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Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

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Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#91

Post by TruthSHIFT »

asdfasdf222 wrote: post #50
swsieber wrote: post #10

It'd be interesting to figure out how Yelp generates the negative reviews. I'd love to see somebody setup a "honeypot" business - fake, doesn't exist in real life (well, physically/location wise)... and then sign up with Yelp and then cancel. Do that with a good 10-100 fake businesses, and could you drum up a case against Yelp?

I remember reading long ago that they don't generate negative reviews, but they change their sort magic to let the negative ones bubble up to the top.

No problem. Just seed the Honeypot with fake reviews. Make 50% of the review positive and 50% negative. Then, check to see which reviews are favored on Yelp before and after signing up and cancelling service.

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#92

Post by brilliantcode »

jps359 wrote: post #45

Louis Rossman (the guy who makes mac repair videos) had this happen to him too, and did some investigating of his own/connected the dots between the Yelp salesperson and the person leaving 1 star reviews on his business page. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY

Unfuckingbelievable.

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....

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#93

Post by brilliantcode »

MS_Buys_Upvotes wrote: post #60
victorvation wrote: post #19

I'm surprised that even on HN, people seem to unquestioningly accept that Yelp extorts businesses using reviews, where any other topic would be subject to a higher level of scrutiny. I've heard countless anecdotes about peoples' friend's account of how evil Yelp Sales is, but never any solid proof.

I'm surprised that you're foolish enough to fall under the assumption that people here are somehow smarter or better. They are not. This is simply a web site with zero barrier to entry. 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!

Oh there is a clear us vs them mentality here.

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.

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#94

Post by syshum »

obmelvin wrote: post #72
cerved wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your standard of proof is very high. Who records all of their phone calls (presumably without consent which is illegal in my jurisdiction) and makes an archive of their yelp page periodically? 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.

What people accuse Yelp of doing is pretty close to racketeering (or is? IANAL) and thus there is a high burden of proof. As a sibling comment points out, not every accusation needs detailed proof but some do and despite the years of accusations there isn't any definitive proof. 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's problems are internal or started with disgruntled internal employees, Yelp's problems are External, Completely different.

>>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.

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#95

Post by openmosix »

obmelvin wrote: post #72
cerved wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your standard of proof is very high. Who records all of their phone calls (presumably without consent which is illegal in my jurisdiction) and makes an archive of their yelp page periodically? 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.

What people accuse Yelp of doing is pretty close to racketeering (or is? IANAL) and thus there is a high burden of proof. As a sibling comment points out, not every accusation needs detailed proof but some do and despite the years of accusations there isn't any definitive proof. 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…

In Italy, where racketeering is very common in the South, we have special laws and protections to fight it - because proving it, it is not easy at all. You get threats that are implied and not explicit. If "something happens" you cannot automatically ascribe it to the former threat. It should be the role of an investigative agency to look into that and discover the high burden of proof, not of private citizens.

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#96

Post by openmosix »

x1798DE wrote: post #61
cerved wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your standard of proof is very high. Who records all of their phone calls (presumably without consent which is illegal in my jurisdiction) and makes an archive of their yelp page periodically? 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.

I think they were not saying that everyone has to record their conversations as a matter of course, but that no one making these allegations has any hard proof. They even mentioned that in many of these stories, Yelp is calling them multiple times - it would be nice if next time this happens to someone in a 1-party consent state, they would record the second call from Yelp. In my experience, almost all stories get bi…

If they are calling from California, they are covered by the 2-party consent state law. It's very easy to get accused of wiretapping under these laws, so watch out. Last, even if you get such a recording, it'd be an unnamed guy saying stuff on behalf of Yelp. You'd still have to proof it's a legitimate recording, from a legitimate phone call with Yelp.

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#97

Post by DamnInteresting »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #90
DamnInteresting wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, of the three "not recommended" reviews, one is positive (four stars) and two are negative (one star). This seems contrary to the common assertion that the bad reviews are all unleashed. Though I concede that if Yelp is guilty of the accusations, they might be smart about it, and leave some negative reviews hidden. I'm just concerned that there is still no ready evidence that Yelp is doing this deliberat…

There is no evidence because there can be no evidence. Every single time this is shown with screenshots, Yelp says the same thing: that its proprietary algorith changes all the time. They get a free copout and all of its defenders on the web just parrot that statement. Lower-ranked reviews fly to the top? Algo change. Stars suddenly missing? Algo change. Positive reviews suddenly 'not recommended' Algo change. Saw in…

Note: I have no love for Yelp, but I have have an unquenchable lust for evidence-based claims.

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?

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#98

Post by Diederich »

openmosix wrote: post #89
Diederich wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that Yelp absolutely does do, I've seen it with my own eyes, is play with 'recommended' reviews based on whether the business in question is paying them. I can't provide hard links because it's a client of my wife's business. 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…

We were just discussing this with my wife yesterday. The very same story happened to our doula, who's very non-technical and she asked us what to do (we are both engineers). Short story: she had a profile on Yelp, almost 20 5-star reviews from former customers (who spend, on average, 2/3 months with her - so each star is a big deal). One day Yelp! connects with her proposing her to become a paid customer, how could t…

Yup, sounds about right.

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.

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#99

Post by metalliqaz »

jly wrote: post #52
metalliqaz wrote: post #13

I would like very much to grab my pitchfork and point it menacingly at Yelp, but I have yet to see one of these stories with hard evidence. 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 Inte…

A business I used recently for some tree maintenance in my town had a 1-star Yelp review which was perplexing. In this case, the business and owner are well-known in the area as one of the best at what they do and top subject matter experts. 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 owne…

A common anecdote. Please provide the link.

Re: Business cancels Yelp advertising contract, negative reviews start pouring in

#100

Post by metalliqaz »

Diederich wrote: post #73
metalliqaz wrote: post #13

I would like very much to grab my pitchfork and point it menacingly at Yelp, but I have yet to see one of these stories with hard evidence. 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 Inte…

One thing that Yelp absolutely does do, I've seen it with my own eyes, is play with 'recommended' reviews based on whether the business in question is paying them. I can't provide hard links because it's a client of my wife's business. 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…

Just provide a link to their profile. These anecdotes never come with links.
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