Unethical Business Practices of Yelp

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

My husband is a realtor and has been for about nine years now.  He has a wonderful reputation.  About three weeks ago someone posted a negative review about him on Yelp.  It's a long story but this guy wanted to sell his house not on the open market, so Chris brought him a buyer and Chris did the deal off market.  He sold his house for 1.4 million.  Chris then sold the house across the street on the market and it went for 200,000 over asking.  Once this guy across the street saw how much more he could have gotten, he was pissed at Chris and felt he was not adequately represented.  Chris told him he didn't know what he could actually get for his house unless he put it on the market, which he didn't want to do.

Anyway, he posted this negative review about Chris.  Chris contacted some other happy clients and asked them to review him on Yelp.  He's had about 10 people post positive reviews about him.  Almost all of them have been filtered out and do not show up by Yelp.  Of course, they leave the negative review.  We think this is because Chris does not pay for advertising on Yelp and that's why.

I got online and started reading all the unethical posts about Yelp and I am just shocked.  This company is outrageous.  They pull this type of stuff on everyone.  One lady had 19 positive reviews and one negative and Yelp filtered out the 19 positive reviews and left the negative review.  I don't know how they get away with this behavior.  They are ruining people's reputations by not being honest.

They claim it's this algorithm they use and it's unbiased.  Hardly.  It's also impossible to contact Yelp as well.  I think a class action lawsuit should be filed against this company for such unethical business practices.  Just amazing.

Here is another interesting post about Yelp:  http://kaira-web-marketing.blogspot.com/2012/08/yelp-engaged-in-eth...

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

You're probably on to something here, Kelly.  A hair salon in my town (Fort Lee, NJ) got awful reviews after they ran a groupon for keratin.  I added my own review, which I was shocked was filtered.  It's total BS because my review was totally honest.  I review things all the time.  I'm really appalled that they seemingly willy-nilly (that's crap about some computer doing that) excluding my review from the ratings.  It is there for anyone to read (click on filtered) and I can edit it, which I have several times.   I wrote yelp customer service and heard nothing back.

Looking now, I see that there are only 2 reviews (1 star and 3 stars) and 28 FILTERED REVIEWS!!!!  What kind of crap is this??!!!!   You might get a kick out of reading my review:   

http://www.yelp.com/biz/jolie-toi-salon-and-spa-fort-lee#hrid:Ce9m9...

I would have written more in my final edit but I reached the maximum size.  (Keratin still working!)

Something's rotten in Denmark.    That is for sure.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Yeah, I agree with you.  Chris has nine five-star reviews and one one-star review.  To have all nine in the filter is just appalling.  The only thing I can hope for is that people take Yelp reviews with a grain of salt and realize you cannot rely on them because of their unethical business practices.  Just crazy.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

Kelli, sorry about the spelling.  My 15 minutes to edit is up!   Yes, people should know not to take yelp too seriously.  It's interesting to look at but it's very suspicious.  

I'd deluge Yelp with complaints about all the positive reviews being filtered and the only review they don't deem to be fake being the one negative review.  They've got some nerve.

[Rosalie DeLeonardis]

Can your husband go on there and state is side of the story in response to the negative comment?  I know about Yelp, but not familiar on how it works.

[Kyung]

You can reply to the negative review on Yelp and provide your side of the story.  

I actually Yelp quite a bit, mostly for restaurants and things.  Yelp is supposed to be for reviews written by people who are unaffiliated to the business.

You can look at it from another point of view as well.  There are businesses that go out and pay people they know to write positive reviews.  Not saying this is what happened in Kelly's husband's case or Marge's case, but I can see both sides of the story.  But if all of a sudden you see 10 positive reviews pop on the same day or something from people who have never reviewed before, then of course they're going to get a little suspicious.

I personally always take Yelp w/a grain of salt and see the overall number of reviews.  If it's just one bad review, I tend to disregard the bad review.    You can see if reviews are trending upward or downward as well.

I have heard of problems of with Yelp as well, so I don't deny that it has its share of problems regarding credibility of some of its reviewers.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

The problem is, Kyung, is you can't see the "filtered reveiws" unless you know to look for them.  When I read Marge's review, I had to seriously look around for the filtered reviews to see what she wrote.  If you don't know to look for them, you wouldn't even have a clue to look. 

I think Yelp should just be transparent and post everything and let the reader be the judge of what to believe, not filter all positive reviews and leave the negative.  Seriously something wrong with this picture.  Being an independent contractor like my husband as a realtor, your reputation is absolutely everything.  Yelp has become a detriment and is helping to ruin his reputation and not help him by hiding all positive reviews and showcasing the negative one.  I have lost absolutely all respect for this company. 

I just posted this because I want everyone I can reach out to to know when reading stuff on Yelp, things are not always as they appear; you're not getting the full story and they manipulate ratings to look worse than they really are.  Pretty tragic.

[Marge Teilhaber (TILE hobber)]

You're right, Kelli, in all that you say.  I hope someone sues them for this.  It's despicable.  I've written 10 Yelp review since 2008, and they're all good reviews.  I give details of why I like a place.  I mostly review when I want to recommend something.  I rarely review when I hate something.  You'd think that with my history of reviews and also that I wrote them that they'd either get back to me or reverse the filter.  But nothing.  That's a big turn-off.  Out of curiosity, when I get a chance I'll look to see if other of my reviews were filtered.  I'll let you know.

[Kelli Combs (admin)]

Well, if you write a negative review, you can guarantee it's still there; only the positive reviews that might help a business will be filtered.  What crooks.

[Martha R]

I just heard on KGO this past weekend about Yelp filtering reviews.    What a coincident.   The moderator of the show thought Yelp was on its way out of vogue.   Too many "old" reviews.   I swear all these high tech companies like Google and Facebook  and now Yelp really love to trample on privacy and freedom of speech.   I mean Google has a picture of your backyard for all the world to see.  How  lovely is that?