6 ms·

Yelp executives belong in prison for fraud.

Retric 6y ago
Seems obvious that a company could sue them for fraud by misrepresenting a phone number. I really don’t understand how or why this could be legal.
- bigbubba 6y ago
  The problem is yelp has more money for lawyers than a low-margin local restaurant. That's why this should be treated as a criminal matter, with state prosecutors taking down Yelp.
  - incongruity 6y ago
    But a restaurant association (like the one mentioned in the article) could definitely foot the bill to get a class action started.
  - daniellarusso 6y ago
    Could this be considered a RICO violation? Is this not bribery?
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      Yeah, the feds will get right on that. Ob Lebowski: “Leads, yeah sure. I'll uh, just check with the boys down at the Crime Lab. They uh, got uh, four more detectives working on the case. They've got us working in shifts.”
      - daniellarusso 6y ago
        Civil RICO does not need the feds.
    - berdario 6y ago
      It's never RICO https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/ https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-... specifically, I don't see how this can be bribery. Who is the person or official that Yelp is bribing? It's not Grubhub, since Grubhub doesn't really have any authority to guide purchases through their systems. In fact, if anything, it's yelp which surreptitiously can guide purchases through more expensive (for the restaurant) services. But I don't think this is extortion either: Yelp is not forcing the customers to use them, nor the restaurant to use them. If one really pushes, I think that Yelp might yield and delist your business (which would be bad, but in a different way), and they anyhow aren't asking you for money for an extortion. They're (together with grubhub) "simply" asking the business money for an (unwelcome) service they provide. (also, you'd probably have to sue Jeremy Stoppelman, and not Yelp if you really want to make a RICO claim) Yelp is surely scummy, but I think that if people want to press charges, they should be for more run-of-the-mill fraud claims.
      - daniellarusso 6y ago
        So, I re-read the above linked article and it seems like the article makes the case that this instance could fall under a civil RICO suit. Bribery, I am not using the correct term. Whatever the term that means “If you don’t pay us, bad things will happen.”
        jcranmer 6y ago
        > Whatever the term that means “If you don’t pay us, bad things will happen.” That would be extortion. To shorten Popehat's explanation of RICO more fundamentally, RICO requires several elements to all apply to kick in. It is not mere extortion (plus other racketeering crimes). It is also not extortion repeated over several times. Instead, it is the repeated extortion by the defendant in the service of the distinct enterprise. Stepping back out again, if you're arguing that a company's actions mean it violates RICO, you're almost certainly screwed because the defendant you're suing is the company, and the relevant enterprise is, uh, the company again, which causes the suit to fail. So, no, it's not RICO because the defendant is Yelp and the enterprise is Yelp, and the defendant cannot be the enterprise.
  - fairity 6y ago
    > The problem is yelp has more money for lawyers than a low-margin local restaurant. Class-action lawsuits were created to solve this exact problem?
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      What if they fail? Would yelp retaliate against businesses that participated in the class action lawsuit? This possibility, even if unlikely, may dissuade many from even trying. 'If you come at the king, you best not miss.' - Omar
      - fairity 6y ago
        > Would yelp retaliate against businesses that participated in the class action lawsuit? Plaintiffs can remain anonymous in class-actions for this reason.
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      Mandatory arbitration was designed to get around class-action suits, arbitration does not create binding precedent. Constitutional originalism was invented to enshrine mandatory arbitration - if the framers of the Constitution didn't have it in mind it wasn't important or can be punted to a pernennial gridlocked legislature.
    - syshum 6y ago
      Class-Action lawsuits were created by lawyers who changed careers into politics and got funding for their campaign from the trial lawyers association in order to increase the amount of money trial lawyers can make
  - abcanthur 6y ago
    Could a well-funded Yelp competitor with an orthogonal approach, at least in this portion of the business model, kickstart the lawsuit?
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Maybe, but the yelp competitors seem dirty too. There's a pizza shop down the street from me that seems to have three or four websites masquerading as them, each with different phone numbers. Yelp executives being sent to prison would, I hope, sent a strong message to the others.
      - mywittyname 6y ago
        A local pizza chain has one telephone number which they advertise as a catchy jingle. Even after 15+ years of never eating there, it's one of maybe four phone numbers that I can recite from memory.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
Where is the fraud? The restaurant must have agreed to the commission Yelp is asking for if the restaurant owes it to Yelp.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  Yelp, to restaurants: we get a commission on Grubhub orders. Restaurants, begrudgingly: fine ——— Yelp, to users: click here to order through Grubhub Yelp, to customers: or just use the restaurant’s phone number to order yourself. [shows you a number that isn’t the restaurant’s] —— Yelp is effectively telling users that a number belongs to the restaurant when it doesn’t. I’m sure yelp’s lawyers would say they aren’t actually telling any users that the restaurant’s number belongs to the restaurant, but come on. It’s clear that the intent is to mislead.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    > Yelp, to restaurants: we get a commission on Grubhub orders. Restaurants, begrudgingly: fine Is this true? Or is the agreement to pay commission or a fee for any calls coming from Yelp’s website or app? I’m just saying people are throwing out terms like prison and fraud, and in the legal world, those words have specifics meanings.
    - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
      As I understand it, yes it’s true.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- fairity 6y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's pretty obvious that Yelp wouldn't do this if their contracts didn't cover it. The question is whether the contracts and sales language being used are worded to mislead the restaurant owner. I see no reference to contract language or sales language anywhere in the article or this thread.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Seems obvious that a company could sue them for fraud by misrepresenting a phone number. I really don’t understand how or why this could be legal.

