Back when I was a restaurant partner, some yelp dude called me and got all pissy at me because I told him to remove our page from their site. I just laughed into the phone until he hung up.
We built our popularity on word of mouth. We were barely keeping up with the amount of business that would pour into our tiny spot.
Yelp's small business extortion model is well known. I've fielded many if these calls.
"Such a nice business you've got there, it'd be a shame if the negative reviews we promote on our platform were to hurt your growing business at a time when you can't really afford for that to happen. Luckily you can pay us to make the problem just disappear."
I have also personally had these phone conversations with Yelp reps, multiple times.
They were extremely aggressive in the 2010s and it was well-known in the restaurant industry that bullshit negative reviews that were previously suppressed (things like "I visited outside of their posted business hours and they were closed!" one-star reviews) would suddenly pop back up after declining to pay for a Yelp listing.
Frankly so is the Better Business Bureau. People act like they are some government protection agency. They are a private organization that chargers membership fees to the very businesses they pretend to watch dog. When someone files a complaint with them they treat member businesses that pay them more favorably. Total horse shit. I got a complaint through them for my wedding business when I used to run it and I pretty much told them they were no boby, the situation was none of their business and to fuck off. They proceeded to start contacting me to offer me the great opportunity to pay them so I could join.
I had the same thing happen to me with my business. They never showed any of the positive reviews, and any positive review was suspicious or farmed by the owner and flagged as fake and would only be displayed if we advertised. Disgusting company. Never took the bait and built a strong online reputation via Google.
Yelp actually did this. Sometimes a threat wrapped in a mafia like "What if you had a bad review? Maybe business would dry up, so pay for our protection"
I had a business. They would make threats if you didn't pay them for advertising on a profile page they created for you. They'd call. And call. And call. No was never an option until I said "Hey, I'm 20 miles from your HQ. I have the address. Wanna hear me say 'no' with my fist?" And they never called again.
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u/0202_tihssitidder Aug 14 '26
They used to call me when I had a business. A 25 year old threatening me. I'd switch to not understanding English.