Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in
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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There are also many stories like this one that should come with before/after screenshots or links to an archived page.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.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14237684
You think they made that up?
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?
Other than really wanting to believe, why do you assume that some random internet guy telling a second-hand story is "hard evidence" of anything?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY
He shows how he talked to a sales person at Yelp, received a bad review, which he proves is fake by showing a search from his CRM, than digs into the social media accounts of the Yelp sales person, and finds the yelp reviewer who left the bad review (but didn't have an invoice) was a friend of the sales person.
even if this is just a rouge yelp sales person, there is clearly something systematically wrong here.
They currently have a total of 14 reviews. Only 4 out of the 14 were "out of state" and one of them was 5-star, so the accusation seems overblown.
This is not the only company to face such allegations and afaik it's not the first time yelp has been accused either. I think you'll have to base this one on anecdotal stories.
In my experience, almost all stories get bigger in the retelling, especially when you have a grievance, having some hard proof at least helps to give you a baseline assessment of how much of an exaggeration the claims are.
Also, look at the information you've seen about bad practices at Uber recently. I'm aware my next statement is pretty weak reasoning, but if Uber with all its money and talent has these problems out in the open what makes you think Yelp would be that much better at keeping this a secret?
>>What people accuse Yelp of doing is pretty close to racketeering (or is? IANAL) and thus there is a high burden of proof.
Where there is smoke there is likely fire. I am probably not willing to believe it is corporate mandate with the evidence shown, however I can see a Wells Fargo style situation where perverse sales incentives combined with lacking internal controls allows for Sales people and Middle Managers to cause some of these issues that have been reported.
Without proof you may still be innocent in the eyes of the law, but if I was a young lady, I sure wouldn't be anywhere around him alone.
IANAL, but if the call starts out with the standard, "Please note that this call is being recorded for training and quality assurance purposes", or similar, then you are free to record that conversation and it would not be illegal. All parties to the call have been informed that the call is being recorded, and thus no wire tapping laws have been broken. This works for both 1 party and 2 party states as far as I'm aware.
It's probably also not that unusual for Yelp to call a business that plays this announcements to its incoming callers, and actually records them. I can only guess that we haven't seen this evidence because the offended business might have preferred to settle things in private.
While digging a little, I found that Yelp was highlighting only the four 1-star reviews and factoring only those into the score. Each of these reviews is responded to by the owner with an explanation, all of which look fairly reasonable to me.
Below this, hidden away under a link and not factored into the score were 15 other reviews that Yelp tagged as 'not currently recommended'. These reviews span a period of 4-5 years+ and are mostly positive 4-5 star reviews. I am no expert but they do not look faked at all to me. Why would this be the case? This business also had 42 5-star reviews on Google. Seems a little odd to me and this really swayed my opinion for good on Yelp.
Specifically, a business had about 20 very positive reviews in total, all of them 'recommended'. A review that isn't 'recommended' basically doesn't exist; it doesn't count toward the average rating and it can only be viewed if a small print, difficult to see link at the bottom is clicked.
So, a business started with 20 total rating, and all 20 of them 'recommended', with a very good average rating.
Said business decides to send some money Yelp's way; that goes on for a few months, and they get a minimal uptick in hits, but worth less than what's being sent to Yelp.
So they (within the contract with Yelp) stop that relationship.
Shortly after, 75% of the reviews switch to 'not recommended'; the ones that remain are among the lowest ratings. The new average for the business isn't terrible, but it's lower.
Multiple calls to Yelp are all handled basically the same; "That's just an algorithm and we don't really control it." ... "I think if you re-establish your contract with us, you might get more business."
The language on the phone is tricky; nowhere is a direct connection between sending money and 'fixing' the Yelp score mentioned. But it's heavily implied. When asked directly, they just deflect talking about the opaque 'algorithm.'
That was the most recent case my wife dealt with. There have been at least two other fairly similar situations.
At this point, she's telling her clients that it can be dangerous to engage with Yelp if they haven't already done so.
TL;DR: Yelp is shady as hell. Full stop.
My get on the entire story is that Yelp sounds a lot like Italian's mafia (btw, I'm Italian) - where "you have a really nice restaurant there, it'd be a shame if something bad would happen to it. But if you pay us, you'd have nothing to worry about."
In my wife's correspondences with Yelp (via voice and e-mail) on behalf of her clients, they kept focusing on that word 'algorithm'....like it's some magical, mystical thing that nobody really understands or controls. That was the key word that was used in all of the bullshit deflections.
Thing is, Yelp is absolutely dominant in this space, so we're all kind of stuck with it.
This is precisely why "AI" cannot be trusted and why code must be publicly auditable.
> That said, it would be nice if someone presented some evidence to back up claims that yelp is doing something "corrupt".
This is an extremely difficult standard to meet. A lot of the accusations against Yelp involve phone calls with their sales reps, which is not public data that can be aggregated and parsed. All we really have to go on are anecdotes.
Speaking personally, I've heard from two people I know who have small businesses- a wedding photographer in Seattle and a small restaurant in Concord, New Hampshire- who separately told me how they had good Yelp reviews, and then watched them get pushed down and bad reviews pushed to the top shortly after they declined to buy Yelp ads. These two people didn't even know each their and would have no way or reason to coordinate their tales, and they told me identical stories. I never use Yelp anymore, for this reason.
Anecdotes might not be scientific data, but if the circumstances are such that scientific data is impossible to obtain, they're better than nothing.
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.
