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I don't think anyone is making these stories up, but with tens of thousands of businesses on Yelp, the chances of these two events randomly happening sequential

by p49k 9y ago

I don't think anyone is making these stories up, but with tens of thousands of businesses on Yelp, the chances of these two events randomly happening sequentially is high enough to have a steady stream of people who think it happened to them intentionally. Also, I've been reading these anecdotes on HN and other sites for years, and have never seen anyone tell this story and provide enough data for anyone to take a look themselves. Never a link to the business page on Yelp, never any links to the supposed negative reviews. Has a news organization ever asked Yelp to explain the specifics of any of these occurrences? Has any explanation ever turned up in the discovery phase of a case against Yelp?

jacquesm 9y ago
I suspect that is because they're afraid that their 'two star reviews' become 'zero star reviews'. Just like you don't complain about Mafia customer service in public.
- xapata 9y ago
  In this litigious society, I'd imagine a plucky suit-sponsoring hedge fund would be excited to hear of all these instances of fraud. Yet I haven't heard of any class action.
- timr 9y ago
  Or maybe it really is a made up story. Or embellished. Or mis-remembered. Other than really wanting to believe, why do you assume that some random internet guy telling a second-hand story is "hard evidence" of anything?
- p49k 9y ago
  It's possible, but it's also possible that the owner doesn't really know if Yelp is actually guilty of anything, and they're afraid that an investigation would find that the reviews are legitimate, making the owner look bad.
swalsh 9y ago
The video posted below has pretty good evidence of what's going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY He shows how he talked to a sales person at Yelp, received a bad review, which he proves is fake by showing a search from his CRM, than digs into the social media accounts of the Yelp sales person, and finds the yelp reviewer who left the bad review (but didn't have an invoice) was a friend of the sales person. even if this is just a rouge yelp sales person, there is clearly something systematically wrong here.

by p49k 9y ago

jacquesm 9y ago

I suspect that is because they're afraid that their 'two star reviews' become 'zero star reviews'. Just like you don't complain about Mafia customer service in public.

xapata 9y ago
In this litigious society, I'd imagine a plucky suit-sponsoring hedge fund would be excited to hear of all these instances of fraud. Yet I haven't heard of any class action.
timr 9y ago
Or maybe it really is a made up story. Or embellished. Or mis-remembered. Other than really wanting to believe, why do you assume that some random internet guy telling a second-hand story is "hard evidence" of anything?
p49k 9y ago
It's possible, but it's also possible that the owner doesn't really know if Yelp is actually guilty of anything, and they're afraid that an investigation would find that the reviews are legitimate, making the owner look bad.

swalsh 9y ago

The video posted below has pretty good evidence of what's going on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY He shows how he talked to a sales person at Yelp, received a bad review, which he proves is fake by showing a search from his CRM, than digs into the social media accounts of the Yelp sales person, and finds the yelp reviewer who left the bad review (but didn't have an invoice) was a friend of the sales person. even if this is just a rouge yelp sales person, there is clearly something systematically wrong here.