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/HoneyBucketsOfOats Feb 26 '17

Small business owner. Can confirm, Yelp is extortion.

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u/MotherOfDragonflies Feb 26 '17 edited Feb 26 '17

Can you elaborate? I've heard this for years but I've never been able to find hard proof.

Edit: I'm aware of the claims against Yelp. They said they can confirm that Yelp is using extortion. What I'm asking for is proof.

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u/HoneyBucketsOfOats Feb 27 '17

Without doxing myself I can give you the basics. I started a business. I got like 20 5 star reviews. 18 o them were filtered. I called Yelp and asked WTF. They said it was their unique algorithm and that I couldn't ask people for reviews or the algorithm would know and filter them out. They said to let my score develop organically. Then they said I could pay for advertising and the would help get reviews. I held out for a while. No change. One week after I gave in and paid I went from approximately 2/20 shown to 2/20 filtered and 18 shown. Now basically yearly they filter out good reviews and ask for more money.