As the blog post kindly submitted here points out, the company's conduct appears to be fraudulent, and there isn't the tiniest chance that the woman who made a legitimate factual statement about the company in an online review will have to pay even one cent to the company. Good on Popehat and other sites for spreading the word about how scummy that company is. (By the way, the title of the submission here is misleading, and is not the original blog post title. Popehat's title is "New From KlearGear: Free Speech, Only $3,500 Plus Shipping And Handling," and that even fits the length limit imposed by Hacker News.)
You can find TechDirt's coverage, which prompted the blog post submitted here with additional legal analysis, at the TechDirt site.
AFTER EDIT: To answer the question that has come up, which I think is adequately answered by the submitted blog post, companies can report consumers to credit bureaus for nonpayment, including nonpayment of civil judgments. But when those reports are fraudulent, as here, the consumer can also dispute the report, and the consumer should be able to come out with a clean credit record in the end. MANY years ago, my wife ordered a product by mail order, and we discovered the product was defective, and returned it. The company still wanted to bill us, and sent us a letter threatening to report us to a credit agency if we didn't pay. I simply wrote that the product was defective and that we had returned it and we disputed the company's point of view on the company's demand letter, and sent that back by return mail. That was the end of the matter, back in those days. We have a very clean credit history. I speak my mind whenever I think I have been ripped off.
But when those reports are fraudulent, as here, the consumer can also dispute the report, and the consumer should be able to come out with a clean credit record in the end.
Specifically: Jen and her husband also disputed the ding with the credit bureaus but because Kleargear.com says the charge is valid the the ding remains.
I've personally experienced what it's like when credit bureaus decide to mistreat you, so I believe this. She likely has no recourse to dispute it short of hiring a lawyer, which is effectively impossible if she happens to be living paycheck-to-paycheck. (It's hard to grok the mental burden placed on you merely to survive, let alone repel an assault from a big, faceless company unless you've been in a situation like "I have to choose between buying groceries or paying for my dying cat's medical treatment," for example.)
If the reported version of events are true, then what this company did to her is reprehensible and should be punished. Otherwise it will set a dire precedent for other companies to try this in the future.
I have successfully removed bogus credit dings from my report. You have to follow a lot of steps and document everything well. If the creditor or agency doesn't respond correctly, you can sue them in small claims court for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The lawsuit always gets their attention!
You can find TechDirt's coverage, which prompted the blog post submitted here with additional legal analysis, at the TechDirt site.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131113/06112425228/online...
The TV news report that got this story rolling:
http://www.kutv.com/news/features/gephardt/stories/vid_474.s...
AFTER EDIT: To answer the question that has come up, which I think is adequately answered by the submitted blog post, companies can report consumers to credit bureaus for nonpayment, including nonpayment of civil judgments. But when those reports are fraudulent, as here, the consumer can also dispute the report, and the consumer should be able to come out with a clean credit record in the end. MANY years ago, my wife ordered a product by mail order, and we discovered the product was defective, and returned it. The company still wanted to bill us, and sent us a letter threatening to report us to a credit agency if we didn't pay. I simply wrote that the product was defective and that we had returned it and we disputed the company's point of view on the company's demand letter, and sent that back by return mail. That was the end of the matter, back in those days. We have a very clean credit history. I speak my mind whenever I think I have been ripped off.