Saskatoon dentist threatened women with legal action for bad online reviews

Two Saskatchewan women turned to the privacy commissioner after a marketing company hired by a Saskatoon dentist started pressuring them to take down negative online reviews.

Two Saskatchewan women turned to the privacy commissioner after a marketing company hired by a Saskatoon dentist started pressuring them to take down negative online reviews.

The women say they were contacted by a man in Calgary purporting to be an employee of the Saskatoon Smiles Dental Group who pressured them to delete their bad reviews. According to details in a report from the Information and Privacy Commissioner obtained by CTV News, the women were even threatened with legal action.

Saskatoon Smiles owner Dr. Wes Antosh confirmed the man — who identified himself to the women only as Kal — was an employee hired to manage the "online reputation" of his business, the report says.

“This person describes looking at information from my medical files from Saskatoon Smiles Dental Studios and looking at them for the sole reason of finding ‘merit’ for my Google review, then threatening myself for ‘defamation and slander’ due to my Google review,” one of the former patients wrote in her complaint to the privacy commissioner.

Commissioner Ronald Kruzeniski said Antosh's employee breached the women’s privacy because he had no legal reason to access their contact information and details about their dental procedures while managing the online reputation of the business.

Unhappy with the results of a procedure, one of the women responded to Kal asking for a refund.

On Nov. 5, 2021, she received a contract from Meadow Lake-based lawyer Gerald Perkins offering to reimburse her the $3,746 for the dental work — on the condition that she delete all negative comments and agree to refrain from publicly commenting on Saskatoon Smiles in the future.