It looks like there's manipulation of the algorithm that determines what reviews are legitimate on a per client basis. The 'free' package is pretty unforgiving, but if you pay then its tweaked more towards your favor. Nothing about this would be illegal. Its how Yelp manages their site and I believe have already won a lawsuit against this.
Consumers need to be taught that Yelp isn't trustworthy. Sadly, it seems to have a Facebook-like network effect that'll be tough to beat. On the plus side Google reviews are the default on Google maps and other Google services and they seem to not play these games.
I'm just concerned that there is still no ready evidence that Yelp is doing this deliberately. I have seen no confirmed cases of hidden negative reviews suddenly being displayed after a contract is canceled, nor of previously displayed positive reviews becoming hidden, nor any compelling evidence that the negative reviews are disingenuous, nor any recorded communication from Yelp implying that paying up will improve reviews. I like assertions to be accompanied by appropriate evidence.
Consider: Most business owners pour their hearts and their lives into their businesses. But no business is perfect, and they will make mistakes that upset customers. Yelp encourages criticism. It sucks to have your life's work harshly criticized. So it's miles easier for business owners to accept that the negative reviews are fraudulent.
Lower-ranked reviews fly to the top? Algo change. Stars suddenly missing? Algo change. Positive reviews suddenly 'not recommended' Algo change.
Saw in this case and more if you care to do some legwork.
http://www.grubstreet.com/2015/09/yelp-manipulates-reviews-a...
Oh and the algo is beneficial to paying customers without actually saying so. You can bullshit it anyway you like, "high CPM via our ad network or profile enhancement package means a more reputable business which means those not recommended 4 star reviews are probably true" and off you go. Or support is much more willing to work with you to get rid of 'suspicious' one and two star reviews if you call and the CRM pop-ups you have the 'gold package.'
Of course there can be evidence. The changed-algorithm claims merely create a slightly higher bar for the evidence to be convincing. So far, no one seems to have presented evidence that even approaches credible, all we see are unsupported claims. People have sued Yelp for these alleged extortions, and they lose due to lack of evidence to back their claims. Example: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-yelp-ratings-20140905-...
Consider the math: If all businesses with positive ratings on Yelp were paying Yelp for that privilege, Yelp would be the wealthiest company on the planet. By far. Also, if this extortion were true, we'd be hearing about it from thousands of businesses, not one or two here and there.
Consider the Occam: If the public's apparent perception of a business takes a dive, is it more likely that a) one company (Yelp) has been secretly, systematically extorting businesses all over the world for over a decade without being caught red-handed; or b) something happened in the business or the market that had a negative impact on the business?
If I'm a business, should I increase the likelihood that the public gives me bad reviews on yelp when I bring attention to this issue?
>Consider the Occam: [...]
That's a false dilemma. Yelp can push sales quotas upon employees without "knowing" that it's inducing them to post negative (and positive [for those who pay]) reviews. Just because they're not explicitly telling their employees to post negative/positive reviews doesn't mean that they don't do so through other means.
Your either-or is the standard Yelp talking point.
>without being caught red-handed
Because their employees are using Yelp's whistle blowing line.
How/why would customers give you more bad reviews if you could prove your business has received fraudulent bad reviews on Yelp? Those dots don't seem to sensibly connect.
> Yelp can push sales quotas upon employees without "knowing" that it's inducing them to post negative (and positive [for those who pay]) reviews. Just because they're not explicitly telling their employees to post negative/positive reviews doesn't mean that they don't do so through other means.
This is a good hypothesis for how it could happen; this is essentially what happened at Wells Fargo. But there's still the pesky lack of evidence for it actually happening at Yelp, where the evidence for it happening at Wells Fargo is considerable--loads of employees and ex-employees discussing it openly, tons of customer records showing accounts opened without permission, etc. That is a key difference that suggests the Yelp accusations are without much merit.
It's a foregone conclusion that some Yelp employees have done manipulative things to customers over the years, and maybe it's those isolated events that spur these occasional complaints, but there's no evidence of a widespread, systemic problem. If such credible evidence materializes, I will change my view, but I'll not apologize for waiting to accept the story until compelling evidence appeared. A tiny percentage of businesses making uncorroborated claims is an absurdly low standard for evidence.
> Because their employees are using Yelp's whistle blowing line.
This is another bare assertion without supporting evidence. If this were the case, where are all of the exposés from former Yelp employees who were pressured to do the extorting?
I probably ought not have engaged in this discussion, because I have no dog in this hunt. I should have remembered that if someone has arrived at a hard conclusion without evidence, then that is a demonstration that evidence is not important to them. I just get so exasperated when I see my peers accepting a stranger's story wholesale without a crumb of evidence. So it goes.
Comcast?
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.
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.
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....
21st century cyber-extortion?
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.
If you click through to the hidden reviews, you can quickly see that there is very little logic happening. You'll often see a hidden review from a user who has left 20+ reviews, while at the same time one of the shown reviews is from a first-time reviewer.
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!
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.
https://mobile.twitter.com/erickreutz/status/851505150002733...
Example:
http://nypost.com/2014/10/13/restaurant-fights-yelps-alleged...
I use TripAdvisor exclusively for restaurant reviews now. Even local ones.
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.
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" ;-))
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
Like how big is that small army? Your terms imply like, I dunno, maybe more than 1000?
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.
A public company has never, ever engaged in shady behavior. It is simply unheard of.
"A friend of mine said he'd be threatened with legal action if he revealed what HappyTypist does on Saturday nights."