Can I be sued for reporting a bad business?

Hi,

First of all, congratulations! :-)

You could ask the journalist to frame it as an investigative report of their own, with your names redacted, so even if they know it's about you and want to sue, they can't sue anyone but the newspaper.

Or there's the hail marry option of posting your side of the story to the "Tekozlo Homar" consumer protection site, which gives an opportunity to the businesses to respond and clear their names in the comments section or follow-up articles, which they without fail squander on making a fool of themselves :-) I know of only one case where the website itself was sued and forced to publish a one-page correction, followed by countless pages of ridicule in the comments :-)

octobop wrote:

Our complaint filed with Hungarian consumer protection has gone unanswered.

Just to clarify, I assume you have been to this site for information:

http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/solving_c … dex_en.htm

And this one:

http://www.magyarefk.hu/

And do expect these things can take months to process (despite what the web site may claim is their turn around time).

octobop wrote:

we just want our money back

If you can not get a satisfactory solution from the consumer mitigation sites above, then you can next purse judicial redress. Follows the appropriate links at the first link above.

octobop wrote:

and to warn people in the summer wedding season to get everything in writing and don't pay anything, no matter how grumpy the staff is getting, until you look over the bills line by line.

You just did. 

You can say that as much as you like in a general way as a public service statement without naming names and some people will now remember to do that in all their transactions. That already helps other people. Maybe you can not publicly direct people away from Mr. X specifically, but you will still protect some people now from the Mr. Y and Mr. Z who will try to do the same to people.

octobop wrote:

before the article is published

If the journalist is specifically a consumer rights journalist, they can often get things done that Jane and Joe public can not.

Else, if the case has merit for judicial redress, I would probably first simply fill out the forms on a small court claim on the amount first (I assume the amount is a small claim amount). And if you get nowhere on the failure of the EU consumer system to help you might have even a much better and broader story, in my opinion, as a whole than just a story about a possible dishonest merchant. And if the court filing is a public document, the merchant can not sue you or the newspaper for merely reporting on a public document. What the merchant can do is sue on what you may say in the article if you are interviewed. If you fear that, simply get a lawyer to review your interview (but if that fee costs significantly more than your loss to the merchant, then ask yourself if the worry over this issue is worth it -- some times the bad guy wins).

Any action you take in any way or means may invoke a response by the other that may be disproportionate to the issue. The merchant may say you misunderstood his intent in the emails and other documents, you are harassing him, he may come up with staff that say disparaging things about you, etc. etc. etc. Trial in the court of public opinion can backfire, and you may even experience an unexpected "circle the wagons" group response by people supporting the other guy. Seen it happen. So be prepared for that. Read something like 198 methods of nonviolent action just to see what all the options you may have. Also read "The Art of War"; not to mimic the strategy, but the other person probably has read it, and to be foretold is to be forewarned to anticipate the other's possible strategy.

Thank you for your replies, I am sorry I did not respond earlier, I never got the messages that there were replies on my post (I hate when you help people then never hear from them again, like.. gee... you're welcome...)
The report was due for the weekend, and it was like, "make a decision now or never" so we backed out of the article to save our butts.  The reporter thought the newspaper could help us in case of trouble, but the boss kind of made it clear they weren't going to do anything on our behalf.

We had to weigh our options, and sadly, we just have to let this one go.  All I can do is review on TripAdvisor and spread the word to social networking groups.  Live and learn.

However, yes I do hope that some day we will receive a positive reply from consumer protection - they sent my husband a reply that THEY can't do anything, but they'll send our complaint to ANOTHER office/branch/bureau, but who knows what will come of that?