A Texas man left a negative review of a company on the internet and the establishment decided to take legal action.
According to Oklahoma’s NBC affiliate, Tim Castleman from Lubbock, Texas hired an Irish company to help him grow his business in 2015. During the process, Castleman said he discovered that the company made $8,000 worth of mistakes. Once his attempt to handle things privately went awry, he decided to post a negative review of the company online.
“I just say ‘Hey as a customer, here is what I experienced with this,” Castleman said. “For a lot of people, $8,000 would sink them, as it did with this business.”
The company asked him to take it down and said that they would sue Castleman for defamation and request $300,000 in damages. When he refused, he was hit with a massive lawsuit. Castleman claimed that he never received notice of a court date for the lawsuit so the company won by default. This led to Castleman owing the company $60,000 without even knowing.
Eventually, interest rates helped the $60,000 climb to hundreds of thousands. His inability to pay led to his properties being seized and sold.
“I took a lot of pride in my business and all of that is taken away from me and you’re helpless, there is nothing. I can’t yell and scream enough to get anyone to do anything,” he said. “Everything you work for can just be taken away in a minute and again, very dark days, thoughts of suicide.”
He is now waiting on a date with an appellate level court during which he hopes the judge’s decision is overturned and he’s issued a fair trial.
