Lawsuit after negative review on yelp

[RitcheyRch]

Is this a sign of things to come?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/2...ompany-negative-yelp-review.html?intcmp=hpbt3

 

[jetboatperformance]

Have researched these type online business "raters" ad nauseum as like most small business's we are constantly bombarded with solicitations to join or subscribe to various on line services that list and allow consumer ratings additionally I have spoken to countless fellow small business folks about this very subject. Although it seems to have it/they place in our modern Internet world the review systems in my opinion get abused more often than not , I have seen the net reviews used as "bludgeon" to allow people/consumers leverage to get their way with purchases and sales/service issues product returns etc not unlike the credit card chargeback systems , and then theres the revenge motive .... additionally the systems are abused in other ways for example a car wash I went to where prior to the payment and the start of wash and detail the proprietor offer a discounted price for a "good (fill in the blank) review" If I'd use my smart phone right then and there . Im told the folks who run these are unyielding in taking down or editing what business people feel might be unwarranted comments standing on "1rst amendment free speech grounds" , I could go on with examples and anecdotes .... I will say I gave a local proprietor that makes custom knee brace prosthesis what I believed to be an honest but scathing review recently when the treatment they provided was awfull (the place had no hours posted , walked in prior to noon and the "Ladies" basically shooed me out telling me to come back later saying they were closing for lunch.... , But I gave a local eatery and Auto dealer "gold balls" reviews for excellent service and meals . Tough call on these deals, they seem to be of some value and function but seem unregulated and under monitored , always wonder If perhaps the paying merchants and businesses perhaps might get a "back channel access " to help and editing than for example those who refuse to join up or participate ...

* foot note Just did some business with a place that had a "one star" review that was awesome

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/2013/09/online-ratings-services/index.htm

 

[guest hs]

I think the Yelp and other review sites have gotten out of hand and its time for someone to stick up for the businesses. I can give you an example last year I sold a customer a new wheel for his trailer jack. The customer brought the wheel back and complained the wheel was defective. I looked at the wheel and the bottom of it was no longer round it was flat. It was clear to me that the customer left the wheel down when he towed it and it drug on the ground. I told him he would have to pay for another wheel, he got pissed and told me he would get me! The customer put a bad review on Yelp or somewhere I can remember where exactly. I ended up sending the guy a $200 gift certificate just to put an end to the headache. The wheel was less then $30. Since then I have had a couple customers threaten me that if I didn't do this I will put a bad review up on the internet about you. I feel its a type of blackmail. I can tell you this Im the first one to admit if Im wrong I will take care of something but I don't feel its morally correct for me to bow down to something that was not caused by me. I think it was only time that a law suite like this was to surface. On a side note I only have 2 bad reviews that I know of, this one and the other was a complaint I was listening to Howard Stern on my radio behind the parts counter. I keep my radio down very low I can barely here it I have no idea how the customer heard it. I guess some people have to much time on their hands.

 

[shueman]

Yelp ... pure extortion :finger

 

[TCHB]

I do use Yelp and am honest in my ratings. Most of my ratings are good and positive. The worst I had was at a large RV Dealer.

 

[pronstar]

This is relevant:
"...alleging the Duchouquettes violated a non-disparagement clause in the contract they signed."

 

[C-2]

I get several calls per month about fake Yelp reviews from anonymous posters.

Yelp, like Google, will not disclose who the posters are, and usually there is no recourse. I solved once case. I took an Avatar used by the "anonymous" poster on Yelp and matched to another avatar on an Art site, and then turned the art site avatar into a real name. The anonymous poster on Yelp had been disparagining a local SoCal artist and the art galleries where his work was displayed.

Turned out to be another jealous artist who had not seen as much success as my client.

-----

California and most states have adopted laws against those "Yelp" clauses that allow the businesses to sue if you make negative online comments. Not sure about Texas, but I believe the law extends to 40 states.

 

[RiverDave]

Yelp ... pure extortion :finger

This..

The instant you can pay and have the negative comments deleted it's more or less
Extortion.

 

[Icky]

Yelp ... pure extortion :finger

Free boats for everyone or a bad yelp review

 

[Riverbound]

This..

The instant you can pay and have the negative comments deleted it's more or less
Extortion.

