
Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in - swalsh
https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/68k73n/we_didnt_pay_our_yelp_protection_money_heres_what/
======
metalliqaz
I would like very much to grab my pitchfork and point it menacingly at Yelp,
but I have yet to see one of these stories with hard evidence.

There are many, many stories of bad (and incriminating) behavior on behalf of
Yelp salespeople over the phone, but I have never heard a recording. Even
though most claims indicate that the harassing calls are repeated many times.
Somebody record one of these calls and become Internet famous!

There are also many stories like this one that should come with before/after
screenshots or links to an archived page. They need to actually link to the
page in question so we can see if they are accurately depicting the situation.
Shill reviews are easily spotted by people who have the necessary experience.

Like I said, I am ready to turn around on Yelp, these stories sound very
plausible to me. I haven't yet seen sufficient evidence. The fact is that I do
use that service and the subset of restaurants that I know very well have
reviews that match my experience with the place. Therefore I can't help but
think that perhaps the person who write the linked article is perhaps
deserving of bad reviews and doesn't want to admit it.

~~~
jacquesm
> but I have yet to see one of these stories with hard evidence.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14237684](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14237684)

You think they made that up?

~~~
p49k
I don't think anyone is making these stories up, but with tens of thousands of
businesses on Yelp, the chances of these two events randomly happening
sequentially is high enough to have a steady stream of people who think it
happened to them intentionally.

Also, I've been reading these anecdotes on HN and other sites for years, and
have never seen anyone tell this story and provide enough data for anyone to
take a look themselves. Never a link to the business page on Yelp, never any
links to the supposed negative reviews. Has a news organization ever asked
Yelp to explain the specifics of any of these occurrences? Has any explanation
ever turned up in the discovery phase of a case against Yelp?

~~~
jacquesm
I suspect that is because they're afraid that their 'two star reviews' become
'zero star reviews'. Just like you don't complain about Mafia customer service
in public.

~~~
p49k
It's possible, but it's also possible that the owner doesn't really know if
Yelp is actually guilty of anything, and they're afraid that an investigation
would find that the reviews are legitimate, making the owner look bad.

------
swsieber
It'd be interesting to figure out how Yelp generates the negative reviews. I'd
love to see somebody setup a "honeypot" business - fake, doesn't exist in real
life (well, physically/location wise)... and then sign up with Yelp and then
cancel. Do that with a good 10-100 fake businesses, and could you drum up a
case against Yelp?

~~~
asdfasdf222
I remember reading long ago that they don't generate negative reviews, but
they change their sort magic to let the negative ones bubble up to the top.

~~~
TruthSHIFT
No problem. Just seed the Honeypot with fake reviews. Make 50% of the review
positive and 50% negative. Then, check to see which reviews are favored on
Yelp before and after signing up and cancelling service.

------
DamnInteresting
Via a bit of sleuthing, I managed to figure out what business this person is
writing about. I could post a link to the Yelp page, but that feels a bit
doxxy, so I don't know if it's appropriate.

The business does have more one-star reviews than one might normally expect,
but the texts of the accompanying reviews contain specific details of
complaints, and the complaints are appropriate for the ISP/TV category. For
example:

 _Absolutely atrocious. I have never had a worse experience with a company.
After multiple calls to service my internet connection they refused to
accommodate me efficiently. The customer service representative was rude,
disinterested, and frankly mean. On top of this, they have messed up my bill
several times, and failed to rectify them even after acknowledging that they
messed up the billing. The service was simply unacceptable. If you can avoid
using them, by all means do._

A couple of the users' reviews do show cities outside of the business's city,
but that could just be out-of-date user profiles, or people who have moved
since they posted their reviews. The oldest of the one-star reviews appears to
be April 2015. Of the reviews "not recommended" by Yelp (i.e., hidden by
default), two are one-star and one is four-star.

