Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews • Hacker News Board

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#31

Post by PeterisP » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 4:59 PM UTC

loceng wrote: post #24

PeterisP wrote: post #10

Doesn't USA have any DoNotCall rules with some teeth, if, as the owner is saying, he "... asked you twice to remove me from you call list, as I have EVERY time I have been called by a representative from Groupon"? In my place, this would mean that their customer acquisition costs would skyrocket from fines for such incidents.

Clearly they don't care.

Well, that is the whole point of functioning regulations - if someone doesn't care, then you simply bill them until they bleed and can't ignore it.

If "don't care" is a reasonable option, then that particular DoNotCall regulation is defective by design.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#32

Post by beedogs » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:03 PM UTC

Groupon is one good class-action lawsuit away from nonexistence. Here's hoping it comes sooner rather than later if this is the kind of tactic their salesmen need to resort to now.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#33

Post by tptacek » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:03 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #6

Isn't this a protection-money racket (extortion) from a legal perspective? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket > "Extortion is a criminal offense of unlawfully obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion." > "In the United States, extortion may also be committed as a federal crime across a computer system, phone, by m…

It might not be extortion, because one of the elements of extortion is coercion, and the sales rep's mail wasn't coercive, but instead spiteful.

Had the rep instead said "maybe all this could be avoided if you would simply make the time to talk to me for 15 minutes on the phone tomorrow", it might be more cut-and-dry.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#34

Post by seivan » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

barking wrote: post #28

seivan wrote: post #19

On his LinkedIn account: "Specialties Technology, Local commerce, Social media, SEO, Online marketing, Consumer and retail marketing, Sales, Salesforce, CRM" How come every other scumbag tend to be everything above? Does it naturally attract these sorts of people? http://www.linkedin.com/pub/andy-johnston/41/81/119

I'm not American but I thought Berkeley was prestigious and yet this graduate's job is to cold call restaurants touting coupons. No wonder Andy's mad!

People lie on their LinkedIn. You had one class at Berkeley or you interned as a Genius and you worked for Apple.

LinkedIn is a massive circle jerk of buzzwords and whores recommending other whores.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#35

Post by homosaur » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

PeterisP wrote: post #10

Doesn't USA have any DoNotCall rules with some teeth, if, as the owner is saying, he "... asked you twice to remove me from you call list, as I have EVERY time I have been called by a representative from Groupon"? In my place, this would mean that their customer acquisition costs would skyrocket from fines for such incidents.

In many states you can be given a citation for soliciting people who have expressly told you not to.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#36

Post by infinitone » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

awjr wrote: post #18

The more interesting thing is, has any restaurant had a good experience with Groupon?

More like- has any business had any?

I would love to see how many times a business that tried groupon after the first time.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#37

Post by cinquemb » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

noonespecial wrote: post #17

There should be a yelp-like service for rating people like this "salesman" so that he doesn't accidentally get hired again.

Well here's a site… www.pictobar.com

But I'm not sure if this is what you mean. I'm curious to how you think one can be quantified/qualified on a site to be useful to others.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#38

Post by reustle » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:06 PM UTC

ececconi wrote: post #30

I wonder what this guys week will be like starting monday morning? Is this HN story going to do anything negative to his career?

It's not only on HN, obviously. The FB commenters don't seem to happy.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#39

Post by tdwiegand » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:07 PM UTC

benackles wrote: post #22

Bmusk wrote: post #3

http://www.yelp.com/biz/sauce-san-francisco-2?sort_by=date_d... (see Andy J's review)

Yelp needs a "Useless" flag. All kidding aside, the fact that a reviewer has complete control to destroy a business reputation without any sort of accountability or credibility is wrong. There's nothing saying that Andy has ever physically visited this establishment. Of course a "Useless" flag would be useless itself because every active business owner would flag every negative review as "Useless".The unfortunate rea…

Maybe pointed out elsewhere, but it looks like Andy J's Yelp Friend Stephan S was compelled to write a 1 star review on the same day. So it looks like he followed through with that.

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=BfVinuuuFVCAr77TnI9k...

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#40

Post by darkchasma » Sat, Aug 17, 2013, 5:07 PM UTC

droithomme wrote: post #6

Isn't this a protection-money racket (extortion) from a legal perspective? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extortion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protection_racket > "Extortion is a criminal offense of unlawfully obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion." > "In the United States, extortion may also be committed as a federal crime across a computer system, phone, by m…

You would have to demonstrate that this was an encouraged practice, and supported by management. At the very least, you would have to show the company was negligent in responding to accusations of extortion.