Yelp has been repeatedly accused of manipulating reviews to pressure businesses to advertise with them. Based on the information we share in this post and much more we have seen, we no longer recommend Yelp to business owners.
The East Bay Express article Yelp and the Business of Extortion cites twelve separate instances where business owners confirmed these accusations plus a former contract employee’s statement plus Yelp’s own admission that they pay employees to write business reviews.
Based on the thorough reporting in this story, all the previous similar complaints over the years, and the reviews of Yelp we have read (some of which are excerpted below) it is our opinion that Yelp has lost credibility and using them presents more danger than benefit to business owners. Businesses already listed there may wish to be cautious about their activities.
We base our recommendations on much research and include these excerpts among hundreds we found that seem particularly credible:
Reviews of Yelp: This one by Nick R: This site has dubious integrity. I’ve spoken to many business owners who refused an advertising package with Yelp, then Yelp suddenly removed all of their positive reviews, claiming they were “fraudulent.” There is no doubt a lot of manipulation in reviews done by the Yelp staff based on those who do, or do not, advertise on this site.
And half the reviews here can be summed up as “omg, I came here for the first time in a group of 20 and had bad service, i’ll never go back.” Which is beyond useless, when you come big group and only try an establishment once, your chances of everything going smoothly approach nil.
Excerpt of Yelp Review by member Penguin: “First and foremost, I personally know of 4 friends who have Yelped a business we have gone to in Oregon. With me, there were 5 reviews. However, if you go to this business, you will find only 1 review. The other 4 are not seen by the general public. They say this is a random program by their computer. I say it’s bullshit. If it were my business missing 75% of reviews, even if some were mixed, I would be upset. Show them all and let them get flagged if we suspect foul play!”
Review of Yelp written by Gary N: Here’s what you need to know about Yelp, whom you probably trust:
Yelp’s insistence that “everyone’s opinion counts equally” is a lie. The fact is they randomly censor and withhold reviews without offering any justification to the reviewer. They answer to no one in these matters.
They also have a policy, and pay a force of representitives to visit businesses that are reviewed on Yelp, that borders on extortion. For years, yelpers who wanted to review a business, or check out a business’ reviews were taken to that business page, where they could do just that. Suddenly, banners appeared on highly rated reviews (5 stars) that advised “you may want to check out “X”, usually a much lower rated competitor.
Then they send their paid squad out to inform that business that this unpleasant leaching of your hard earned reputation by a sub-quality competitor WHICH THEY HAD PLACED THERE can go away if you were willing to pay them a great deal of money each month. Turns out the leachers had already paid them to do just that. If I agreed to pay more money than they did, Yelp would remove their ad from our result page, and I could even pick a competitor whose response page I could leach on.
Can you imagine? I kicked them out.
This is an abhorrent business practice. It may well be technically legal, due to the sorry state of business practice oversite, but it is not morally justified by a company that promotes itself as a democratic egalitarian voice of the people.
The idea of Yelp is glorious, and democratic, and so appealing. But like American democracy, it has become a system that players like Yelp mine for their own profit. I know Yelp had to look for revenue sources, it was never a charity/public service concern. But buying better exposure by paying money to yelp to piggyback off businesses that have worked hard and long to EARN their 5 star reviews is wrong on the face of it, and can’t be justified.
Yelp has revealed itself as a hypocrite and greedy, morally challenged company.
Is it still a useful service? Probably yes. Despite Yelp’s despicable attempt to strong arm hard working and sucessful businesses to protect the value of good ratings, the basic idea is sound and useful.
My greatest hope is that a new start-up recognizes the opening Yelp’s misstep announces, and steps in to realize again the original, wonderful concept that was Yelp.
Read the reviews, I still do. But don’t be fooled. Yelp’s ego and profit motive is between you and the truth.
Yelp review written by Barry H. in San Diego: The initial concept was good but the site is being abused by businesses trying to hurt their competitors by writing patently untrue reviews using fake accounts. In response, Yelp seems to have gone overboard in singling out reviews they feel are in violation of terms of service.
I am a member of a 90 business networking group. I’ve done business with about 15 of them and have reviewed 8 of the ones I actually use. Yelp threatened to ban me from the site unless I removed those reviews because of a POTENTIAL conflict of interest. TAKE HEED all you Yelpers out there lest you review a friend you have done business with and get banned from the site.
I am a physician-no secret here. Now Yelp has removed any and all reviews I wrote on physicians. POTENTIAL conflict of interest again!! Trouble is that one of those physicians operated on my daughter and we arent even on the staff at the same hospitals so I have no conflic greater than any of you out there.
I understand what they are trying to do but their draconian tactics are rapidly making the site useless for me. I am only able to write this as an update to a review I wrote last year because INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH you can no longer simply review Yelp itself. Try to and see. You can review yelp events or yelpers but not the organization . Coincidence? I think not. Big Brother is watching you!!!!
This site has dubious integrity. I’ve spoken to many business owners who refused an advertising package with Yelp, then Yelp suddenly removed all of their positive reviews, claiming they were “fraudulent.” There is no doubt a lot of manipulation in reviews done by the Yelp staff based on those who do, or do not, advertise on this site.
And half the reviews here can be summed up as “omg, I came here for the first time in a group of 20 and had bad service, i’ll never go back.” Which is beyond useless, when you come big group and only try an establishment once, your chances of everything going smoothly approach nil.
YELP NEWS:
* Wired: Yelp Class Action Lawsuit (Feb 24, 2010)
* East Bay Express: Yelp and the Business of Extortion (Feb 18, 2009)
* New York Times: Google Said to Be Near a Yelp Deal (Dec 19, 2009)
* Seattle PI: Google May Buy Yelp; Because of Microsoft? (Dec 18, 2009)
* TechCrunch: Google in Discussions to Buy Yelp for Half a Billion Dollars or More (Dec 17, 2009)
* Scobleizer: Google Eating Yelp? (Dec 17, 2009)
* NY Times: Review Site Draws Grumbles From Merchants and Users (Mar 2, 2009)
* Yelp CEO Response to San Francisco Chronicle Letter (Jan 18, 2009)
* San Francisco Chronicle: Merchants Angry Over Getting Yanked by Yelp (Jul 4, 2008)
YELP REPUTATION:
* Yelp BBB Rating
* Is Yelp a Scam?
* Reviews of Yelp at Yelp
* Complaints Board Yelp Complaints page
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