Day 41: Threatened with legal action over negative review

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 41: Threatened with legal action over negative review - Contena

Yesterday, at 9:48 p.m. I received an email from Kevin Fleming, founder of Contena.co, threatening me with legal action regarding a blog post I wrote on March 6, 2017.

His email read as follows:

Conny,

We have discovered an article that was written by you which contains false, defamatory statements made against Heroic, LLC d/b/a Contena.co

The article is located at the following url:

http://connymanero.weebly.com/blog/contena-scamming-freelance-writers

You are hereby directed to CEASE AND DESIST ALL DEFAMATION OF CONTENA’S CHARACTER AND REPUTATION.

If this content is not removed within (5) business days, we will will pursue all available legal remedies, including seeking monetary damages, injunctive relief, and an order that you pay court costs and attorney’s fees. 

Please reply in writing as soon as the defamatory content is removed to avoid further action. 

Thank you,

Kevin Fleming

Founder,

Contena.co

Personally, I don’t know what Kevin gets so upset about because everything I wrote in my blog post was true.

Contena does charge a fee for writers to become members of the site. This fee can be paid in one lump sum, or prospective writers can make six payments of $99.

As a freelance writer, I belong to several writing sites and not one of them has ever charged me a fee. 

Registration usually involved listing personal details or personal details and a test article. Never did any of the sites ask for money.

See what other writers have to say about Contena.

https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/5nlh18/is_contena_worth_it/

Needless to say, when threatened with legal I took the blog post down. So much for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It would seem that one can only speak freely when positive things are being said.

www.connymanero.weebly.com

Every action has a reaction

It’s hard being a cat sometimes, especially if you share a house with other cats.

Even though there are three perfectly good baskets around, whenever there’s a box available Chanel, Mickey, Charlotte and Gabriel will take turns curling up in it.  But sometimes one of them overstays his welcome.  In that case patience goes out the window and it’s time for a little action.

While Gabriel was sleeping in a cardboard box today, Mickey did just that.  He positioned himself close to where Gabriel and looked at him.  Make that, stared at him.  He stared and stared and just when I thought he was about to give up, he stared some more.

Gabriel wasn’t bothered.  Mickey could stare all he wanted, Gabe wasn’t moving.  So what did Mickey do … he bit Gabriel’s leg.  He lowered his head, nuzzled his nose into Gabriel’s long hair, but instead of grooming him, he took a bite.

As planned, this action had a reaction.  Unfortunately Mickey hadn’t thought this one through though.  Yes, Gabriel vacated the box, but Mickey couldn’t immediately take possession of it.  First he had to deal with a mouthful of hair.  That comes of it when you bite a longhaired cat.

Do Mickey and Gabriel fight?  Neih, they’re the best of friends, always have been.

In general it wasn’t Mickey’s day today.  This morning I couldn’t find him.  I wasn’t really worried because I had seen him some five minutes before, so I figured he was probably sleeping somewhere.

While waiting for Mick to resurface I decided to make the beds.  I started with Dieter’s bed, grabbed hold of the duvet and flung it on the floor.  There Mickey was, with some dumb look on his face like “What the hell happened?” 

Did he get up?  If you think he did, you don’t know Mickey very well.  He put his head down and went right back to sleep.  Okay, I would come back later.  Much later.

I moved on to my bed.  Once again I grabbed the duvet and threw it off the bed.  I heard a “clonk”.  That was strange, duvets go down softly, they don’t go clonk.  This time I had interrupted Charlotte’s sleep.  She slunk from under the duvet (that was now in a heap on the floor) clearly not impressed.  She gave me a look that said “What’d do that for?”

This was clearly a no win situation for me.  So I left the beds alone and went to do the dishes instead.  Much safer for everyone.