You can NOT pay to have a negative review removed.....Trust me, we advertise heavily on Yelp and Angie's list and you can't have reviews removed unless they can be proven to be false.

So not sure why people think you can. We have been involved with Yelp for years.

 

[Riverbound]

I do use Yelp and am honest in my ratings. Most of my ratings are good and positive. The worst I had was at a large RV Dealer.

Mike Thompson? Lol

 

[Riverbound]

I think the Yelp and other review sites have gotten out of hand and its time for someone to stick up for the businesses. I can give you an example last year I sold a customer a new wheel for his trailer jack. The customer brought the wheel back and complained the wheel was defective. I looked at the wheel and the bottom of it was no longer round it was flat. It was clear to me that the customer left the wheel down when he towed it and it drug on the ground. I told him he would have to pay for another wheel, he got pissed and told me he would get me! The customer put a bad review on Yelp or somewhere I can remember where exactly. I ended up sending the guy a $200 gift certificate just to put an end to the headache. The wheel was less then $30. Since then I have had a couple customers threaten me that if I didn't do this I will put a bad review up on the internet about you. I feel its a type of blackmail. I can tell you this Im the first one to admit if Im wrong I will take care of something but I don't feel its morally correct for me to bow down to something that was not caused by me. I think it was only time that a law suite like this was to surface. On a side note I only have 2 bad reviews that I know of, this one and the other was a complaint I was listening to Howard Stern on my radio behind the parts counter. I keep my radio down very low I can barely here it I have no idea how the customer heard it. I guess some people have to much time on their hands.

We have made sure to address every one of our negative reviewers. I have had more customers tell me that the reason they called us was how we hens fled the situation and that they liked how we tried to make everything right.

 

[Ibeplumbing]

As a service person I can honestly tell you I fucking hate yelp. Beyond the fact it's extortion, it's a way for people to get shit for free. I had a bad review on me for the company I work for just a week ago. This is what happened. I get sent to a job for a customer, I call customer letting him know I'll be there in about an hour instead of 30 min, as it was a farther drive than we normally have because we run smaller crews on the weekend, he says ok my water heater is 6 years old and I think it's time to replace it. I say, well let me look at it first once I get there and we will discuss options to repair or replace, whatever you choose. I show up, he says I have less than 5 minutes as he has to go to an appt he forgot all about. He asks for a price to repair it or replace it. I tell him a need to diagnose it before I know what's wrong. He says no time just give me prices, I'll call back when I have time. I write down prices, he asks what I would do if it was my grandfathers house- keep in mind this guy is 70+. I tell him what I would do if that was the case, or any other case regardless of who it was, ok great I'll call you back.....next day this guy writes nasty review saying I was very nice but tried to sell him a new water heater over phone, I did not want to even drive out there, I spent less than 5 min on job, never even diagnosed it, made comments about what I would do for my grandfather he found offensive because he was elderly. Called me a scam artist and named me personally in the review. It was worse than that but that's the gist of it. Once my manager called him, he said he would make it all go away if we gave him a free water heater....fuck this guy. This is exactly what happens all the time because people abuse the power of a review. My name is in the mud for doing nothing wrong. I hate yelp

 

[guest hs]

As a service person I can honestly tell you I fucking hate yelp. Beyond the fact it's extortion, it's a way for people to get shit for free. I had a bad review on me for the company I work for just a week ago. This is what happened. I get sent to a job for a customer, I call customer letting him know I'll be there in about an hour instead of 30 min, as it was a farther drive than we normally have because we run smaller crews on the weekend, he says ok my water heater is 6 years old and I think it's time to replace it. I say, well let me look at it first once I get there and we will discuss options to repair or replace, whatever you choose. I show up, he says I have less than 5 minutes as he has to go to an appt he forgot all about. He asks for a price to repair it or replace it. I tell him a need to diagnose it before I know what's wrong. He says no time just give me prices, I'll call back when I have time. I write down prices, he asks what I would do if it was my grandfathers house- keep in mind this guy is 70+. I tell him what I would do if that was the case, or any other case regardless of who it was, ok great I'll call you back.....next day this guy writes nasty review saying I was very nice but tried to sell him a new water heater over phone, I did not want to even drive out there, I spent less than 5 min on job, never even diagnosed it, made comments about what I would do for my grandfather he found offensive because he was elderly. Called me a scam artist and named me personally in the review. It was worse than that but that's the gist of it. Once my manager called him, he said he would make it all go away if we gave him a free water heater....fuck this guy. This is exactly what happens all the time because people abuse the power of a review. My name is in the mud for doing nothing wrong. I hate yelp

I feel for you man its B.S!

