Following the launch of Priama Akcia union’s campaign for the payment of wages owed to former employees of VegaNana bakery in Bratislava, it turned out that one of the key buyers of VegaNana products is GlutenFreeX, a shop in Vienna. When asked to comment on the fact that VegaNana owed the three former workers 17 252,30 EUR, the shop responded by misleading the public and claiming that they no longer cooperate with VegaNana. This was followed by attacks on Priama Akcia, silencing of critical voices and intimidation of people who disagree with GlutenFreeX's practices. And now GlutenFreeX has come up with a new tactic – they falsified email communication and are threatening the former VegaNana workers with criminal prosecution!
Original communication
On Tuesday 8 October 2024, Priama Akcia sent an email to GlutenFreeX (known also as VeganX) in German and Slovak asking for a statement on the cooperation with the VegaNana baker, who is responsible for the debt. Here is a screenshot of the whole email. We have highlighted in red the parts that are important for comparison with the falsified communication:
To view the English translation of the German email, click here.
Falsified communication
On Saturday, December 14, 2024, Priama Akcia received an email that looks like a response to the original email from October 8. However, upon closer reading, it is apparent that the original email was edited in the following parts:
- Email subject (completely different from the 8 October email)
- Sent date (different date and, moreover, there was no email communication between Priama Akcia and GlutenFreeX during this period)
- The deletion of two paragraphs in German in the original email and the addition of the falsified sentence about alleged threats, while they did not bother at all to change the respective paragraphs in the Slovak translation of the email (section “Slovenčina”).
Also, noteworthy is the misspelling of a comma typical of GlutenFreeX owners (indicated in green).
Translation of the threats and the falsified sentence
The German text of GlutenFreeX's threatening e-mail from 14th December contains several typos and errors. For example, the authors have lost the thread already in the first sentence where the ending is missing, and the other sentences sound confusing and even nonsensical. If something strikes you odd during the reading, the fault lies with the authors, not with the translation.
Dear Jana, Laura and Veronika,
Since you are constantly blackmailing us into paying you 17 000 euros, which Mrs Podhorova in Bratislava allegedly did not pay you. We are an independent Austrian company and have no idea who has paid what or not in Slovakia, we are now forced to file in Slovakia as well as in Austria a criminal complaint for blackmail, damage to property (our front door from your Nikolo action - Jana was clearly recognisable there) as well as damage to reputation and defamation and damages, because of defamatory postings on facebook and Google. I am afraid that you will face high costs, including imprisonment (
We Peter and I would like to avoid this, because we do not want to destroy your future, so we give you 7 days until the end of next week to stop all your actions against us, to delete all the defamatory comments, otherwise we will press the charges through our lawyer in Austria and Slovakia against the 3 girls as well as priama Akcia as supporters.
So, dear girls, think about it, is it really worth the trouble?
Greetings,
Thomas Gottsbacher
Peter Repcik
Here is the wording of the falsified sentence in the email that pretends to be the original email from Priama Akcia addressed to GlutenFreeX on 8 October:
German:
Bei Jana, Laura und Veronika sind 17.000 Euro an Löhnen zu bezahlen, wenn Sie diese Summe nicht bezahlen , werden wir harte Massnahmen gegen Sie ergreifen.
English:
Jana, Laura and Veronika are owed 17 000 euros in wages, if you do not pay this amount, we will take hard measures against you.
Of course, Priama Akcia never wrote anything like that. All the time we have been demanding the money owed exclusively from the responsible persons from VegaNana (Katarína and Alexandra Podhorová’s). More info in English and German: https://www.priamaakcia.sk/tag/VegaNana.
We continue until the requirements are met!
It's questionable what else GlutenFreeX will come up with in their effort to smear former VegaNana workers and the people who support them, just to keep their profits. However, we believe that the fraudulent and questionable practices of such companies in Slovakia and abroad need to be made public.
GlutenFreeX has crossed multiple lines. If they assume that we will give up if they continue to ignore the facts and fantasize on social media that our union is "illegal" and "extremist" organization "registered in the terrorism section of the criminal police," lie that we are "physically threatening," and "financed by one of the competitors," and that we are the "Slovak KuKluxKlan," or spread xenophobic responses to critical reviews calling them "mafia tactics from the Eastern Bloc," then they are only causing themselves more trouble.
VegaNana as well as GlutenFreeX have their share of responsibility for failing to address the issue, which is wages and other financial demands owed. For our part, we can only repeat that the campaign will end when the debt is paid.
You can leave your opinion on GlutenFreeX by sending an email to the address in the screenshots or writing a review here https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ecx85FdJHxeJSMh6A or here https://maps.app.goo.gl/84SJ94DgCv4cYvtz6.
We would like to thank all the people for the support they keep on expressing to Jana, Laura and Veronika!
Priama Akcia union
