I was excited about the release of the Yelp documentary Billion Dollar Bully. I have never bought a digital movie before. I knew I was not going to watch it just one time. I was so right. My first time through was to take it all in. But I had mixed feelings on my first pass. It seems to barely scratch the surface of Yelp’s business practices and lacked real substance. I briefly went back and started to pick and choose a few scenes to rewatch and start my initial research. It was on May, 25 that I really got into the full swing of analyzing the documentary. My second pass I started looking at the businesses and the individuals featured in the documentary and it started waving some red flags.
Like, who is Amy Rose Lane?
Amy Rose Lane is listed as a freelance journalist and one of the sources for Billion Dollar Bully. She used to blog under the name Amy-Rose Lane until 2103. She then changed her name to Amica Graber before getting hired as a content and social media manager for a marketing company in San Diego. Before that, she had written for Buzzfeed and built her resume by compiling list blogs such as “Which Fall TV Heroine Are You,” “10 Tea Cozies to Warm Your Cockles and Your Cuppa,” and “15 Jennifer Lawrence Moments To Make Snuggle Bubbles In Your Cold Dead Heart.” Upgrading herself to the title of freelance journalist apparently carried more weight with filmmakers and lent credibility as a more authoritative speaker, Jennifer Lawrence feel-good moments notwithstanding.
But it begs the question, why would this author of “Why Too Many Cooks Is Just Like Tinder,” who is a key source in this story arc, revert to a pseudonym she had ditched years earlier, and why would she do it when her big moment arrives in a documentary to chip away at billion dollar corporation Yelp?
Should a Business Be Able to Opt Out?
In rather alarming fashion so as to warn the capitalists in the world, Amy Lane raised the issue that business owners can’t opt out or remove themselves from Yelp, but it’s clear that she doesn’t know how citations on the internet work. This is the same policy with Yellow Pages, Google, and other citation and review platforms. I contacted a colleague at the BBB and was advised that it has never heard of any business owner requesting to be removed; it also would not remove a business if there was a single complaint filed with that business.
As a Google My Business Product Expert, I see this question asked often. Typically, the businesses that want to opt out of reviews or want their business removed from Google have negative reviews and don’t want potential customers to be aware of these bad marks. I have seen cases in which businesses with horrible reviews go so far as to confess that their listing was in violation of Google’s TOS; Google then removed the business, thus removing the negative reviews associated with the listing. So far, Facebook is the only company that allows a business to delete its page or turn off reviews.
Vetted Businesses
In an online interview, filmmakers Kaylie Milliken and Mellissa Wood were asked about their vetting process for this documentary, whose premise is that Yelp extorted businesses to do advertising and that, if they didn’t advertise, their positive reviews would go away and their negative reviews would be pushed up. Wood stated they researched and vetted people and businesses that came forward to participate in the documentary. Milliken said she thinks, “the stories that have we are very solid.”
I started digging into the online reviews for these businesses. I would not have chosen them as subjects. Although I am not sure what the vetting process was, it is clear to me that the world of online reviews is completely foreign to Milliken and Wood.
The Australian Grill in Carlsbad, Calif., which is now closed, had an interesting way to deal with negative reviews. A few negative reviewers claimed that the owner harassed them or contacted their employer to have them fired. The documentary would have you believe that Ms.Stefanie Isacatus had to shut down over Yelp’s review filters without taking into account her actual business practices or the viability within the community or at a particular location. A similar complaint about The Australian Grill was posted on TripAdvisor.
The Australian Grill has a 3-star rating. But it turns out that the Australian Grill was the third restaurant to close, or fail, in that location. The Australian Grill has 21 TripAdvisor reviews, which it racked up in a two-year period; 11 reviews were 3-stars or lower. It appears that the Australian Grill did not last three years.
Even Ayesha Kiani of Chal Chilli in NYC became combative responding to negative Yelp reviews. Reviewers were trying to tell her that her food wasn’t good and needed to improve. That advice fell on deaf ears. Prior to closing Chal Chilli, it appears that Kiani posted positive Google and Yelp reviews for her restaurant. There are a lot of positive Yelp reviews by people with the last initial of K. Yelp only shows the last initial to protect the identity of the reviewer. The last negative review mentioned that they had violations with their last health inspection report. Mayor Michael Bloomberg passed a law in 2010 requiring restaurants to publicly display their letter grade. I wonder what the grade was and if, and when, it was publicly posted on her storefront?.
