Yelp Angers Its Merchants By Deleting Their User Accounts

from the yelp-me-rhonda dept

Tue, Jul 8th 2008 3:50pm — Dennis Yang

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.

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Filed Under: merchants, reviews
Companies: yelp

27 Comments

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Overcast, 8 Jul 2008 @ 4:21pm

If there is too much 'spam' of review type sites - like other things, their value will drop to nil, because they are no longer unbiased - not that they are unbiased now...

But some seem credible.

Seems like things are cool on the web until the mass of 'dumb users'/spammers manage to find it, heh
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Me, 8 Jul 2008 @ 8:38pm

I was told by a coffee shop owner that I should be shot in the face and that if he sees me in his store he'd break my nose.

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.
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Richard C Haven, 9 Jul 2008 @ 11:02am

Re: coffee shop owner
Yeah, post his messages, and maybe file a police report for assault. He can tell you to leave his store, but he cannot threaten you, especially because you said something that he did not like.

Any honorable merchant, especially in food service, would ask you what he could do to improve.
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John Kreuzer, 9 Aug 2008 @ 10:21am

Yelp
Interesting information about Yelp. I do not use the Web site very often but have been reading about it quite a bit recently.

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/
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Melinda Yang, 23 Aug 2008 @ 5:46pm

Yelp Executives: Confused , Panicked & Immature
Here's another blog with quotes from Nish Nadaraja and Stephanie Ichinose , both executives of Yelp. Makes you wonder what the hell is going over at Yelp. Is anyone in charge over there?

http://phillips.blogs.com/goc/2008/07/the-yelp-mess.html
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Alberto D, 23 Aug 2008 @ 10:05pm

Yelp Elite Party ...Total IQ of all in building = 97
Here's a site with pictures from a recent Yelp Elite party.
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.
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Alberto D, 23 Aug 2008 @ 10:05pm

Yelp Elite Party ...Total IQ of all in building = 97
Here's a site with pictures from a recent Yelp Elite party.
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/
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Alberto D, 23 Aug 2008 @ 10:05pm

Yelp Elite Party ...Total IQ of all in building = 97
Here's a site with pictures from a recent Yelp Elite party.
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/
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Penny, 29 Aug 2008 @ 9:30pm

yelp is pissing a lot of people off
As you can see, yelp is pissing off a lot of people. Hate breeds hate. The hateful reviews on yelp are propagating more hate against yelp. Yelp is finally getting a dose of it's medicine.

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.
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Penny, 29 Aug 2008 @ 9:32pm

yelp is pissing a lot of people off
As you can see, yelp is pissing off a lot of people. Hate breeds hate. The hateful reviews on yelp are propagating more hate against yelp. Yelp is finally getting a dose of it's medicine.

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.
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usedtolikeyelp, 9 Sep 2008 @ 3:56pm

Yelp is going down hill
Yelp actualy just closed my account because I wrote a negative review of yelp. I had over 100 fun reviews and like that they killed my account. What a horrible site. Its all people hanging out on message boards loooking to fight and the reviews are as fake as fake can be.
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usedtolikeyelp, 9 Sep 2008 @ 3:56pm

Yelp is going down hill
Yelp actualy just closed my account because I wrote a negative review of yelp. I had over 100 fun reviews and like that they killed my account. What a horrible site. Its all people hanging out on message boards loooking to fight and the reviews are as fake as fake can be.
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DisillusionedAboutYelp, 15 Sep 2008 @ 1:36pm

Yelp Employee Confesses
Below's a thread about someone giving a company a bad review, and then a Yelp employee going out of their way to contact and eventually harass the reviewer. When the reviewer blocks the employee's communications to avoid further harassment, the employee then opens a public thread, and divulges private emails.  

