Yelp Angers Its Merchants By Deleting Their User Accounts
from the yelp-me-rhonda dept
Review site Yelp caused quite a ruckus this week when they deleted a bunch of user accounts that they deemed to be gaming the system. Many of the users whose accounts were deleted were business owners -- Yelp accused them of trading positive reviews with other business owners, quid pro quo. Yelp has had a tumultuous relationship with its merchants in the past because of negative reviews from Yelpers; some merchants had even tried to ban Yelpers from even visiting their establishments. This tension is unfortunate, since Yelp makes its money from selling these very merchants their services. That said, hopefully Yelp has not overlooked the larger problem that still exists on their site: an overwhelming number of reviews per establishment without any good tools for filtering or determining trust. Furthermore, Yelp has become quite a target for "Foodies," who complain that the reviews from users are pedestrian and inconsistent; Eater has an entire column devoted to the "shortcomings and nuances of the Yelp empire." Despite all of the negative attention that Yelp has been getting, the most important factor is whether or not it continues to grow as a useful resource for users. Yelp just recently surpassed Citysearch in number of users in March of this year, so perhaps they are on the right path.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
But some seem credible.
Seems like things are cool on the web until the mass of 'dumb users'/spammers manage to find it, heh
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
My review wasn't as bad as the coffee that I had there that I reviewed. After his whining and threatening, I went back. Apparently I went there on a bad day and the coffee the first time was completely undrinkable. Much better the 2nd time and I know that he's venting on me for his failing shop. But still. Maybe I should post his yelp mails to me as a new review.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: coffee shop owner
Any honorable merchant, especially in food service, would ask you what he could do to improve.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp
I wrote a blog posting about Yelp and their supposed "strong arming" of businesses earlier this week.
http://kreuzer33.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/yelp-in-trouble/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp Executives: Confused , Panicked & Immature
http://phillips.blogs.com/goc/2008/07/the-yelp-mess.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp Elite Party ...Total IQ of all in building = 97
This is an event where Yelp wastes $100,000 of their investors money rewarding those unemployed and uneducated Yelpers who have enough time to write 500 or more reviews.
Check out the obscene picture on the bottom right . Two slobbering Yelp Elite ( one is breastfeeding another , and stupid enough to allow a picture to be taken).
Yes indeed, these ARE the Yelp Elite.
Nish Nadaraja and Stephanie Ichinose are also in attendance.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp Elite Party ...Total IQ of all in building = 97
This is an event where Yelp wastes $100,000 of their investors money rewarding those unemployed and uneducated Yelpers who have enough time to write 500 or more reviews.
Check out the obscene picture on the bottom right . Two slobbering Yelp Elite ( one is breastfeeding another , and stupid enough to allow a picture to be taken).
Yes indeed, these ARE the Yelp Elite.
Nish Nadaraja and Stephanie Ichinose are also in attendance.
http://valleywag.com/photogallery/yelpeliteatmighty/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp Elite Party ...Total IQ of all in building = 97
This is an event where Yelp wastes $100,000 of their investors money rewarding those unemployed and uneducated Yelpers who have enough time to write 500 or more reviews.
Check out the obscene picture on the bottom right . Two slobbering Yelp Elite ( one is breastfeeding another , and stupid enough to allow a picture to be taken).
Yes indeed, these ARE the Yelp Elite.
Nish Nadaraja and Stephanie Ichinose are also in attendance.
http://valleywag.com/photogallery/yelpeliteatmighty/
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
yelp is pissing a lot of people off
If I were running yelp, I would do the following:
1. Restore all positive reviews.
2. Reinstate banned members.
3. Issue a public appology.
4. Remove reviews that are inflammatory, personal in nature, or legal disputes. Yelp should focus on reviews and not as a means for people to attack legitimate businesses. Also, they should remove disputed accounts.
Perhaps by following these steps yelp can gain a little credibility.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
yelp is pissing a lot of people off
If I were running yelp, I would do the following:
1. Restore all positive reviews.
2. Reinstate banned members.
3. Issue a public appology.
4. Remove reviews that are inflammatory, personal in nature, or legal disputes. Yelp should focus on reviews and not as a means for people to attack legitimate businesses. Also, they should remove disputed accounts.
