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Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

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Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#81

Post by greenyoda »

baddox wrote: post #61
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…

Does that act that's being threatened have to itself be illegal in order for the threat to qualify as extortion? Yelp reviews aren't illegal.

I don't think the act has to be illegal. For example, if I threaten to tell someone's wife that he's having an affair unless he gives me money, I think that would qualify as extortion. The language of the law doesn't say anything about the act being illegal:

"Extortion is a criminal offense of unlawfully obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion."

"Which Kinds of Threats are Illegal? One common characteristic of extortion is the use of threats, that is, an express intention to inflict injury, loss, or some other bad consequence on another person."

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#82

Post by toble »

awjr wrote: post #18

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

I think you need really high margins to do well with Groupon. Their first client was a pizza outlet, which is about as high a margin as you can get in food.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#83

Post by skore »

jiggypuffs wrote: post #55
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 fairly sure this is his twitter: https://twitter.com/ANDYJBEASTMODE So, I guess it shouldn't be shocking that this former media studies major is not what we'd call a genius. The twitter account includes references to studying at Berkeley, supporting the Giants, Chicago, sharing Groupons, using MDMA, and smoking pot. I wonder how long before Andy Johnston renames / deletes this account too, as part of his futile a…

Link seems gone already. Next time, take a screenshot, otherwise it's a bit hard to prove you were right - especially considering you are making claims about mentions of drug use.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#84

Post by yelp_is_bad_too »

Psst...

Yelp salespeople have threatened restaurant owners that negative reviews would be more prominent (or could disappear if they "ran a deal" w/ them)

Who knows if company policy, but cowboy/cowgirl sales reps are doing a fantastic job of burning goodwill

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#85

Post by rorrr2 »

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!

His degree is in "American Studies, Business and American Culture".

Cold calling seems like a good fit.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#87

Post by jasonkester »

This would be better titled "idiot gets himself fired (from Groupon)", since it's unlikely that Groupon has a policy of threatening their customers in writing, or much tolerance of employees who make it appear that they do.

Incidentally, "As a resident of San Francisco for over 25 years" is code for "this is my first job out of college". Hopefully he'll be a little smarter by the time he finds his second.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#88

Post by ajju »

Wilya wrote: post #73
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

Because having a bully-ish personality does make you a more efficient salesman (the less ethics you have, the more strategies you can use to convince people to buy stuff), and it's easier to be a bully in tech-related jobs. Jobs where being an asshole can be an asset attract assholes. Simple as that.

It doesn't, at least in my experience.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#89

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

tdwiegand wrote: post #39
benackles wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Huh. Stephan only has 1 friend.

edit: Just noticed. I also have only one Yelp friend.

Re: Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

#90

Post by pwenzel »

usaphp wrote: post #4

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=hnH6RaPkJ2Tfw9ZkKMfL... see how many bad reviews he already wrote for Sause! I think his profile should be flagged, you can't trust a person who does this kind of things. Edit: He just changed his name to West C. what a guy :) Another Edit: Just look at his reviews date - they all are written on July 29-30 - why would anybody write so many reviews unless you receive a commissio…

"This Yelper's account has been closed."
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