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
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MissPinkKate, 24 Nov 2008 @ 8:50am

Yelp Removed My Negative Review of a Paid Sponsor
Check out my blog posting on the subject- my negative (2 star) review of a restaurant was removed after less than 7 days, and after I know that the restaurant owner saw it (because a mutual friend told me so). I'm done supporting Yelp. Back to Citysearch I go.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Dec 2008 @ 9:12am

Re: Yelp is going down hill
Your rihjt on the money...yelp sucks
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Sandra, 26 Feb 2009 @ 5:24pm

my reviews don't even show up sometimes...especially on the sponsored results. i'm done too... Citysearch, here I come...but I will check this out...might as well help the anti-yelp movement: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090225162712AAoCqYF
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sqpantz, 5 Mar 2009 @ 5:43pm

Re: Yelp Removed My Negative Review of a Paid Sponsor
Same happened to me. Once realizing that negative reviews could be removed by the business reviewed, how could anyone take them seriously as a review site?
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Jon, 13 Mar 2009 @ 8:06pm

Yelp People are just stupid people...
Its a website were people have nothing to do and are trying to be a food critic. I was a yelper and I didnt like it. I left and cancelled my account.
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....
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Graham Morfitt, 17 Mar 2009 @ 11:08pm

KudosWorks is much more merchant-friendly
I was looking into the Yelp phenomenon, and the math is discouraging for merchants... A happy customer tells an average of 5 people, while an unhappy customer will tell an average of 10. Seems like a losing scenario for merchants, and in this economic climate, we need all the positive energy we can find.
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.
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drbone (profile), 14 Jul 2009 @ 12:14pm

yelp.com
I agree that yelp.com sucks. Their internal search is also hard to use and you can't find anything with it! Yelp is just too aggressive in pushing their business model.

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
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jehova (profile), 2 Oct 2009 @ 1:31am

yelp in hell
We pray YELP goes bankrupt and sinks to the bottom of hell, and takes its MAFIA YELPERS with them. We pray that GOD shows no mercy for all the personal damage and EXTORTION they have inflicted upon small business owners and the children they support. YELP is a den of snakes and deserve to BURN for the lies and slander they spread on the world wide web.
Say 10 times..."We pray to Archangel Michael to swiftly destroy YELP!"
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Abu Jihad (profile), 12 Dec 2009 @ 12:40pm

I was Abu J. on Phoenix Yelp.

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.
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Yelp Is Dishonest, 12 Nov 2010 @ 9:39am

Our business has had 5 reviews so far. One is a negative review from a man who is lying about being a client; the other four are very positive. Yelp keeps only the dishonest negative review on our Yelp page, and filters out all positive reviews. Then, after complaining about this, they start hitting me up to set up a "business" account. I will never trust Yelp, again.
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ronn k., 22 Jan 2011 @ 11:44am

Helping Businesses Restore Their Names
Yelp customers have really nothing better to do with their time then try and ruin small businesses and restaurants because they are nasty people. Thats why we set up our reputation defender and repuation management services to help businesses out restore their good name! Its called the review buster. Please link to us and facebook friend us as we are trying to get this service off the ground. also please don't hesitate to send us any comments or suggestions!
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JAY F, 12 Feb 2012 @ 9:19am

REMOVE YELP FROM FACEBOOK .LOOOK SEEE...IT'S EASY REMOVE YELP FROM YOUR FACEBOOK !
I also was removed... so i removed them from MY Facebook page. two can play this game
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.
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rick bogdanyi, 14 Feb 2012 @ 4:01pm

close my account
There should be an easy way to close your account and I am tired of looking through yelp lawyer crap.

Do me a favor and cancel anything you have on my folded company.

Bogdanyi Services
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Tom, 1 Jun 2012 @ 1:56am

yelp online system is pretty much allow low budget shoppers to leave unfair comments
most of BAD people like to leave negative comments on business account and owner pretty much SOL of defense them self. in my experience, people tried to get discount and/or free service and use yelp to threat business that they will leave bad comments. I think yelp should or at least professionally work with business owners and allow them to some what defense to non-sense, UN-truthful comments.

Tom from Austin
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