SunshineMom Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 I just got a Yelp account and made my first yelp review on a company which I didn't find to be that great...I gave them three stars. The next day the owner responded to my yelp review and then reported it as inappropriate (violating Yelp's "Content Guidelines") so yelp took down my review. What? I then resubmitted a review, the owner complained again to Yelp who took it down. Ok, so now, the company gets one star and a bigger review because I'm livid. The owner is gaming Yelp in order to not receive negative reviews:( I should also add that the owner's husband sent me a message through Yelp accusing me of attacking the company. I just submitted a complaint with Yelp regarding the husband's message. This is truly an example of bullying against previous customers. What should I do? I can't let this business continue to intimidate reviewers, parents need to know that this place isn't that great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TranquilMind Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 Can you report to Angie's List, if you have it in your area? I've heard there are some issues with Yelp, and unless you are a frequent reviewer, they sometimes block your reviews. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rachel Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 Three stars isn't horrible. I don't have advice on how to handle it though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zock Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 (edited) Generally if your first and only Yelp review is negative and you keep reinforcing it, then it will be removed. I have been a yelp member for years and I have posted plenty of negative reviews, but only as an overall part of the whole. I have probably 300 reviews and about 10% of them are 1* and highly negative. Yelp pretty much sets a guideline that if you only have ONE review and it's negative (and especially if it's hugely negative), they will block it. They only allow negative reviews from regular reviewers who have a variety of reviews under their belt. I have to say that I agree with this method, as I do know businesses who have been targeted by negative reviewers and a whole bunch of newly registered people will sign up and slam a business for some social media reason. Edited September 15, 2016 by Zock 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunshineMom Posted September 15, 2016 Author Share Posted September 15, 2016 (edited) I now have eight reviews with Yelp so maybe that will help my one post get published. My review of the above company wasn't bad however their reaction was so unprofessional. Edited September 15, 2016 by Jewels 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoobie Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 Google has reviews too. Go get 'em, tiger! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILiveInFlipFlops Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 (edited) I've heard that a lot about Yelp, which is why I don't bother reading reviews there. I normally review products and services realistically and factually, but in your situation, OP, I'd leave the review and the story of what happened with Yelp with as many other review sources as I could. As a consumer, I'd want to know all of that before I patronized that business. Generally if your first and only Yelp review is negative and you keep reinforcing it, then it will be removed. I have been a yelp member for years and I have posted plenty of negative reviews, but only as an overall part of the whole. I have probably 300 reviews and about 10% of them are 1* and highly negative. Yelp pretty much sets a guideline that if you only have ONE review and it's negative (and especially if it's hugely negative), they will block it. They only allow negative reviews from regular reviewers who have a variety of reviews under their belt. I have to say that I agree with this method, as I do know businesses who have been targeted by negative reviewers and a whole bunch of newly registered people will sign up and slam a business for some social media reason. How is this method valuable? How does it help consumers if businesses that receive a negative review can complain to Yelp and have it removed? What on earth is the point of the reviews then, if a business's reviews are always going to skew positive? Edited September 16, 2016 by ILiveInFlipFlops 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 Generally if your first and only Yelp review is negative and you keep reinforcing it, then it will be removed. I have been a yelp member for years and I have posted plenty of negative reviews, but only as an overall part of the whole. I have probably 300 reviews and about 10% of them are 1* and highly negative. Yelp pretty much sets a guideline that if you only have ONE review and it's negative (and especially if it's hugely negative), they will block it. They only allow negative reviews from regular reviewers who have a variety of reviews under their belt. I have to say that I agree with this method, as I do know businesses who have been targeted by negative reviewers and a whole bunch of newly registered people will sign up and slam a business for some social media reason. Yep. I'm in charge of social media advertising for the company my husband works at. Since he runs the place, I also know the daily goings on. We had one customer who didn't qualify for financing because of her past choices. Dh tried his best, but you can only get so far when they have bad credit. Said customer was pissed, so she took to social media and left bad reviews everywhere. Because her reviews on Yelp were all negative and seemingly unfounded, they removed her review. It wasn't fair to a company that tried their best to help her, to get negative reviews because of her personal issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Janeway Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 Can you complain to yelp about it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendy not in HI Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 My parents have a small you-pick berry patch. They have mostly 5 star reviews on their facebook page, but we noticed a 1 star review from April. Uh, there are not berries in April. The patch is closed. But apparently someone came by in April and they were disappointed that they couldn't pick?? People often only review when they are upset, not when things are fine, which can really skew the average. I think Yelp's policy is actually sort of smart. I can see from a business perspective, that a random poor rating can be really frustrating. On the other hand, it sounds like your review was honest and rather average, not negative. It sounds like the company has some work to do do improve their business! They should thank you for your help ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 (edited) this is, sadly, not an uncommon tactic against reviewers on yelp. some have even been sued. I don't know what options there are - but definitely report it to yelp - and if you can include what you wrote on your review that was removed. you'd think they'd review a reported review before taking it down - but they don't have time to actually read it. eta: by reading the reviews on yelp, you can almost tell which businesses have legitimate reviews - and which don't. there is a difference (I half expect a disclaimer at the bottom of the review that they were paid to write the overly chirpy review). for the latter - those are businesses I generally avoid. Edited September 16, 2016 by gardenmom5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tess in the Burbs Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 I've had a few removed. I've had managers sent messages to me. I found the companies I want to do business with are friendly and want to remedy things. The ones going off are just bad businesses. I have some good friends who left Yelp b/c of unfair removal of reviews. If you decide to stay on Yelp consider a short Tip instead of a review. I found those will stay when a review will not 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunshineMom Posted September 16, 2016 Author Share Posted September 16, 2016 (edited) My third review is now in the not recommended area of the business site. At least it is there! The owner had people write five new reviews in her favor in the last five days. The sad thing is that she's not even open to hearing why I didn't rate her business higher. I could have helped her understand what parents are wanting. I know others feel the same as I do. Edited September 16, 2016 by Jewels Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mathnerd Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 Yelp is a "for profit" company and provides services to business owners to obtain email address and other information of the reviewers. A lot of companies buy this information from yelp. There are businesses that ask yelp to take down reviews of users who sound like competitors, disgruntled employees etc. Yelp also blacks out reviews made by users who are new and give either a 1 star or 5 star review immediately (it looks suspiciously like a competitor or an employee of that company). My husband always tells me to not write bad yelp reviews even though I have been dissatisfied with some of the local services that I have used for my son (mostly sports related) because the owners of the business can identify me through Yelp services and it may eventually affect my son (sports competitions have judges drawn from local sports clubs). One trick is to review a few businesses where you have positive things to say - e.g. review your doctor's office, review the local grocery store, your favorite restaurant etc and get some credit as a legitimate reviewer on yelp and then, go on to review the business that you want to give a bad review for. Say both the pros and the cons in a level headed way and then the review is retained by Yelp. BTW/ there are other online review options now - google, Facebook etc. There was one story locally where a lady went into the local grocery store (mom and pop business) and the owner recognized her from her profile picture on yelp where she wrote a bad review and started yelling at her to get out of her store. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 I was just at a wedding gown fitting where the seamstress was livid because of bad reviews- she thinks the competitor has her employees write fake stories. She has no memory of the customer complaints written It's entirely possible she's right..... or has some selective memory but honestly believes herself to be the victim here. Either way, I can see how businesses would want some leverage from Yelp if the fear a review is fake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TranquilMind Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Generally if your first and only Yelp review is negative and you keep reinforcing it, then it will be removed. I have been a yelp member for years and I have posted plenty of negative reviews, but only as an overall part of the whole. I have probably 300 reviews and about 10% of them are 1* and highly negative. Yelp pretty much sets a guideline that if you only have ONE review and it's negative (and especially if it's hugely negative), they will block it. They only allow negative reviews from regular reviewers who have a variety of reviews under their belt. I have to say that I agree with this method, as I do know businesses who have been targeted by negative reviewers and a whole bunch of newly registered people will sign up and slam a business for some social media reason. This really doesn't make sense as a policy though. Most people who get started in reviewing do so because of a really good or a really bad experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Well, what I have learned from this thread: Don't trust reviews on yelp at all. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisIsTheDay Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Well, what I have learned from this thread: Don't trust reviews on yelp at all. I put a lot more stock in the reviews of those who have several reviews. Same thing with tripadvisor.com. What I don't trust anymore is amazon. :/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunshineMom Posted September 17, 2016 Author Share Posted September 17, 2016 I use TripAdvisor and VRBO regularly. We have used VRBO for several international trips (Peru & Costa Rica) which I book. I rely on reviews to help me make those travel plans. I thought I could use Yelp in the same manner with local places but now I see that not only are customers censored but businesses are sold advertising protection from bad reviews. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne in CA Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 To be fair, Yelp does not put up 5 star reviews from people who only have one review either. We have six 5 star Yelp reviews for our restaurant that are not visible to the public. Two are from people who are facebook friends with us. Yelp screens that somehow, so their reviews are not public, three are from people who only ever made one review and were excited to find a great restaurant in the middle of nowhere and made their review, but Yelp doesn't show them because they never made other reviews. The trouble with Yelp for a business is that people use it other ways. I had trouble with people making rude reviews about my waitresses earlier and couldn't figure out WTH,. Later it turned out that someone with a restaurant 30 miles away was trying to hire them. I think they set up those reviews, hoping I would be hard on the girls and they would change jobs??? Because the reviews were personal and mean and Yelp did remove them because they were clearly trying to hurt someone's feelings. They didn't really reflect the food or the service, the reviews were meant to cause hurt feelings. But we did have one 1 star review that Yelp won't remove that is obnoxious about our pastrami, I do think that was written by someone who just bought the old restaurant next to ours and is fixing it up. They have put some other rude stuff on the web and I anticipate more trouble with them next season. The web makes it easy for people to tear other people down for nothing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Well, what I have learned from this thread: Don't trust reviews on yelp at all. My brother in law is a "social media consultant" aka a fixer. Someone who makes money off of Yelp and Facebook making money off of someone else's work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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