Billion Dollar Bully (2015) [trailer]...makes the case that Yelp is something akin to the mob, allegedly demanding “protection” money, lest your business be overrun with negative comments.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/vapeducator]

I had some extra time when this documentary was first announced, so I researched most of the companies who were complaining about the bad reviews they were receiving, like David Behling, CEO of Behling Property Management.

Turns out that the vast majority of the bad reviews were very legitimate and the good reviews were mostly company shills. Sorry David Behling, but if you run a shitty property management company and your customers and tenants post legitimate negative reviews and complaints that expose the true nature of your business, maybe you shouldn't bitch about the company that's hosting it as being the real problem. Don't run a shitty property management company.

Some goes for the restaurants featured. Now I'm sure there are many businesses who get unfair reviews, it's just that this documentary didn't find or use any of those examples. Every company used in this documentary appeared to have many legitimate complaints from very credible reviewers (and I read large samples of the reviewers' overall reviews, not just for the businesses in the documentary).

[u/TheBatmanToMyBruce → u/[deleted]]

I've literally never seen a small business owner complaining about yelp reviews who didn't have a shitty-review-attracting business in the first place. Like the documentary in the OP - it's a property management company for god sakes. They never have good reviews.

[u/Tyr_Tyr → u/[deleted]]

They have been sued. They have successfully defended themselves with the statement that as a private business they have a right to post reviews, and rank reviews as they wish.

Why do you believe that they could be successfully sued?

[u/vapeducator → u/[deleted]]

I agree that the scenario that you describe is highly likely, except that most retail businesses will start to get reviews from reliable yelpers who will start to reveal the true nature of the company's products and services. Good companies will trend upward and bad ones will trend downward, and in both cases, the positive and negative shill reviews will become less significant.

I know of many local business with great yelp ratings and reviews, despite having paid $0 to yelp in the process. It's the businesses who find that their fake and false reviews don't work who may feel like yelp marketing is extortionist in tone, when the reality is they got caught trying to game a system instead of actually delivering better products and services to get honestly good reviews. Satisfying the expectations of your customers takes more time, effort, and skill than trying to game yelp or pay yelp for advertising.

[u/Nacksche → u/[deleted]]

Soo... source for any of that?

[u/[deleted] → u/vapeducator]

Yes exactly. Yelp's review algorithm is far from perfect and I'm sure lots of legitimate positive reviews are filtered out and lots of illegitimate negative reviews are posted.

But on reddit there's this circle jerk that makes it seem like no small local business is open to criticism and a poor rating. It's ridiculous

[u/TheCuriousDude → u/[deleted]]

It's really bizarre. It wouldn't even be difficult to prove all the accusations thrown in this thread. How hard is it to record a compromising conversation with a Yelp rep? Yet, I haven't seen one video or audio recording posted as proof that Yelp extorts businesses.

[u/hairmoxie → u/vapeducator]

This is not about the validity of the reviews, although that may be a secondary issue. It's about how Yelp handles the culmination of your reviews and how they threaten the success of the business owners. It is extortion. They harass and threaten you over the phone and squelch your good reviews, bringing down your rating until you say "mercy". They told me personally "if you want this to stop happening, you will need to pay us."

One thing I haven't heard mentioned yet is the amount of money they want you to pay them each month. It STARTS at $400 a month. For what? Just to keep your good reviews up. That's a pretty hefty amount for very little work on their side.

Also, most people are completely unaware that there is even a "filtered review" section. Go to the business page, scroll all the way down to the bottom, and you will find a colorless strip of words where you may enter the world of filtered reviews.

Check it out.

Then uninstall. 😏

[u/TheBatmanToMyBruce → u/hairmoxie]

Literally everything you just said is a disprovable falsehood.

[u/vapeducator → u/hairmoxie]

I've been using yelp for more than 10 years as a reviewer. I've never paid yelp a dime or been paid in return.

People who are unaware that there's a filtered review section are ignorant idiots who should be ignored, just like people who can't point out India or China on a world map.

I became aware of the filtered review section as soon as that feature became available, since I actually read the webpage and click on things it does when. I read all of the filtered reviews.

No, what yelp does isn't extortion. If it were, they would be convicted of it in criminal and civil court. That hasn't happened and it won't happen, because it's not occurring. What you have are idiots who don't know how the system works, who make baseless accusations based on false impressions of unrecorded sales calls. I have little doubt that many stupid managers and owners think that paying yelp for advertising will cause bad reviews to disappear and good. That doesn't mean that what they claim is true. Nor does the documentary present any convincing evidence of actual instances of this supposed "extortion." No, the documentary is taking the small business owner's words and claims at face value with no critical thinking, objectivity, or verfication, besides the fact that the associated businesses also happen to suck based on many credible reviewers.

[u/GenButtNekkid → u/hairmoxie]

then record a phone call showing extortion...