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What would you do? A libel situation
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Well.. at the very least, you should try to contact the company, and ask them to remove your "testimonial". Have you tried just calling and talking to the owner?
And since I am not familiar with the situtation, I googled and found this:
"Jessica Rawson (pole instructor)
Jessica Rawson is an instructor at another pole dance studio in another city but often comes to APD to get training from our instructors. She recently posted a great review on Veena website as well as in the Akron Beacon Journal.
There are dancers who come from all over including clubs to get instruction.
If your a pole dance instructor who needs additional training, our instructors will help you become a better instructor.
If you are interested in taking up pole dancing or pole aerobics as a career, we can help you as well as we have helped many great dancers today."
(Am I right in assuming this is you>?)
If they don't, just write up a google review, yelp review, yahoo review, etc… stating that you are NOT in any way affiliated with this company. Then at least they are the ones who look foolish by trying to capitalize off your name.
And if worse comes to worse.. you may have to go to court.
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In the Akron Beacon Journal? Really? Why can't I find this?
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Because it doesn’t exist kind of like my good referral on veena
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Jessica…a cease and desist is simply a letter of request. When sent by an attorny it does not imply a court order…merely a request to comply. You are not obligated to move forward with an expensive legal battle or proof of internet law.
However many people will comply with a letter from an attorney like this thinking it will lead to a legal battle and not realizing it's not a court order.
Since it's relatively cheap, if this bothers you enough to ask advice, you may wish to consider this approach.
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ps…on the other hand…maybe venting on here was enough? If it helps any…that would burn me if it were my position and I knew the history was not a friendly one!
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I find it very odd that they would use your name like this.. it's not rude or demeaning or really inflammatory.. it just insinuates that you go there every once in a while for training and that you gave them good reviews.. It's just so weird!!!
I really think you should just send them a nice formal letter (without an attorney) stating that they do not have your permission to use your name, or to imply that you "approve" of their teaching techniques, or to state that you have given positive reviews of their business.
But either way, I agree with Empyrean, by venting on here you have let pole dancers know what's really the truth. And the pole dancing community is a close knit family!
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It just frusterates me and it seems like this happens a lot in the pole community. Just today I saw a claim from a studio in a different state claiming that all the studio owners in that city had trained there. I happen to know this as false as the one trained with Fawnia. Of course they didn't call her out by name. It really is odd o well.
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Wow sorry to hear about all this drama. I once read a quote that I really believe in and it totally relates.
“A teacher that is no longer a student is neither.”It’s sad that people have to twist things around. Whenever I see deals on groupon or one of those sites, I buy it. I reallllly like to learn from other teachers but stuff like this makes me wonder. I was once accused of spying when in all actuality I just want to keep growing. I don’t wanna piss anyone off by going to their studio becuz i have my own. Can’t we all just get along? Lol
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dont bother putting your name more reviews on google ect ect… if someones wants to hire you for something and sees this, not cool to see, whwtever the reason is , it will look childish to them…. and they wont care who started what and who trained where . (from a business point of view)
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I don't know much about legal matters but I would have to agree with JBStarryeyed girl about writing the polite formal letter. I would also encourage your students to write their own reviews about their experiences at your studio. That way if someone were researching the two studios, they would see all the fab reviews about you as a superior instructor.
Personally, I rely heavily on public reviews when it comes to my choices. I will go where I see the most good reviews and usually seek out the person mentioned in the review for services.
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Oha nad like Oliviaaa said, stay out of the she said/she said crap, because it only looks bad to outsiders who don't know the situation and may discourage potential students.
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Hi guys – the UK version of events here 🙂
First of all, so sorry to hear you have had to go through this. This company had no right to use your name. Must be very frustrating!
We have something in the UK called the data protection act – it means you can’t print details about someone, or their picture, without their consent, and you can’t hold details on someone for any unnecessary length of time. Don’t know if this applies in the USA? Or something similar?
Ive just left a job after going through 9 months of horrible legal crap. I found emails where they were being down right horrible about me and it was a case of harassment and defamation. Nothing came of it without me having to go to court, which I can’t afford, but when I chose to resign I advised them to remove my name and image from their website.
Similar to you, it wasn’t necessarily negative stuff on the site – I just never want to be associated with them again.
I gave them 1 month to comply before I would take legal action.
Hope you might be able to follow something similar 🙂
Why cant people just be decent to one another?
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