bigbubba 6y ago
The problem is yelp has more money for lawyers than a low-margin local restaurant. That's why this should be treated as a criminal matter, with state prosecutors taking down Yelp.
- incongruity 6y ago
  But a restaurant association (like the one mentioned in the article) could definitely foot the bill to get a class action started.
- daniellarusso 6y ago
  Could this be considered a RICO violation? Is this not bribery?
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    Yeah, the feds will get right on that. Ob Lebowski: “Leads, yeah sure. I'll uh, just check with the boys down at the Crime Lab. They uh, got uh, four more detectives working on the case. They've got us working in shifts.”
    - daniellarusso 6y ago
      Civil RICO does not need the feds.
  - berdario 6y ago
    It's never RICO https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/ https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-... specifically, I don't see how this can be bribery. Who is the person or official that Yelp is bribing? It's not Grubhub, since Grubhub doesn't really have any authority to guide purchases through their systems. In fact, if anything, it's yelp which surreptitiously can guide purchases through more expensive (for the restaurant) services. But I don't think this is extortion either: Yelp is not forcing the customers to use them, nor the restaurant to use them. If one really pushes, I think that Yelp might yield and delist your business (which would be bad, but in a different way), and they anyhow aren't asking you for money for an extortion. They're (together with grubhub) "simply" asking the business money for an (unwelcome) service they provide. (also, you'd probably have to sue Jeremy Stoppelman, and not Yelp if you really want to make a RICO claim) Yelp is surely scummy, but I think that if people want to press charges, they should be for more run-of-the-mill fraud claims.
    - daniellarusso 6y ago
      So, I re-read the above linked article and it seems like the article makes the case that this instance could fall under a civil RICO suit. Bribery, I am not using the correct term. Whatever the term that means “If you don’t pay us, bad things will happen.”
      - jcranmer 6y ago
        > Whatever the term that means “If you don’t pay us, bad things will happen.” That would be extortion. To shorten Popehat's explanation of RICO more fundamentally, RICO requires several elements to all apply to kick in. It is not mere extortion (plus other racketeering crimes). It is also not extortion repeated over several times. Instead, it is the repeated extortion by the defendant in the service of the distinct enterprise. Stepping back out again, if you're arguing that a company's actions mean it violates RICO, you're almost certainly screwed because the defendant you're suing is the company, and the relevant enterprise is, uh, the company again, which causes the suit to fail. So, no, it's not RICO because the defendant is Yelp and the enterprise is Yelp, and the defendant cannot be the enterprise.
- fairity 6y ago
  > The problem is yelp has more money for lawyers than a low-margin local restaurant. Class-action lawsuits were created to solve this exact problem?
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    What if they fail? Would yelp retaliate against businesses that participated in the class action lawsuit? This possibility, even if unlikely, may dissuade many from even trying. 'If you come at the king, you best not miss.' - Omar
    - fairity 6y ago
      > Would yelp retaliate against businesses that participated in the class action lawsuit? Plaintiffs can remain anonymous in class-actions for this reason.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    Mandatory arbitration was designed to get around class-action suits, arbitration does not create binding precedent. Constitutional originalism was invented to enshrine mandatory arbitration - if the framers of the Constitution didn't have it in mind it wasn't important or can be punted to a pernennial gridlocked legislature.
  - syshum 6y ago
    Class-Action lawsuits were created by lawyers who changed careers into politics and got funding for their campaign from the trial lawyers association in order to increase the amount of money trial lawyers can make
- abcanthur 6y ago
  Could a well-funded Yelp competitor with an orthogonal approach, at least in this portion of the business model, kickstart the lawsuit?
  - bigbubba 6y ago
    Maybe, but the yelp competitors seem dirty too. There's a pizza shop down the street from me that seems to have three or four websites masquerading as them, each with different phone numbers. Yelp executives being sent to prison would, I hope, sent a strong message to the others.
    - mywittyname 6y ago
      A local pizza chain has one telephone number which they advertise as a catchy jingle. Even after 15+ years of never eating there, it's one of maybe four phone numbers that I can recite from memory.

lotsofpulp 6y ago

Where is the fraud? The restaurant must have agreed to the commission Yelp is asking for if the restaurant owes it to Yelp.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
Yelp, to restaurants: we get a commission on Grubhub orders. Restaurants, begrudgingly: fine ——— Yelp, to users: click here to order through Grubhub Yelp, to customers: or just use the restaurant’s phone number to order yourself. [shows you a number that isn’t the restaurant’s] —— Yelp is effectively telling users that a number belongs to the restaurant when it doesn’t. I’m sure yelp’s lawyers would say they aren’t actually telling any users that the restaurant’s number belongs to the restaurant, but come on. It’s clear that the intent is to mislead.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  > Yelp, to restaurants: we get a commission on Grubhub orders. Restaurants, begrudgingly: fine Is this true? Or is the agreement to pay commission or a fee for any calls coming from Yelp’s website or app? I’m just saying people are throwing out terms like prison and fraud, and in the legal world, those words have specifics meanings.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    As I understand it, yes it’s true.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
fairity 6y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted. It's pretty obvious that Yelp wouldn't do this if their contracts didn't cover it. The question is whether the contracts and sales language being used are worded to mislead the restaurant owner. I see no reference to contract language or sales language anywhere in the article or this thread.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]