Consumer Activist Sues Optical Express for Libel

0:00On April 21, a consumer activist named Sasha Radoi is suing laser eye surgery chain optical express for libel in Britain's high court. She says the company launched a smear campaign against her after she started a website to connect unhappy patients from their procedures. Court papers claim they hired a PR firm to dig up dirt and send letters to former customers labeling her unreliable. In July 2020 and November 2021, those letters warned ex-patients about her, calling her a troublemaker and accusing her of fraud and online harassment. Radoi argues this scared some people off from pursuing their own complaints against the firm, which has over 130 stores across the UK and Ireland. Radoi got into this fight after her own laser surgery with a different clinic left her vision wrecked and distrustful of the industry. She's helped thousands of folks dealing with botched operations, appearing on TV and in papers to call out what she sees as shady sales tactics that downplay risks.

1:03Optical express fights back, saying their claims about her are mostly true, including old tabloid stunts from the 1990s that they call fraudulent. They insist the letters didn't cause real damage under defamation laws and that they had a right to warn patients about bad advice. The battle still playing out in court, with both sides digging in on reputation and truth, leaving patients caught in the crossfire of this eye. Surgery showdown