NatWest targetting review sites with lawyers

patrick0

Martin,
You'd better be careful with reviews of NatWest on your site. They've set lawyers on to a student info site for posting this page reviewing NatWest's student account:
http://www.118student.co.uk/bank-accounts/natwest.html

The Reg's article about it ..
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/27/natwest_law_pah/

It sounds like NatWest don't like it because it's saying that NatWest don't have a particularly good student offering. I can see NatWest getting a lot of bad publicity out of this on Twitter etc.

icefall

I don't get it why are Natwest so worried about such a small site, why is there any need to set the dragons on them?

MoneySavingUser

The register article claims copyright infrigement - !!!!!!?

kermitfrog

It seems obvious to me that someone representing NatWest has done a trawl of websites, found their name being used, and without putting their brain into gear, has shot off an automated letter threatening legal action.

Once someone with an operating brain cell checks it out, the whole fuss will disappear.

BargainGalore

Lets hope it backfires on them

Banks deserve contempt it will be a long time before anyone has any respect for any of them

dmg24

The issue appears to be that the website has copied and pasted directly from the Natwest website, which could well be a breach of copyright. Any website that knows what they are doing would ask permission to use someone elses work and/ or credit the original source accordingly. MSE will always credit the source of their information, so I can't see a problem here.

patrick0

NatWest have withdrawn the threat and apologised. The student site should charge them a £35 fee.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/02/natwest_legal_letter/

kermitfrog

As I said before, once someone in NatWest with a functioning brain looks at this, the threat will be withdrawn.

To quote NatWest's email, as reproduced in theregister -

I have examined your website and agree that you are not deliberately trying to deceive our customers and, to the contrary, are seeking to provide an informative website for students ... I appreciate that the e-mail sent to you by our agents may have created unnecessary alarm and I can only apologise for this. Please be assured that we will be feeding this back to our agents.

So the lesson to be learned here is that not everything you see is a conspiracy, it's usually just a c--kup.