQ needs to look at this seriously and quickly because the action by their Kuwaiti franchisee is bringing their brand into disrepute.
In my opinion the unprofessional, unbusinesslike action needs to get as much exposure on the 'net as we can give it, which is why I've repeated the story here. I hope you other bloggers and social media users will expose these people too.
PS an hour later.
Just before shutting down and heading off to the airport I thought I'd see what cyberspace had on this. Bloggers, Twitter, Facebook - have a look folks. Benihana Kuwait have created a PR disaster for themselves. All their own work.
I wonder if they're beginning to understand how business works in the real world. You know, the place where customers have a say too. Where bullying and threatening creates a backlash.
If you are beginning to understand it, it's too late guys, you've damaged the brand already. You've poured ridicule on your own brand.