The lady boss of a chicken hot pot stall in Ang Mo Kio has received a lawyer's letter of demand from her competitor -- over a Facebook post.
The lady boss, Shirli Ling, 31, runs 8889 Chicken Pot at the Block 133 Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3 coffee shop.
The letter of demand was served on her after she wrote on Facebook about her competitor, Qi Xiang Chicken Pot, according to Shin Min Daily News.
via Shin Min Daily News
What happened?
Ling had shot a promotional video for her business, but she is now claiming she is unable to have the video disseminated online, due to the antics of her competitor.
In response to these claims that were put up on social media, the competitor served a letter of demand on the lady boss, demanding a retraction and S$50,000 as compensation.
What Facebook post said?
On Dec. 22, Ling wrote about the competitor, Qi Xiang Chicken Pot, and alleged that the owner of that business was trying to suppress her promotional video on Facebook by asking the platforms she worked with to not share it.
Ling told the Shin Min that she had spent S$3,000 on making the video in December 2019, as business for her was not good at the beginning.
The video was to be promoted on the Damn Worth It Facebook page.
Ling said: "I negotiated with the platform owner, every time I repost the video, the publicity fee is S$500."
Rival sought out same platform
Ling added that the issue arose when Qi Xiang Chicken Pot also sought out the marketing services of Damn Worth It, and supposedly paid a bigger sum and even gained exclusive publicity rights, which prohibited the platform from giving a shout out to other chicken pot stalls.
Ling said: "I didn't think it was fair at first, but after all, people paid more, and I didn't want to make life difficult for the person in charge of the platform."
Subsequently, Ling sought out another Facebook platform, Foodaholic, to promote her stall.
Other platform also stopped working with her
She said she did not expect the owner of Qi Xiang Chicken Pot to allegedly block her promotional efforts again.
Ling said she was told that the people who ran Foodaholic learned their ropes from the ones who are running the Damn Worth It platform.
As a result of this affiliation, Foodaholic was also unable to help Ling promote her chicken hot pot stall.
Competitor responds
In response to the allegations, the 37-year-old owner of Qi Xiang Chicken Pot, who did not want to be named, told the Chinese paper how he understood the matter.
He said he had already signed a contract for publicity with Damn Worth It in July 2019 and had an exclusive relationship with the firm.
He said: "We then discovered last year that the company helped Ling's business to shoot a promotional video."
"When we contacted the company, they said they would stop helping the other party to promote their business. Afterwards, the other party found a platform that was connected to the advertising company to promote her video.”
The Qi Xiang Chicken Pot owner also said he saw the recent Christmas promotional material for Ling's business, and notified the platform, but did not ask to take down the video.
He said he wanted to remain calm in the face of this issue, but did not expect Ling to take to Facebook to post her accusations against him.
Hired a lawyer
In response to Ling's Facebook post, the owner of Qi Xiang Chicken Pot hired a lawyer to send a letter of demand to Ling to retract her post, apologise, and to stop making further accusations, as well as, demanding S$50,000 as compensation for harming his brand.
The owner of Qi Xiang Chicken Pot also further elaborated that he was just exercising his company's contractual rights and seeing that the obligations of the advertising platform are fulfilled.
This involved stopping the platform from advertising for Qi Xiang Chicken Pot's competitors.
The owner of Qi Xiang Chicken Pot also said he will not prevent another platform from advertising for his rival.
But he has evidence that Damn Worth It and Foodaholic have a close relationship.
Shin Min contacted Damn Worth It, but it declined comment.
Will resolve matter via legal means
Ling told Shin Min that she will resolve this issue via legal means.
She said: "At this point, there is no need to continue arguing. I will ask my lawyer to deal with it. As for whether to take the post, I need to consult with the lawyer before deciding."