Yelp Accused Of Hiding Positive Reviews For Non-Advertiser (cbslocal.com)

A Dallas business owner is accusing Yelp of hiding good reviews of his coffee shop after he refused to pay them for advertising. From a report on CBS Local: Bob Sinnott owns Toasted Coffee + Kitchen in Lower Greenville. He said after months of non-stop phone calls from Yelp, he claims his favorable rating dropped after he finally told the company he would not pay for advertising. "What I would compare it to, the mafia," said Sinnott. "You know, you do business with me or there's retaliation." Sinnott feels Yelp is hiding many of his 5-star reviews in the "not recommended" section because he chose not to pay for Yelp services. "The sales pitch is, pay us a monthly fee and we'll your help page," said Sinnott. He claims there were constant phone calls and emails from Yelp pitching the company's services. "It became what I would call borderline harassment," said Sinnott. After posting on Facebook about his experience, Sinnott said his rating went from a 4-star to a 3.5-star rating. Google rates Toasted at 4.1 and Facebook has the business at a 4.6 rating.

Comments

Is Yelp still a thing?

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Is Yelp still a thing? I mean, didn't we all pretty much move on to Google ratings on Google maps?

Re: Is Yelp still a thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they are! Itâ(TM)s the number one resource for people searching for local businesses. And they are and have been hurting small businesses who donâ(TM)t submit to their extortion tactics FOR YEARS.
As an admin for two small business, I have a ton of first hand experience.

Re:Is Yelp still a thing?

[mysidia]

Sort of..... I suggest watching Louis Rossman's Yelp-related videos; I saw a few years ago --- they were an eye opener regarding their Salespeoples' practices, to say the least.

SPOILER: There's a really aggressive sales person involved who was happy to violate users' privacy AND there are fake negative reviews involved that were posted against the business after the Yelp salesperson was told NO.

Same For Negative Ratings

[UdoKeir]

I had the same thing happen with a negative review I posted for Whole Foods. It stayed up a couple of days, got a lot of positive feedback and then was hidden by Yelp. Presumably Whole Foods is a paying Yelp customer.

Same thing happened to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a multitude of 5 star ratings and daily calls from Yelp, congratulating me on my reviews and suggesting advertising was the best way forward, nearly all went to voicemail. One day after I did actually speak to someone and indicated I was not interested, nearly all my top reviews, which had been up for months beforehand, disappeared. Yelps 'automated' AI system, according to them, had deemed them non-trustworthy - remarkable that the AI should have, after all this time, suddenly decided that those reviews which were up just 24 hrs previously, were no longer valid.

At that point I shifted focus, left a placeholder in my business description indicating what had happened and removed all reference to Yelp from my web site, email and marketing. I moved over to Google Business, which, despite some hiccups (no 'by appointment only' option, no easy URL to direct clients to for leaving reviews...) has worked very well for me with a good 80% or more clients indicating that they had chosen me as a result of my web site, portfolio (I'm in a creative field) and reviews that showed up. Ironically, I have spent money on adwords and would probably have done the same with Yelp had their 'AI' system not treated me in such a grossly unfair manner.

Re:Same thing happened to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. I owned a martial arts studio and as the school grew, our yelp reviews started trickling in, positively. Soon, I got a call from Yelp saying how great it was my business was growing and they were there to take it to the next level. I found the pricing quite expensive and declined. Within a few days, 50% of the positive reviews disappeared, pushed off to "not recommended" land. This process repeated over the next 2 years. Every 6 months or so, they would allow the positive reviews to accumulate, I'd decline, then those positives would be pushed to "not recommended".

Re:Lack of Transparency Seems Legitimate

[Anonymous Coward]

In the bar/restaurant industry, this is pretty common knowledge. Its a protection racket.... "It would be a shame if you didn't pay us and then something terrible happened to your reputation." To be clear, no one thinks they overall score is affected, but which reviews people see. I've worked several places that have been threatened like this. Yelp can burn in hell.

This has been my experience also

[roc97007]

I regret ever trying to do business with Yelp. In my case it was trying to close my account when I realized it wasn't driving enough business my way to justify the cost. One of several problems is that your reviews don't go away when you terminate your account, and Yelp then has all the leverage of what reviews they want to display.

Part of the leverage is that Yelp controls the first several listings you get when you google a particular type of business. So people have to scroll way down before they get to my own professional website. It really does seem like the game is, you pay Yelp or, "you know, it's a terrible thing that can happen to a business. Just terrible. You wouldn't want that to happen, would you?"