Yelp.com is Extorting Businesses?

Yelp.com is a popular website that I have advocated for on this site and countless times to my friends, family, and other online contacts.

The idea of Yelp.com is simple: it’s an online site where anyone can leave a review on any business or address. For example, are you looking for a Chinese restaurant in NE Portland, Oregon? Yelp can help steer you in the direction of one and give you first-hand reviews of patrons to help form your opinion.

However, according to the East Bay Express, the newspaper has found many instances of Yelp.com sales people calling restaurants and, for a price, offering to move negative reviews down on the page.

This would make the business appear more appealing because, to an unknowing Yelp user, the positive reviews for the restaurant would bubble to the top, making that restaurant’s reviews more favorable.

This is outright EXTORTION with a capital E, if the allegations are true! Depending on how this shakes out, I may stop Yelping immediately.

I have some contacts at Yelp and will be following up with what I find out!

UPDATE: Yelp.com’s CEO responded with a blog post.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 8:05 am and is filed under mobile, tech news/notes, useful-info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://varunkrish.com Varun

    Well I have used Yelp too and was pretty pleased with their service and ratings ..

    but now i might have to look for an alternative site !

  • Pingback: Yelp gets accused of extortion and blackmail- Is Yelp unethical? | Techmeme@MyRecap

  • Jose

    I have always heard about these shady stories and this is a confirmation of Yelp’s bad practices.

    Here is a free alternative to Yelp for local businesses: http://www.rateitall.com/promote

  • Pingback: Yelp sur le banc des accusés pour corruption et chantage | Techmeme@MyRecap

  • clara

    and here is an another alternative.
    http://www.gettherating.com

  • Michael Lerman

    I also start to have some questions about the business practices of Yelp. I am a realtor and thought that it is a good idea to register with Yelp. With my website manestate.com I started to redirect my customers to the yelp site, inviting them to write a review on me. Soon after I got few positive reviews, I was contacted by Kathrine, a Yelp sales representative. She spent 20mn over the phone with me with a demo about the paid service that Yelp offer to their subscribers. I was not interested by the paid service so the discussion ended. The interesting part is what happened after this phone conversation. I tried to find the the few reviews on my business. They magically disapeared. In addition the business that I entered on Yelp became “unclaimed”. Coincidence!
    If I had to rate Yelp, you know what grade I will give them. Now I am looking for Yalt the Yelp Alternative. Let’s create it!

  • Charlesmandel

    I had similar things happen with me.. I HATE YELP!!!! Charles Mandel charlesmandelcarpetcleaning.com

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