Consumer rights? It's an oxymoron. Consumers in Malaysia, Mana ada rights!!!

I was reading the news today and read through this article about our court banning a website created by a very angry customer. No doubt that this person was really angry about the car he purchased and obviously, he went through all the trouble to get a website up and share his embarrassing and painful experience. I'm sure he is not the only person with such bad experience. I'm sure a lot of people feels the same way and wish that they themselves can put a website up to expressed their bad experience in buying a car.

A part of me feel that this person should be lauded instead of being condemned. His agonizing experience alone seems enough as punishment. But alas, he was punished by silence. His voice and concerns are force to be shutdown and his lips was sewn together while he have to carry a pejorative mark of insolence on his forehead. Consumers in Malaysia, Mana ada rights!!! (Consumers in Malaysia, they don't have rights!!!)

Rather than siding on the consumer who earns probably a basic salary, just enough to pay his housing, car loan and now repairs for his car, the court decided to shut him down. He was force to bring down his website which was all about his dissatisfaction with a car manufacturer company in Malaysia. Where is our freedom of speech? Wait, we don't have one....:)

So lets analyze the whole thing and think about it. What would probably be the fair trial:

Firstly, I think, consumers should have the right to express their opinions regardless of true or false. Besides, its only an opinion and the court cannot assume that others are idiots to take people's opinion for granted.

Second, if the opinions are making the company to have a bad image from any form of publication, therefore, the publication itself should not be stopped, but the content of it should be altered to sound more opinionated and objective rather than an act of defaming the company. If the company feels that the content was defaming the company in anyway, justification of loss in revenue or potential loss of revenue through customers sentiments should be presented to support the claim.

Third, if customers opinions are wrong, by no means that a company should have any rights to take away that opinion. It is the responsibility of the company to clear their own reputation, by keeping customers happy, by improving their products' quality or by showing off their products' good traits and rating or what not. Showing proof and justification from their own data would certainly vindicate them from any form of false claims by unscrupulous customers.

Well, it leaves me with some questions after thinking about what the verdict should be?

1. So what should the judge make Fong do?
2. Since when are the Judges really interested on how a company feels? (Poor company, don't cry, we will beat him up for you, don't you worry)
3. Where is the right channel to expressed problems with manufacturers and companies if they are indeed at fault. So that people like Fong will be legally represented? (Yeah, I wish we can act againts non-performing contractors, bad manufacturers with faulty products and etc)
4. Why is the company being such a baby about it? Have they lost a few millions already? What about Fong? How much have he spent to fix his car? Maybe helping Fong repair his car would be a better solution rather than making lawyers rich over this stupid dispute....

***As a disclaimer....This article in my blog is purely an opinion of mine, and it has no intention in defaming any company in Malaysia. Thinking so would be reading out of context which consequently invalidate any claims of defamation by the writer...

Snippet of article attached below....

Ruling to bar website upheld

PUTRAJAYA: A disgruntled engineer who had put up a website containing several defamatory allegations against Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (Perodua) after purchasing a Kelisa with defects failed to overturn an interim injunction order barring the site.
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Justice Sri Ram said that if the article, written by Fong, was a personal grievance and contained true facts, he could consider it fair comment.
“But he went further and attacked the reputation and integrity of that company,” he said.
Fong, 49, was appealing against the Kuala Lumpur High Court's decision on Sept 17, 2003, which granted Perodua, Perodua Manufacturing Sdn Bhd and Perodua Sales Sdn Bhd the injunction to bar his website pending the trial.
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Read all about it at........thestar.com.my