The obvious question about Chal Chilli and The American Grill is did they close because they were extorted by Yelp or because, in a business that already has a large failure rate, their product or practices were poor?
What Was the Vetting Criteria?
I am not seeing evidence of a stringent vetting process. I noticed that several of the businesses covered in the documentary received negative reviews referencing rude staff. The Berkeley, Calif., business of R. Kassman, Purveyor of Fine Pianos, has 20 negative reviews referencing owner Russell Kassman as being “condescending.” Would it surprise you to know that R. Kassman has several suspicious positive Google reviews? It turns out five Google reviewers not only reviewed R. Kassman positively but also reviewed the same construction company in New Zealand, NZ Commercials & Industrial LTD. I also found reviewers who reviewed businesses covered on Review Fraud for having suspicious reviews. Kassman claims he started getting negative reviews “when we started towing vehicles.” I found two reviews referencing a threat to be towed. Both reviews referenced Kassman’s temperament too. One reviewer claimed to have been a customer of R. Kassman who decided to check out the sale at the business next door but was accosted by Kassman to move his car because he was no longer a customer once he left R. Kassman to visit the neighboring business.
Fido’s Retreat is no Treat
Fido’s Retreat in Brooklyn has an issue with all negative reviews too. The owner, Gabriel Vitol replies in a combative tone and claims that several reviews are fake and/or purchased by a competitor. It’s odd that Vitol would say that the negative reviews are being purchased because it turns out that Fido’s Retreat has two years of suspicious positive Google reviews. Several of his reviewers reviewed the same businesses across multiple states across the U.S. Based on the theme in the negative Yelp reviews, it appears that Fido’s suffers from a service issue and not a Yelp problem.
I found similar complaint patterns with Dr. David H. C. King‘s medical practice in Los Gatos, Calif. Three of the five negative reviews — out of 20 total reviews — refer to the staff as rude. The negative review alleged in the documentary to be posted by a former employee is not found on King’s Yelp listing. Yelp has recently made it a violation for former employees to leave reviews. In the documentary, it was stated that medical businesses and doctors can’t reply to negative reviews; that is not true. However, they must tread lightly to not violate HIPPA laws. They are allowed to ask the reviewer to contact the office to discuss their issue privately.
Victims of Yelp?
Every business that was included in this documentary benefited from Yelp filtering or removing negative reviews. Nobody mentioned that fact. I did not find many of the business owners, based on the impression I got from watching the documentary and their response to reviewers, to be decent people at all. They don’t come across as victims but the instigators in their online woes. I did not find any suspicious reviews or manipulation with The Wheelhouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., Envescent LLC in Arlington, Va, or with Allied Outdoor Solutions in Houston.
Yelp is not perfect and can make some much-needed improvements. For example, one of the negative reviews posted for Dr. King’s Yelp listing should be removed for vulgarity. Yelp should allow business owners to request contact information for users leaving negative reviews. The fact that Yelp claims to be in the same boat as Verizon or AOL and should be protected from the information being posted on their platform, is flimsy; It is Yelp’s platform, Yelp’s users, and Yelp’s content. Google complies with court orders and will supply information about users leaving reviews; I know this first-hand.
Billion Dollar Bully raised money on Kickstarter. I was excited to see this film see the light of day. Sadly, I was disappointed. I wasn’t the only one. The people who donated money should be disappointed as well. I doubt that they will dive into the businesses like I did, but will instead take it at face value. They will tout it as a moral victory. But they should look at the film critically; not all businesses are good, not all business owners are reputable, and not all pieces of investigative “journalism” are credible. Had the filmmakers taken a closer look at these business and other review platforms, I doubt that this movie would have been made. I’ve made that clear by looking at the reviews of those claiming extortion. For me, this was a massive failure and should be titled A Billion Dollar Scapegoat. No thumbs up, and I wish I could give it no stars.
Comments
Um, if I’m going to believe anyone, it’s going to be Louis Rossmann, and not you. I’m giving you’re review 1 star.
Author
Rick, I presented evidence to show that several businesses have negative reviews on various platforms. I admit that Yelp is not a perfect system when it comes to removing and filtering out fake reviews. Are you aware that Yelp uses an automatic filtering system to filter and unfilter reviews? Yelp Ghosting Reviews. I also never mentioned or covered Louis Rossmann in this piece. The businesses that I covered here, again have negative reviews on multiple platforms, some have engaged in positive review manipulation, and became combative or and hostile towards negative reviewers. Two of the businesses have closed down.