My feeling is that these are not fake reviews, but rather that an ISP/TV
service is a business quite unlikely to attract positive/neutral reviews.
Personally it had never occurred to me to review any ISPs on Yelp, even those
I liked. It seems likely that these are legitimately upset customers who
realized they can use Yelp to harm the business they had a bad interaction
with. So, if I am correct, these reviews are legitimate, but not
representative.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
Isn't it also possible that when you buy that plan from Yelp, they push your
company more and that leads to more negative reviews along with positive ones?
But as part of that agreement (they might not tell you they do it), they hide
the negative ones (all or some, or maybe even only temporarily) so that your
company thrives. If you thrive, Yelp thrives because they want your business
to keep paying for Yelp and you are probably less likely to cancel if you see
a bunch of 5 star reviews and few negative ones.

And maybe after a certain time they stop hiding the negative ones, or it could
be as cynical as what the OP is sorta implying -- that Yelp begins showing all
the negative reviews they were holding back once you stop paying? I'm not sure
I believe Yelp is writing fraudulent negative reviews for companies because it
would be so easy to prove and would be, well...fraud. But hiding negative
reviews that were written by real people as long as you are paying Yelp does
seem like something a company could justify to itself, however unethical it
still is in my eyes.

~~~
DamnInteresting
> Isn't it also possible that when you buy that plan from Yelp, they push your
> company more and that leads to more negative reviews along with positive
> ones? But as part of that agreement (they might not tell you they do it),
> they hide the negative ones (all or some, or maybe even only temporarily) so
> that your company thrives.

Sure, it's possible that perverse incentives would drive Yelp to such
rationalized missteps, my argument is that it would be easy to prove if it's
true. But none of the complaining businesses have offered proof, only
conjecture.

I'm not "calling bullshit" here, I'm just asking for evidence in a scenario
where evidence should be easily accessible if it exists. Innocent until proven
guilty, and all that.

------
jps359
Louis Rossman (the guy who makes mac repair videos) had this happen to him
too, and did some investigating of his own/connected the dots between the Yelp
salesperson and the person leaving 1 star reviews on his business page.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY)

~~~
brilliantcode
Unfuckingbelievable.

If you google Eric Sperber, you can see that youtube show up in first page
results.

I wonder how in hell is Yelp not giving a fuck? They even tried to take down
the video but that guy was smart enough to upload a backup on S3 and many ppl
have copies ready to be distributed.

At least Yelp knows about streisand law....

~~~
brilliantcode
who would actually support yelp sales extorting small buinesses? wtf HN?

------
golfer
My wife runs a small business and is furious with Yelp. She gets a lot of 5
star reviews, legitimate ones from customers she knows, but Yelp embargoes
lots of them and doesn't display them on her Yelp page. She gets frequent cold
calls from their sales department, promising that if she signs up for
advertising, they can get those 5 star reviews un-embargoed and live on her
page.

21st century cyber-extortion?

~~~
metalliqaz
I became active on Yelp after a new Cafe opened in my town. I loved it so much
I just had to go home and write a good review. I did so, and it was embargoed.
A user with one 5-star review is usually not taken into account.

After I had written more like 5 or 6 reviews, all my reviews started to count.

Remember how viral those recordings of Comcast shenanigans went? If she keeps
getting those calls from Yelp, record one and be the one that finally turns
the tide.

~~~
golfer
Why would those embargoed reviews start to count after she paid Yelp? That is
what the Yelp salesperson is implying. Embargoed reviews shouldn't suddenly
have more legitimacy due to her buying ads on the site. Something is shady
here.

~~~
koolba
I can imagine the corp spin on this being something like: _We embargo reviews
until we can validate the reviewer. Paying Yelp can bump the priority of who
is validated..._

------
victorvation
I'm surprised that even on HN, people seem to unquestioningly accept that Yelp
extorts businesses using reviews, where any other topic would be subject to a
higher level of scrutiny. I've heard countless anecdotes about peoples'
friend's account of how evil Yelp Sales is, but never any solid proof.

~~~
MS_Buys_Upvotes
I'm surprised that you're foolish enough to fall under the assumption that
people here are somehow smarter or better. They are not. This is simply a web
site with zero barrier to entry.

I don't trust Yelp either. There have been too many stories like this over
years - and even some in the comments section of this HN story!

