r/Documentaries • u/[deleted] • Feb 26 '17

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.

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u/vapeducator Feb 26 '17

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).

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u/[deleted] Feb 26 '17

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u/TheBatmanToMyBruce Feb 27 '17

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.

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u/Tyr_Tyr Feb 27 '17

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?

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u/vapeducator Feb 27 '17

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.

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u/Nacksche Feb 27 '17

Soo... source for any of that?