It is the latest legal action launched against an online forum or review website for publishing negative comments, following several high profile cases in Australia and overseas.

Financial advice group WCS Group has initiated action against Whirlpool in the Supreme Court of Victoria, seeking unspecified damages and costs, despite the fact the forum generates no revenue.

If the lawsuit is successful, it could essentially bankrupt the forum, which claims to have almost 650,000 members but makes no money.

In the statement of claims lodged on August 7, WCS Group claims its reputation has come under attack by user ‘homemadecook’, whom it believes is either a competitor or disgruntled former employee.

Essendon-based WCS Group provides financial planning, property investment and mortgage services. Its lawyers previously requested the posts be removed three times between June and July. It is seeking an injunction to have the posts removed. The posts currently remain online.

The forum user ‘homemadecook’ claims to be a mother of two and wrote 10 posts on May 29 this year on Whirlpool’s ‘wealth creation’ board about being approached by WCS Group and being quoted $18,000 for its services.

Further posts state that WCS Group had promised to reduce the user’s mortgage to 10 years and that the advice was based on the user’s income eventually increasing.

It is later claimed that advice from fellow Whirlpool users had allowed ‘homemadecook’ to avoid using WCS Group.

Andrew Skyes, from Wantrup and Associates, state that Whirlpool’s refusal to remove the posts misled readers into thinking the business used “forceful and unsavory business practices and overcharges for its services”.

Whirlpool was founded in 1998 by Simon Wright, who has repeatedly refused to commercialise the forum. It provides a space for users to write posts about technology, entertainment and other topics

Under its rules, it recommends users seek financial, medical and legal advice from a qualified professional “rather than asking random strangers on the internet”.

The lawsuit is the latest to hit a forum or review website, which have come under fire for publishing allegedly fake posts designed to deliberately harm the business they target.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released guidelines for publishing online reviews in 2013. Websites that continue to publish a post or review they know is fake or misleading are at risk of breaching the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 and can be hit with up to $1.1 million in fines.

Several other websites, including Yelp and TripAdvisor, have been hit by complaints and legal action by businesses over negative or fake reviews.

A 2013 Sensis report on social media revealed that 74 per cent of social media users read reviews of a product online before purchasing.

Whirlpool was sued for similar reasons in 2007, when accounting software company 2Clix Australia claimed that Whirlpool published comments about the company that were “false and malicious”. The petition was later withdrawn.

WCS Group declined to comment. Whirlpool could not be contacted for comment.