~~~
brilliantcode
Oh there is a clear us vs them mentality here.

I was surprised to see transphobic comments go unremoved. Negative comments
criticizing YC backed ventures or saying Peter Thiel is gay is heavily
censored through downvotes.

let's not forget that YC companies have an "edge" compared to other
submissions.

------
kreutz
Yelp is evil. One month ago we had 5 stars with 932 reviews. Today we have 3.5
stars with 118 reviews. 3800 reviews are not recommend.

[https://mobile.twitter.com/erickreutz/status/851505150002733...](https://mobile.twitter.com/erickreutz/status/851505150002733056)

~~~
dqv
Don't sweat it - 3.5 stars looks way more trustworthy than 5 stars. 5 stars
makes it look like the business paid for the reviews

------
usaphp
My friend has a retail business in New York, he had the same experience, he
cancelled his advertising contract and immediately most of the positive
reviews became hidden and negatives were pouring in and his average rating
dropped from 5 to 2 stars in a matter of couple weeks

------
11thEarlOfMar
This happened about 2 years ago? I'm curious if the legal scrutiny that
happened about this time changed anything.

Example:

[http://nypost.com/2014/10/13/restaurant-fights-yelps-
alleged...](http://nypost.com/2014/10/13/restaurant-fights-yelps-alleged-
extortion/)

~~~
an_account
IIRC a judge determined that it's not legally a racket because yelp has
control over what they do with their platform.

------
ryanackley
From a consumer standpoint, I stopped using Yelp when I left a 3-star review
(neither good or bad) and it was flagged as "fake". I was so puzzled, i
contacted support. They still refused to publish it. I figured the business
owner must be an advertiser.

I use TripAdvisor exclusively for restaurant reviews now. Even local ones.

~~~
ortuna
That would seem like the strategy used. Mark all the low ratings as "fake"
until the business stops paying. Just do a review again. "ohh these weren't
fake" reviews and restore them.

------
edoceo
I have a business on Yelp, not a restaurant, I've never paid them. My listing
is mostly correct, I've tried to update but the settings never save. Yelp
sales call about every three months to sell me on improving my profile. I say
I'm not interested and the conversation is done. Have not experienced
aggressive sales tactics.

------
dqv
There is something about Yelp that makes people want to give inflammatory
reviews.

Once upon a time, I got a fake 1-star review. I knew it was fake because I
know who my clients are -- past and present. A few days later, a client who
had recently cancelled our contract posted a "real" 1-star review. It was
embellished to the point of being a fabrication. Luckily it eventually went
away, but it was a bad experience. That fake review from someone who wasn't a
client turned into a /real/ review from someone who was!

With this information, I've taken a more critical eye to Yelp reviews and
noticed most if not all of the reviews are useless.

They also spam up search listings for "restaurants in my area" with useless
results.

------
koolba
_Free Side Project Idea_

This might already exist but how about a history tracker for rating sites. Not
sure how it'd deal with terms for scraping information but assuming you
maintained history you could see ratings over time. Could also be used to
validate claims like this or just overall trends for a business's ratings.

Bonus points for throwing in blockchain based timestamping (because "bitcoin"
;-))

------
mudil
I and my wife left two negative reviews for our realtor on Yelp. The realtor
botched the sale of our house in Half Moon Bay, she harassed and lied to us,
and we even filed a complaint against her with the San Mateo realtors board.

Because she advertises on Yelp, our reviews were shelved into "not
recommended" category. The realtor still has 5 star rating. Never mind that I
had submitted more that 30 reviews to Yelp before, so I consider myself a good
Yelper.

I went so far as to write a letter to Stoppelman, CEO. No response, no action.

PS The same reviews were published on Zillow no problem.

------
1ris
Does Yelp verify that buiness actually exist?

If I was in the US, had too much time and money on hand it'd do the following:
Start serveral business and make sure they never actually serve costumers.
Sign them up with yelp. Write a few positive and negative reviews about them.
Spend money on yelp advertising on some of them. See how they compared to the
control group.

If the rumors are true, sue them with anti-mafia-laws.

The fact that nobody has done this yet colors me very skeptical about the
claims.

