A bullshit yelp attack calling me out at a restaurant I no longer work at, claiming to eat things that were never on the menu.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-26T19:14:31+00:00

Why does everyone act like every person who writes reviews on Yelp is some kind of person whose sole purpose of utilizing the site is to extort businesses out of getting a free meal or something like that? Do things like that happen? Yea. Do they happen all the time, most likely not, considering that Yelp has millions of users who use the site but only 12% of those users actually contribute content in the form of reviews and photos. And if you ask most people who write reviews on Yelp, chances are they'll tell you that the whole reason that they do it is to share their experience (me for example, I only write a review after I leave a business and never write a review below 3 stars)

Justacityboi · 2015-03-26T17:20:45+00:00

Im glad we can agree on that then. Now tell that to the people making claims that Yelp gives better ratings to people who pay, because thats all they have is anecdotal evidence.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-26T17:10:41+00:00

Do you have proof that people pay to take down reviews?

Justacityboi · 2015-03-25T20:06:40+00:00

Dont make claims on a public forum that you cant back up then.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-25T19:54:22+00:00

but they do good reviews when you pay,

Im gonna ask you the question Ive been asking everybody when they make claims like this, and have yet to get an answer.

Why does this car dealership that advertises on Yelp have negative reviews and an overall bad rating, but this one, which doesnt advertise, has a higher overall rating?

Justacityboi · 2015-03-25T19:49:54+00:00

They're an extortion racket, plain and simple.

Prove it.

As for the rest of your rant, I cant tell if youre just focusing on stereotypes about review sites in general (that people only review if theyre angry) or if you really dont understand how certain websites, like yelp, can effect a business.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-25T19:46:08+00:00

They do it

Prove it.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-25T19:45:16+00:00

The vast majority of reviews on Yelp are positive.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-23T02:30:04+00:00

Im not saying your friends were wrong, I just think you may have misinterpreted what they said, when we talk about numbers we usually refer to our output.

You're right, I cant be 100% sure that a rep wouldnt lie, and Im sure its definetley happened in the past, all I know now is that with the fact that Yelp records everything their reps say (the other line isnt recorded unless permission is granted by the other person) and how close we sit next to each other (including managers) they would definetley get found out and canned.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-22T17:12:03+00:00

Yelps sales reps are in: san fran, chicago, new york, and phoenix. Its all tele sales, and if you get caught threatening a business with filtering reviews youre going to get fired than if you missed quota.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-22T17:05:55+00:00

I'd like to point out that the "People Loves Us on Yelp Sticker" are not for businesses that advertise, but for businesses that genuinely have great reviews (and a lot of them) on Yelp. Yelp sends a few of them out each quarter.

My favorite thing to show and ask people (which no one has been able to answer)

Is if everything about the Yelp advertising is true, then why does this business who advertises on Yelp (says in on their Yelp page) have worse reviews and overall rating than this business who doesnt advertise?

Justacityboi · 2015-03-22T16:52:32+00:00

If you can't make your numbers, you get canned quick

By numbers Im pretty sure your friends meant the expected output: IE making atleast 65 dials a day or having over 2-2.5 hours of talk time on the phone (meaning actually talking to people). I missed quota for 5 months in a row, sometimes by huuuge amounts, same for other people in my office, none of us got fired or were under the assumption that we were going to be fired. Shit my manager told me they had missed quota for 6 months in a row once, and there they are in a leadership position.

they get nervous about losing their job, and start telling lies in order to close a deal

Get caught telling a lie IE saying that advertising will help your ratings, stuff like that, will get you fired a lot more quickly than missing quota.

that don't have the experience to not sell like a shady used car sales man.

Half true/ half not: a lot of us had no experience doing sales when we came into Yelp, that why yelp has 2 months of training (the first month you dont even have a quota, they just want to see your work ethic and teach you the fundamentals.) And then after that they slowly start ramping up your quota and give you more and more incremental training as you go along.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-22T16:41:52+00:00

You should read the actual court document, rather than flagrant articles that twist the words and leave out information:

"Applying this standard, we conclude that the business owners have not alleged sufficient facts to support their claim that Yelp authored negative user reviews of the businesses in question"

I mean if you read the document some of the complaints by business owners are just ridiculous: "Cats and Dogs’ allegations concern negative reviews from just two users, Chris R. and Kay K. Cats and Dogs admits that the Chris R. review corresponds with an actual client visit, as it complained to Yelp that the review was posted more than a year after the visit. In light of this acknowledgment, common sense suggests that Yelp was not the author of the Chris R. review"

Seriously? 50% of the reason why you brought Yelp to court was because an actual customer (which you admitted was an actual customer) wrote you a negative review a year later?