Perhaps by following these steps yelp can gain a little credibility.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp is going down hill
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp is going down hill
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Yelp is going down hill
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp Employee Confesses
The employee at first vehemently denies being paid by Yelp, but later gets caught confessing to the whole thing: "yelps pays me a lot of money to protect its sponsors. its a good racket. dont blow it for me." The fact that this same employee who began the harassment has also given the other company a glowing review, is completely unethical to say the least.
See for yourself, and quickly, before Yelp pulls the thread down to cover up their tracks:
http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-francisco-calling-you-out-atlas-plumbing-review
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp Removed My Negative Review of a Paid Sponsor
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Yelp Removed My Negative Review of a Paid Sponsor
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yelp People are just stupid people...
I also went to meet some of these yelpers and they are all just weird looking people "geeks" is the word. Stupid people bcs they spend hours trying to write a review for free, like its very important....
At the end you get nothing out of it. To all those yelpers keep on working for free and put your pics and your personal info like stupid is and stupid will always be....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
KudosWorks is much more merchant-friendly
I use KudosWorks.com with my business, and I find it very handy. Other sites can be customer forums for reviews (good, bad, & very bad), but for posting testimonials on my site from real customers, being able to control how many and which ones are displayed, and provide ways for happy customers to spread the word with their friends, KudosWorks is excellent.
Costs next to nothing too.
Just a merchant-centric comment, hope all you honest reviewers out there won't mind.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
yelp.com
I think it's better just to stick to established sites like citysearch, and a lot of newer review sites are cropping up like fairplayreviews.com
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
yelp in hell
Say 10 times..."We pray to Archangel Michael to swiftly destroy YELP!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I wrote over 593 popular reviews and earned 10,900 compliments and 24000 Useful, funny and cool votes. I had 139 First To Review. I Got Review of the Day on November 11 2009.
But all my reiews, compliments votes and even my ROTD were deleted without warning. In part because I was unfairly accused of something that never happened, and in part because the community manager and her real life friends didnt like my name: Abu Jihad.
Yelp users should care because they want yelp to be reliable and because you dont want your reviews to disappear as mine did.
The elite system and the ROTD system is corrupted by the community managers incompetence. There is no incentive for anyone still on Yelp to point this out, as being elite is a good deal...free food and drink at least monthly, and the favored few make up the bulk of elite. But the facts remain: There are numerous elite yelpers who dont qualify. There are numerous elite yelpers who have written only a few dozen reviews over years of elite status. And there are numerous elite yelpers who write like children. But Yelp closed MY account.
The ROTD process in Phoenix is corrupt--its mostly a few elite friends over and over. Yes, I got one for George and Dragon out of my 593 reviews and I was very pleased and grateful-but its gone now. On the other hand, the brother of a local Community Manager has three ROTD out of 20 some reviews. Is that fair? Is that ethical? No. And dont start with the algorithm nonsense. There is no algorithm.
Finally, about my reviews. I had 593 reviews up. Of those I had 139 FTRs (none for events), 15 reviews over 100 UFC votes each, and two reviews over 150 UFCs (Macayo and my ROTD). My reviews were the most UFCd for almost every establishment I reviewed, and not only in Phoenix. I wasnt elite, and it wasnt because I didnt have a pic (I did). Its because I am Abu Jihad and peoplejust didnt like it. Nobody can gainsay that.
Its sickening to have all your reviews deleted without a TOS violation. Without a warning. With no recourse. Its probably more sickening for you to be writing with the prospect of your reviews being taken down. At least I know what yelp can do to me.
I have never yelped under another profile before Abu J (my real name) and I wont yelp with any other profiles. I am a real person. I wanted to make a contribution, and many people---at least 85 fans and 600 plus friends--thought I did. Others, well, others differed.
I had a lot of fun. Now its over.
If youre after getting the honey then you dont go killing all the bees, like Joe Strummer says.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Helping Businesses Restore Their Names
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
REMOVE YELP FROM FACEBOOK .LOOOK SEEE...IT'S EASY REMOVE YELP FROM YOUR FACEBOOK !
Go to the Yelp fan page on Facebook.com by clicking here and click the "Remove App" link on the right hand side bottom of the page.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
close my account
Do me a favor and cancel anything you have on my folded company.
Bogdanyi Services
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
yelp online system is pretty much allow low budget shoppers to leave unfair comments
Tom from Austin
[ link to this | view in chronology ]