~~~
perfectstorm
the problem is most business owners are not tech savvy. I would love to
volunteer if someone sets something up.

------
educar
TIL that you cannot unlist your business from Yelp.

------
circa
My small business occaisionally gets calls from them and they are very very
rude and high pressure. I remember hanging up on one guy and they kept calling
back probably 3-4 times per hour. Even after literally telling the guy to
"fuck off". I will never pay for anything on their site or even use it.
Foursquare does a much better job at what they do now anyway.

------
sevensor
Do we really still trust the internet for reviews on anything at this point?
Personally, I've reverted to word of mouth. I assume any review on the
internet has been paid for, one way or the other.

------
perfectstorm
i have seen many such accusations in the past but i have never seen any solid
proof (screenshot of an email from Yelp or a recorded voice call demanding
money). Sure voice recording might be illegal without consent but not all
states have that law.

------
tarr11
I wonder if disavowing links on Google could help. The problem for most
businesses is Yelp listings rank very highly for their name.

[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en)

~~~
Someone1234
That isn't how a disavow works.

It won't impact Yelp's pagerank, it will only impact your business site's
pagerank (likely in a negative way). In essence you're saying "don't use Yelp
to evaluate my site's reputation." Which would likely de-rank you and could
result in Yelp appearing before the official site of your business.

------
timlyo
A link posted in that thread looks pretty interesting. Automated phone bots as
a service.

[http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/](http://www.jollyrogertelco.com/)

------
mozumder
Really wish Apple wouldn't use Yelp for place ratings to their Maps app.

------
brilliantcode
It perplexes me that they can get away with this. This is shaking down mom &
pops businesses.

------
HappyTypist
I have a friend who left Yelp after 2 months. Told me that he'd get aggressive
legal action if he revealed "how Yelp really makes money".

~~~
timr
I worked there for years. Your "friend" is wrong. The way they make money is
rather transparently described in their quarterly filings with the SEC. Since
they're a public company.

Actually, I'm not sure what your "friend" is accusing them of doing, so it's a
hard claim to rebut. It's embarrassing that a vague hearsay accusation
(of...what, exactly?) is considered worthy of attention here.

~~~
Someone1234
As someone who worked there, what is your take on these fake review stories?

I've read the same or highly similar accounts from other small businesses over
years. Did you do this when you worked there? Did your colleagues?

~~~
timr
To be blunt, they're total bullshit. Which is why you _never see any evidence_
, outside of vague hearsay from someone's uncle.

Yelp has a small army of people cold-calling every business in the country to
sell ads. Simultaneously and independently, they have a system that filters
out bad reviews, all day, every day. Just by chance, _someone_ is going to get
called soon after reviews have been filtered. This leads, inevitably, to
third-hand stories of someone's Uncle Walter who got called right before/after
some reviews were removed.

~~~
Rexxar
It could be a small part of those people who are doing this in order to have a
bigger bonus. Bad incentive structures that cause bad behaviours is not an
unknown phenomenon.

~~~
timr
I don't doubt that in an organization of thousands of salespeople, some say
bad things. But they don't have the ability to _act_ on their threats. That's
the point. Salespeople have no ability to influence reviews.

Also, again...nobody offers evidence of these conversations. It's all hearsay.
Lots of accusations, but not so much as a link to a profile page to back them
up.

------
dboreham
The thing is: this is how the rest of the journalist/advertising world always
worked, right?

~~~
jordanlev
No. For a long time, newspapers explicitly walled off their business / sales /
ad people from the journalists.

