When Questioning a Vendor’s Claims Led to a Cease and Desist
TL;DR
- In 2022–2023, I asked EQT eighteen factual questions about their advertising claims for Blaze Performance products. They never answered.
- EQT’s owner, Ed Susman, instead escalated to public attacks and a formal Cease and Desist letter demanding I remove my posts.
- When my attorney responded, the threat quietly disappeared. The documented sequence raises concerns about how EQT handles scrutiny in the Mk7 community.
Why This Post Exists
If you’re a Mk7 GTI owner, you may have interacted with EQT or its owner, Ed Susman, on social media. This post isn’t about product performance — that testing has already been published.
This post is about conduct: how a business owner responded when asked reasonable, factual questions about claims made to this community.
Everything below is documented. Screenshots, email, and the full Cease and Desist letter are linked in the references so you can judge for yourself.
What Started This: A Simple Request for Substantiation
The entire situation began with something straightforward: asking EQT to substantiate their own advertising.
On November 4, 2022, I sent EQT eighteen clear, technical questions about claims they were making for the Blaze ATOM V2 intake and R600 upgrade kit. These weren’t hostile questions — they were the same questions any informed consumer has a right to ask.
EQT never responded.
Instead, an EQT employee publicly stated that the supporting data was “pending,” even though the claims were already being advertised as “independently verified.”
How EQT’s Owner Responded
Rather than answer the questions, Susman contacted me through Facebook, demanding I remove the post and escalating to public comments attacking my credibility, calling me a “hack,” and accusing me of “harassing businesses.”
Meanwhile, the actual manufacturer of the Blaze intake — the person who built the product — had welcomed my testing, called this site a benchmark, and cooperated fully.
The contrast speaks for itself.
The Cease and Desist Letter
On June 23, 2023, I received a Cease and Desist letter from EQT’s attorney accusing me of:
- “maliciously spreading inaccurate, unfounded, and false information”
- lacking the “requisite training, education, degrees, or certifications”
- making “scientifically based” claims without proper equipment
- falsely claiming EQT engaged in misleading advertising
Notably, the letter did not identify a single specific statement I made that was false.
My attorney responded in August 2023 with a detailed rebuttal. After that, EQT went silent. No lawsuit. No follow‑up. No attempt to identify any false statement.
The legal threat simply evaporated.
Ed Susman then returned to disparaging me on social media.
That post was made in 2026 — more than two years after his attorney’s legal threat had been dropped without follow-up. The pattern is consistent: when the formal pressure tactic failed, Susman returned to the same approach he started with — discredit the messenger rather than address the message.
Why This Matters to Mk7 Owners
This community interacts with EQT’s owner constantly — in Facebook groups, on forums, in comment threads. Many of you buy parts based on what you see there.
Here’s what the documented record shows:
- When asked factual questions about advertising claims, EQT did not answer.
- When those claims were analyzed publicly, EQT’s owner responded with personal attacks.
- When that didn’t work, he escalated to a legal threat.
- When asked to identify any false statements, EQT provided none.
- When challenged by an attorney, the threat disappeared.
A vendor confident in its claims answers questions. A vendor that responds with pressure instead of transparency tells you something about how it operates.
This isn’t about whether you like EQT’s products. It’s about how the owner behaves when held to basic standards of honesty and accountability.
What You Can Do as a Consumer
This isn’t a call to boycott anyone. It’s a call to pay attention.
If you interact with EQT or its owner:
- Save screenshots of claims, statements, or attacks.
- Note dates and URLs.
- Compare claims to published data — not promises of “pending” data.
- Share documented experiences with the community so others can make informed decisions.
Transparency protects everyone.
What’s Coming Next
This post is the introduction to a series examining EQT’s conduct and advertising practices using the same methodical, documented approach I use for product testing.
You don’t have to take my word for anything — you’ll have the evidence in front of you.
References:
To keep the main post readable, all primary evidence is included here:
- Link to my original email to EQT with eighteen questions (Nov 4, 2022)
- Links to my original Blaze intake test and advertising claims analysis
Full Cease and Desist letter (June 23, 2023)
The following is the entire cease and desist letter that Ed Susman sent me, followed by my attorney’s response letter.
Response:
My attorney’s response (August 2023)
