Does the threat of negative reviews constitute extortion?
Question Details: A small mortgage lender admitted fault in screwing up our loan, causing us to miss the close date and seek another lender. We are out approximately $2K due to costs associated with their mistakes. My wife, in an email requested reimbursement and stated in return, we would be willing to do the following: 1) not report XXX to the BBB; 2) not publish bad reports and reviews about XXX all over the Internet; and 3) not bad mouth XXX to any potential buyers. On a phone call with the company president, he said this was "extortion" and said we were lucky he didn't go to the police. Is this extortion?
Yes. Threatening to do something which you otherwise have the right to do, in exchange for forbearance, or to receive other consideration, is civil and criminal extortion.