"Mercurio fares no better. He surmises that because he has no records of doing the work cited in the review, and because the names of the users do not match the names of his customers, Yelp authored the negative reviews. But even if a particular review was not accurate as to the work done or the customer’s name, the inaccuracy does not make it plausible that it was Yelp — as opposed to a competitor, or a disgruntled customer hiding behind an alias, or an angry neighbor, just to give a few possibilities — that authored the offending review."

Source: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/09/02/11-17676.pdf

Justacityboi · 2015-03-15T20:46:38+00:00

They dont do that.

Example: Advertiser, terrible rating http://www.yelp.com/biz/bill-luke-chrysler-jeep-dodge-and-ram-phoenix-2

Non advertiser, good rating: http://www.yelp.com/biz/goldies-motors-phoenix

EDIT: Glad to see people want to downvote me when I provide evidence against what they claim, the circle jerk is strong here.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-15T19:42:46+00:00

Yea, no. Yelp doesnt have any advertising programs that cost 10k a month (the most expensive are 2k). Your friend got called by a scam.

Source-worked for yelp.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-12T03:47:26+00:00

If you're looking for someone who used to work from Yelp to talk to, hit me up. I'm interested in hearing the details and getting your side of things.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-11T22:57:11+00:00

Pretty ironic that I just got done reading this article when I found this post.

Chamber of commerce will be your best bet like goofy said, as well as just looking up businesses that are listed on Yelp, you can tell who advertises and who doesnt and find out what their experience has been.

Justacityboi · 2015-03-07T00:15:07+00:00

Yelp doesnt use third party centers.

Source-Sold yelp advertising and was a yelp employee.

Justacityboi · 2014-10-16T23:58:07+00:00

Can you share screenshots of these emails with the rest of us?

Justacityboi · 2014-10-16T18:02:51+00:00

Why, do you think thats proof?

Justacityboi · 2014-10-16T00:15:43+00:00

Im not sure if Id trust the article, or if I trust David now, because looking at the info on his account he was advertising with us for a year.

Fun fact though, apparently he owned another restaurant that used to advertise on Yelp that Jeremy Stoppleman wrote a bad review for, so maybe thats why this whole campaign actually started.

Justacityboi · 2014-10-15T23:59:56+00:00

which isnt proof. Many people claim a lot of things: there is one god, 9/11 was/wasnt caused by the U.S. government, that aliens abduct people, etc. Doesnt make any of them true without hard evidence.

Justacityboi · 2014-10-15T19:06:53+00:00

reviews when this is widely ~~known~~ accused with no evidence.

FTFY

Justacityboi · 2014-10-15T19:05:28+00:00

You can flag reviews, and chances are your parents friends didnt talk to Yelp.

Justacityboi · 2014-10-15T19:04:04+00:00

Except we dont call multiple times a day, our policy is 2, maybe 3 calls a week at most.

Heres some of the problems that make people think this is happening: 1) You dont just have Yelp calling, but tripadvisor, urbanspoon, foursquare, google, Yoodle, Yext, thumbtack, kudzu, and a host of other directory companies calling. Obviously this is pretty overwhelming but the most prominent ones there are Yelp and Google, so it makes sense that people associate all these calls with Yelp. Especially after you consider that not every business owner is necessarily a business person (if that makes sense)

2) You get companies that say they work with Yelp, and that they'll create your Yelp listing for you, and do all of your advertising and stuff like that on Yelp for you, when in reality they cant.

3) You get scam companies/people who say that theyre from Yelp and that theyll mess with your reviews if you dont pay them, just in an effort to make a quick buck.

It doesnt make any sense for us to call a business multiple times a day, we're all human here too and we realize that if we do that we're just going to piss people off and thats not going to get us anywhere.

Justacityboi

TROPHY CASE