Comments on: Yelp: very helpful, somewhat sneaky? http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/ Startups, technology and whatnot. Mon, 13 Dec 2010 05:29:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Janet http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/#comment-1671 Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:24:31 +0000 http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/#comment-1671 Yelp is a complete racket! I have had eight 5 star reviews removed but one disgruntled associate loses her job and spend the next two months becoming an elite yelper just so she can post a fake negative review about my business. And, it will never be removed. Now they call weekly to get me to advertise on their site. They want me to pay them money to facilitate a blank bitching board for any peon to write any biased review about my business without any verification or recourse? Oh Yes, now businesses can respond but that doesn’t affect the star rating which is what clients see when they do a search. I am astonished that there is no legal recourse. I am so looking forward to Yelp going down. They are greedy bastards and deserve to be sued into oblivion.

]]> By: Yelp; Lies, Extortion, and more « Yelptruther’s Weblog http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/#comment-1392 Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:53:49 +0000 http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/#comment-1392 [...] Yelp: very helpful, somewhat sneaky? [...]

]]> By: April N http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/#comment-1391 Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:50:37 +0000 http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/#comment-1391 The real truth, Yelp is just a savy slimy extortion game that preys upon small business owners, while using the reviews of the unsuspecting patrons as free content

Stoppelman and Simmons instruct their young sales force to do what ever it takes to get the account, including posting false reviews.

Then they call the business owner to ask if they would like help with cleaning up their yelp page. The owner pays 350.00 or more a month until they wise up or go broke.

]]> By: Jeremy http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/#comment-10 Thu, 07 Jun 2007 22:23:00 +0000 http://robwebb2k.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/yelp-very-helpful-somewhat-sneaky/#comment-10 Thanks for the valuable feedback, we’ve been thinking about changing that signup flow for a while. For the record we do not keep or use any of your address book’s email addresses for marketing purposes. We use those addresses to find any of friends that have already signed up for Yelp (it’s great to find friend’s reviews). You must manually select which non-Yelp members you want to invite, if any to the site.

-Jeremy, Yelp CEO

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