Yelp Reviews Found To Be Misleading and Prejudicial.

In the source below, you will find a copy of a letter from the United States of America, Federal Trade Commission in Washington DC, Assistant General Counsel Dione J. Stearns, to Angus Loten, a reprter with the Wall Street Journal, following Mr Loten's FOI (Freedom Of Information) Act inquiry into a number of reports about misleading and prejudicial reviews being found on the social networking site, Yelp.

In the letter (dated March 18, 2014), the FTC representative informs about over 2000 complaints received at the FTC since 2008.

While the record of the complaints is not tabled in the letter, the reporter outlines the nature of the complaints in his article, after which apparently Yelp's share price took a nosedive.

The particulars of the article include the following excerpt...

"A steady stream of business owners have gone on record, including in the Los Angeles Times, claiming that Yelp threatened to display negative reviews more prominently if they didn't pay for advertising. Yelp also deals with constant posting of fake reviews by business owners or companies, a practice called “astroturfing,” that have created additional controversy."


As a locksmith business, we take great pride in maintaining excellent reviews online that are all verifiable through third party sources. We were recently a victim of false reviews posted at Yelp
and we acted quickly to confront Yelp and the accuser with legal action to protect our reputation and good name.

We received a letter from Yelp, telling us that the accuser had removed the negative remarks/review. The accuser was actually serviced by another company who may have used our name instead of theirs in performing poor services, in attempt to discredit us.

The whole episode is important because many web searchers will look at online reviews to form an opinion of a product or service prior to purchase. Negative reviews directly hurt your reputation and future earnings ability. You can have hundreds of positive reviews, but the negative ones will be the only ones potential new customers will see and use against you.

In this current era of social networking, negative reviews seek to undermine the positive reviews about you now and in the future. You really want to keep tabs on what people are saying about you online.

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