Over the past few days, local paddleboard rental company, Palli Palli Paddle, has been receiving numerous negative Google reviews and backlash over the conduct of the founder and CEO of the company, Marc Helman.
This past weekend, Felicia Lai and her father had a negative interaction with Helman, who not only runs Palli Palli Paddle, but also delivers food on the side from his company vehicle.
Lai claims that it began when Helman pulled up in front of the house to deliver food to their neighbours’ suite, but approached their residence instead.
She says that frequently, Uber or Skip the Dishes drivers get mixed up and typically one of her family members informs the delivery driver they have the wrong place.
Lai added that usually the drivers are understanding, polite and apologetic.
However, in this instance, Lai’s father—who is Chinese but speaks English—was out front working on a vehicle in the driveway and smoking a cigarette, and Helman ignored him and pushed through to the front door of their residence.
“My father… went out and nicely told the fellow that he’s got the wrong house and that it’s often mistaken and pointed to him where the proper entrance to the [neighbours’] suite was,” Lai told Victoria Buzz.
“The fellow straight up ignored his existence and continued with his delivery and then when he was leaving smirked and laughed.”
She says that usually her father would not take this kind of interaction to heart, but seeing him have to deal with that behaviour was upsetting and she sought to do something about it.
Lai sent Palli Palli Paddle an email, though she says at the time, she did not know it was the founder of the company who had behaved in this manner.
The email exchange
She says she wasn’t seeking to disrepute the company, or seek compensation of any kind, she was simply hoping for an apology and to be taken seriously, she threatened to make a trespassing complaint to police.
What she got back from Palli Palli Paddle was an email that left her feeling even worse.
In the email, the company replied by saying that an internal review had been conducted. They alleged that an “older Chinese man” physically assaulted the driver on his way to the door and that the driver could not hear because he was listening to headphones.
Furthermore, the email referred to Lai’s father as a “chain-smoking individual” that the driver was trying to avoid confrontation with.
Palli Palli Paddle’s email, which Lai believes was written by Helman, then threatened to make a formal assault complaint to the police if Lai and her family pursued a trespassing complaint.
In Lai’s response to this email, she let Palli Palli Paddle know that the whole interaction had been caught on camera, which clearly shows that no assault took place.
She also welcomed them to file an assault complaint if they wished as she would be happy to supply police with the video account of what happened.
Following these email exchanges, Lai talked to the neighbours, whose food it was that was being delivered, and they confirmed through their order history that it was indeed ‘Marc H’ who completed their order that day.
She says she believes that it was Helman who was emailing her on behalf of the company, misrepresenting himself throughout the exchange.
After having enough of the back and forth, Lai went to VicPD, who would ultimately tell her there was nothing they could do about it aside from speak to Helman about it.
It was then that Lai received one final email, this time with Helman’s name as the signature, but it was written entirely in Chinese script.
After translating the email, Lai discovered that it contained foul language about her and her family, as well as threats.
The email began with, “I am going to write this in a language I know your crazy dada can understand, so there will be no misunderstanding.”
“F*ck you. I’m fed up with stupid, stingy and narrow-minded people like you and your family. It is the self-righteous and narrow-minded people like you and your family that make the world worse.”
Helman’s email continued by accusing Lai of wasting the police’s time and resources.
“As the police told you, unless your house has a fence or a sign that clearly says ‘Bastards live here, no entry,’ if someone accidentally steps on your damn driveway, it is not a crime and calling to complain is also a waste of police force,” he wrote to Lai.
Helman then continued by referring to her and her family as “absolutely psychopaths” and “madmen,” while saying “F*ck you” one more time.
In the post script of the email he threatened to go to social media to inform the public of their residence.
The backlash
After providing all email receipts to Victoria Buzz, as well as the video of her father’s interaction with Helman, a friend of Lai’s took the matter to social media, sharing all the correspondence with the public via the Victoria Reddit page.
After just one day, the post has garnered over 1,000 upvotes and 400 comments.
Additionally, Palli Palli Paddle has received numerous negative reviews in the past 24 hours, some of which reference Helman’s behaviour.
One anonymous review reads, “The owner [sic] is unable to take accountability for their actions and apologize. Instead gets extremely defensive, trying to justify his actions with poor excuses. We are coming together as a community to stand up for one another.”
Victoria Buzz reached out to Helman for a statement regarding this conduct, but as of this publication, have not received a response.
However, Helman has been commenting on some of the negative reviews.
On one two-star review, Helman commented, “It is so clear that this is a coordinated attack from people that do not use our service and have been manipulated by lies. Thank you!”
Despite the negative reviews being left on Google over the past day, the business’ rating has actually increased, going from a 4.1-star rating to a 4.8-star rating in just half a day.
Correction: July 30th
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described Marc Helman as the owner of Palli Palli Paddle, when in reality, he is listed as the the founder and CEO of the business.