Are you getting paid by Yelp?
I’ve personally experienced my reviews (both good and bad) being deleted, hidden, etc.
Any system that uses a “filter” or algorythm is ripe for fraud as the documentary exposes. The mere fact that you can pay Yelp to “manage” your reviews is the root of the issue, and a decent Journalist would know that. My review of your article seems to indicate you lack those basic qualifications.
Author
I have seen Yelp filter out and remove both positive and negative reviews too. You’d be hard pressed to find any business without a filtered reviewed. The problem with Kaylie’s “documentary” is that lacked physical proof of the claims to manage reviews. There were no copies of emails or recorded phone calls. I have been hearing these claims of Yelp employees assisting with removing the negative review or “managing the reputation. There is a lot of smoke, yet no concrete evidence to back any of it up. Is Yelp perfect? No, not in a long shot. They are the only system and platform that actively removes reviews. Whether is fair or balanced is a mystery. I don’t have access to their review filtering system. I can’t see what they see when it comes to reviews. I have my guesses based on my and other industry experts opinions and research. Yelp, Google, Facebook, Angie’s List, The BBB, Tripadvisor, Amazon and others are in the business to make money. That is not secret. Yelp sells ads to make money. Have their salespeople pushed the boundaries? probably. Can it be proven? So far, nobody has.
As you stated, you have had both negative and positive reviews filtered out by Yelp. If Yelp was truly evil as everyone paints them out to be, only the positive reviews would be filtered out by Yelp for non-advertisers.
Yelp’s cites the consumer’s right to free speech when refusing to remove slanderous reviews written by people seeking to blackmail business for free items/service
and yet, ironically deems fit to hide scores of positive reviews written by real customers.
So, does the consumer’s right to free speech matter or not?
Let us also consider this strange anomaly:
Positive reviews written by real people, with: profile pictures, well written paragraphs/details, multiple pictures, check ins, and reviews for other establishments are removed almost immediately.
Negative reviews written by people with no profile picture, very few, or even no previous reviews, no uploads/check ins, will stay posted indefinitely.
Infact, in my experience the only time yelp removes a negative review is, if it is rife with vulgarities.
Yelp always tells us that the mystical algorithm takes into account: frequency of use, profile pictures,uploads,syntax,number of reviews, and so on.
But, it would seem that is a load of hogwash, and glaring inconsistency.
It is in fact in Yelp’s favour to bias for negative reviews to remain posted; as this creates stress and uncertainty for the business owner; leading to the eventual submission under pressure of constant harassment to pay for advertising.
Very telling that you reply in depth supporting Yelp but conveniently ignore the first question.
So, did or do Yelp or any of its subsidiaries or marketing/PR partners support or fund you or this review or blog in any way?
I totally agree!
“Yelp has been accused of promoting negative reviews and demoting positive reviews for companies who refuse to pay them or stop paying them. In one particularly vivid example, the ‘reviewer’ was a documented friend of the rejected salesperson. This friend told a detailed story of being treated horribly after coming in for a repair and then being given her machine back in pieces, despite living a thousand miles away and despite many of the details being implausible or incredible when examined more closely.”
“Yes, but Yelp shows negative reviews of these businesses, with lots of details that would make people dislike them. Therefore the businesses are probably lying about Yelp making them look bad.”
*facepalm*
I completely get “Many people would rather lash out at innocent actors than admit they did something wrong”. I also get “People will lie to benefit themselves”. But I find it peculiar that you frame this story as though those principles only operate in Yelp’s favor.
Author
David, this documentary was heavily slanted that Yelp is so evil that they intentional destroy and penalize businesses. I reached out to the filmmakers to discuss their project after I watched it. I have yet to hear back from them. I watched the video a few times since it was released. I even bought it on Amazon so I could discuss it in future talks and presentations. I went into watching it thinking that I was was going to finally have cold hard evidence to the long-held myth that Yelp was removing positive reviews and pushing negative reviews when businesses declined to advertise with them. Sadly, I was never presented with any evidence to substantiate that myth. I, as a marketer, decided to look at the business listings to see if I could find evidence for Yelp biases. I couldn’t find any. Instead, I found businesses that engage in deceptive marketing practices. I also discovered that a handful of the people interviewed in this project have backgrounds in digital marketing or are involved in self-promotion in one form or another.
