New movie to expose Yelp

[Unannounced Fart]

Yes, I use Yelp quite a bit... but I only trust it if a business has hundreds of reviews. I do this because I know first hand that Yelp pretty much extorts business owners and will publish fake reviews. Now there's a documentary coming out called "Billion Dollar Bully" that will hopefully expose Yelp's business practices to the masses and force them to become more ethical. I am a small business owner, and my wife also owns a separate small business, and I have witnessed Yelp do their bullshit to both of us. And if you look around the internet, most business owners complain about the same thing.

What happens is this: Yelp will call you and try to sell you advertising. If you politely decline, you will see your positive reviews disappear, and, out of the blue, several negative ones will appear. And it's pretty obvious that the new negative reviews are fake. Without getting into details, I was able to pretty much catch a negative reviewer (a fake one) red handed and brought it to Yelp's attention. If you complain about it to Yelp, they will pitch advertising with them again, and also give you a little wink, wink, nudge, nudge and say they can "manage" your reviews. This pattern is way too prevalent to be just a coincidental occurrence between me and my wife. The movie has met its Kickstarter goal, and the movie will be completed this year.

http://observer.com/2015/03/yelp-extremely-concerned-about-what-investigative-documentary-will-reveal/

 

[KittiesKorner]

I was going to say I don't think it's yelp's fault for providing a method any more than it is glassdoor's or ratemyprofessor's. Then I read your second parargraph. Pretty fucked up. But then you just have to fight fire with fire, hire people to counterbalance the negs. Kind of like CCS.

 

[Crystallas]

:thinking: Should I trust absolute strangers on decisions?


Think about that.

Word of mouth(from those you know) > Yelp

 

[Popinski Soda]

Good read. I look forward to the documentary.

 

[Shawon0Meter]

i'll get a cheap motel and cheeseburger on my own. F you yelp

 

[Unannounced Fart]

:thinking: Should I trust absolute strangers on decisions?


Think about that.

Word of mouth(from those you know) > Yelp

Yeah, but it's still bullshit. Someone in the movie compared it to a Mafia shakedown. Minus the physical violence, it's pretty similar.

 

[DC]

Thanks for posting. I have a small little collection of yelp reviews mentioning me by name. All of them are fucking morons. I treasure those reviews and read them when I need a pick-me-up.

 

[Monk]

I was going to say I don't think it's yelp's fault for providing a method any more than it is glassdoor's or ratemyprofessor's. Then I read your second parargraph. Pretty fucked up. But then you just have to fight fire with fire, hire people to counterbalance the negs. Kind of like CCS.

Wait, you ******* get paid?

 

[Monk]

I usually use google maps and just go where ever is closest

 

[JimJohnson]

:thinking: Should I trust absolute strangers on decisions?


Think about that.

Word of mouth(from those you know) > Yelp

Why not? I hardly use Yelp (sometimes as a Plan B) to TripAdvisor. I've never gone wrong choosing highly reviewed hotels and/or restaurants from TA.

 

[ruprecht]

Why not? I hardly use Yelp (sometimes as a Plan B) to TripAdvisor. I've never gone wrong choosing highly reviewed hotels and/or restaurants from TA.

Agreed.

 

[Urblock]

Because I make my money in chunks it is easy to keep track of who I do business with. Fucking yelp had three negative posts from people I've never worked for. I'm at a point with my business that I don't care anymore. I turn more work down than I take. Yelp can burn a new business with the general public as stupid as ours. See it on the internet it must be true.

 

[ruprecht]

Because I make my money in chunks it is easy to keep track of who I do business with. Fucking yelp had three negative posts from people I've never worked for. I'm at a point with my business that I don't care anymore. I turn more work down than I take. Yelp can burn a new business with the general public as stupid as ours. See it on the internet it must be true.

Are you by chance a porn star?

 

[Urblock]

When I was a young man I thought I was.

 

[botfly10]

Put out a call for ccs peoples to flood yelp with positive reviews of your business!

 

[SilenceS]

Funny story, when the restaurant I worked out first open. We were getting bombed by bad reviews on yelp. We couldnt understand it. We were better then anyone around us and the times were great. So, I started looking at other reviews those posters put up on yelp and ding ding ding. There favorite restaurant was the place across the street from us. It was funny. Thats when I said **** yelp and the rest. Word of mouth will be more powerful then that fucking thing.

 

[botfly10]

Alejandro's Dry Cleaning

FIVE STARS

Alejandro and his helper bitches are the best in the business. This joint is my go to for cum stain removal. Spooge all over the wife's favorite designer dress? NO PROBLEM. Alejandro will take care of you. Keep those money shots flowin.

Oh, and last month Alejandro rescued my sheets and down comforter after an explosive hot carl session. Alejandro is the shit!

 

[1ke]

Interesting.

Not going to lie, I lived and died with yelp when I was on vacation just a week ago. And I should say mostly lived. Yelp didn't steer us wrong and everything we picked because of yelp turned out to be quite good.

I'll watch though

 

[BNB]

I'm always skeptical of online reviews. I actually always read the 3/5 or 2/4 star reviews because they seem more honest. Plus you get the negative and positive info about the product/place.

It is fucked up though how Yelp is allegedly running their site though.

 

[Unannounced Fart]

Interesting.

Not going to lie, I lived and died with yelp when I was on vacation just a week ago. And I should say mostly lived. Yelp didn't steer us wrong and everything we picked because of yelp turned out to be quite good.

I'll watch though

Same here, I always use Yelp to find restaurants when I'm out of town. But I only trust the reviews of places that have LOTS of reviews due to Yelp's business practices. And who knows how many good establishments people are passing up because they see a small number of negative reviews which may be possibly fake?