>I did end up helping the restaurant down the block when they got scammed by a service claiming to be Yelp, that actually took over their profile and was making

>I did end up helping the restaurant down the block when they got scammed by a service claiming to be Yelp, that actually took over their profile and was making them pay to make changes to it. I think a lot of supposed "Yelp scammed me" stories are actually that - third parties. Yep. I suspect this too. It's the same thing that happens with spammy SEO services that effectively threaten to hurt your search rank unless you pay up.