It's actually extraordinary how many "Yelp extortion" claims I've seen without a single bit of proof. It's not at all difficult to record a telephone conversation with a Yelp representative.

I've seen some thoughts about this:

- Some of the businesses claiming "Yelp extortion" actually deserve their bad reviews.

- Some of the businesses claiming "Yelp extortion" posted fake positive reviews. Unbeknownst to them, Yelp bots automatically detected and removed the fake reviews. Later, after rejecting a call from a Yelp rep asking to advertise, the business owner decides to check their Yelp page and sees that their fake reviews are gone, incorrectly deducing that Yelp is extorting them.