Yelp is the only platform that polices its platform. Facebook does nothing. Google has support channels available to report fake reviews. I always hear people say that they wished that Google would do something to stop fake reviews. I find it interesting that Yelp gets attacked for doing what users wish Google would do. There will never be a perfect platform or solution where User Generated Content, i.e. reviews are concerned.
I couldn’t agree more!
I have a successful brick and mortar business 7 years young, and I can assure you that Yelp’s so called algorithm is garbage. Filtering 50% of total reviews for my business because their mediocre algorithm deemed them as suspicious is nothing to brag about. Their sales team are bullies and mostly incompetent. They only validate power users (for the most part). They are headed for a well deserved chapter 11…Good riddance (their only salvation is a buyout).
Author
Last October, Yelp did a media blitz when they announced that they issued 232 consumer alerts. Click2Houston. They also upped their review filtering software and penalized countless businesses. I myself had three fake negative reviews posted out of retaliation for this website. I was unable to get them reMOVEd by Yelp. I had pointed out in well-documented evidence how these reviewers were being paid to post reviews. I got nothing from Yelp, zero help. I contacted the users that posted the reviews advising that they exposed the businesses that were paying for fake reviews. I even contacted the businesses advising them that I knew about their fake positive reviews. It took over a year to get it resolved and the reviews were reMOVEd. They were not filtered out or marked as violating Yelp’s TOS. It is easier to get fake positive reviews reMOVEd than it is to get fake negative reviews reMOVEd. I have also witnessed first hand how advertisers are protected from consumer alerts or how a business can get the consumer reMOVEd by becoming an advertiser. One time Yelp sent one of their clients a list of their top 10 performing locations. 6 out of the 10 were closed. That same client of theirs has the worst time getting an accurate invoice each month. They get overbilled each and every single month. Yelp is not pefect, neither is Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tripadvisor, YP, etc.
My issue with this “documentary” is the fact that business owners that came forward have credibility issues, which is what I pointed out in detail. Yelp is hemorrhaging at the moment and their financial outlook does not look good. The businesses featured in this “documentary” will still have negative review issues, if they don’t take responsibility and stop playing the blame game. Yelp is one of many review platforms.
Author
Do you that Google is extremely arbitrary when it comes to suspending listings or getting unsuspended? I am working with a client that had 13 listings get suspended. For 2 of the listings, we had to remove the from the business section. The others, they were able to reinstate once we added storefront photos. Google will allow some businesses to continue to spam their system with zero recourse. Facebook does nothing. A business gets attacked by neagtive reviews when a user asks their friends to trash the business, you won’t get them removed.
I’ve only ever been a reviewer, as I don’t own a business. I stopped using Yelp ages ago. As a consumer, I can’t trust the reviews that are posted about a business – whether the reviews are positive or negative. As a reviewer, I’ve had legitimate reviews – both positive and negative – hidden by Yelp because I wasn’t “verified”, even though a person would be able to tell the reviews I posted were legitimate since I took the time to post in exacting detail the experience I had with the business (typically a restaurant), including the meals ordered and pictures.
I only use TripAdvisor now, though I sometimes look at the reviews posted on Google simply because they are so accessible. If I’m seriously contemplating patronizing a business, though, I read the TripAdvisor reviews.
Good for you! I totally agree!
I know for a fact that the Australian grill restaurant closed down BECAUSE she got an incredible take over offer. What exactly happened: the owner of a chain restaurant ‘barrel republic’ walked in with an extremely attractive offer that the owner couldn’t refuse. She accepted, and now that’s why this location is a Barrell republic. It’s shocking how everyone thinks that the restaurant ‘got shut down’. No – the owner sold for triple profit. These records are commercial real estate and are publically available. Id suggest you check this out before making false claims
Author
I bet people are under the impression on that it was shut down because the documentary never stated she sold the restaurant. They wouldn’t fit the narrative that Yelp is evil, now would it. I somehow missed that between her tears. I know that the sound mixing was bad, but I am sure I would have caught that! That would make an excellent documentary, Yelp is so evil that I sold my business for triple what it was worth. Something doesn’t sit well and all I know, that restaurant was never going to make it at the pace it was on.
As a business owner we had a negative review, ok I Have to deal with that ,the two problems I have with Yelp they allowed the person/ client to copy and paste another bad review, This should not be allowed, as the review was back in 2015, the client only opened up the account a month or so ago.
That brings me to #2 why allow her to be on front page shall we say, when we have 8 good reviews hidden. Yelp calls all the time for us to advertise with them, but we can’t justify $350.00 to $400 a month. We are just a small business