 

[guest hs]

We have made sure to address every one of our negative reviewers. I have had more customers tell me that the reason they called us was how we hens fled the situation and that they liked how we tried to make everything right.

I send the guy a $200 gift certificate free merchandise over a $30 wheel he doesn't even have balls enough to come in with it. He sends his wife in with it. She uses the gift certificate for a JBL stereo and it came to $219 with tax and asked if we could cover the $19 too UNREAL!

 

[Riverbound]

As a service person I can honestly tell you I fucking hate yelp. Beyond the fact it's extortion, it's a way for people to get shit for free. I had a bad review on me for the company I work for just a week ago. This is what happened. I get sent to a job for a customer, I call customer letting him know I'll be there in about an hour instead of 30 min, as it was a farther drive than we normally have because we run smaller crews on the weekend, he says ok my water heater is 6 years old and I think it's time to replace it. I say, well let me look at it first once I get there and we will discuss options to repair or replace, whatever you choose. I show up, he says I have less than 5 minutes as he has to go to an appt he forgot all about. He asks for a price to repair it or replace it. I tell him a need to diagnose it before I know what's wrong. He says no time just give me prices, I'll call back when I have time. I write down prices, he asks what I would do if it was my grandfathers house- keep in mind this guy is 70+. I tell him what I would do if that was the case, or any other case regardless of who it was, ok great I'll call you back.....next day this guy writes nasty review saying I was very nice but tried to sell him a new water heater over phone, I did not want to even drive out there, I spent less than 5 min on job, never even diagnosed it, made comments about what I would do for my grandfather he found offensive because he was elderly. Called me a scam artist and named me personally in the review. It was worse than that but that's the gist of it. Once my manager called him, he said he would make it all go away if we gave him a free water heater....fuck this guy. This is exactly what happens all the time because people abuse the power of a review. My name is in the mud for doing nothing wrong. I hate yelp

If your manager responds to him on Yelp stating what happened you will see that either he will modify his review or delete it. If nothing happens and in your review you state what happened and that he gave a negative review in hopes you would give him free services. It really won't be a negative to people reviewing your company.

I have and people try and do that to me. My response was go ahead.....you will get nothing out of me and instill respond with what actually happened.

Look at dynamic air services on Yelp. You will see we respond to every negative review.

 

[jones performance]

alot of fucktards out there have figured out its a way for getting free shit or at reduced cost. a buddy owns a restaurant and at first got caught up in the yelp issues. figured the the one complaining were a couple people that eat at his place every day hoping he'd give them free stuff.:rolleyes

 

[pronstar]

I use it legitimately for finding new places.

I've always been taught "if you have nothing good to say..." so I've only left a review if it's positive.

Sorta defeats the purpose in a way, but no need to ruin someone's livelihood over something - that's not what I'm really about.

 

[HALLETT BOY]

I send the guy a $200 gift certificate free merchandise over a $30 wheel he doesn't even have balls enough to come in with it. He sends his wife in with it. She uses the gift certificate for a JBL stereo and it came to $219 with tax and asked if we could cover the $19 too UNREAL!

The new entitled consumer , looking for $2 worth of product for $1

 

[Ibeplumbing]

If your manager responds to him on Yelp stating what happened you will see that either he will modify his review or delete it. If nothing happens and in your review you state what happened and that he gave a negative review in hopes you would give him free services. It really won't be a negative to people reviewing your company.

I have and people try and do that to me. My response was go ahead.....you will get nothing out of me and instill respond with what actually happened.

Look at dynamic air services on Yelp. You will see we respond to every negative review.

If it was my company I would be all over that giving rebuttals. This company makes no responses on any of them. It's ridiculous. They feel that they get so many reviews the bad ones wash out with sheer numbers of good ones. Which is true, but makes the employees feel like we aren't backed by management. When I worked for a smaller company our owner used to get on and respond horribly. We talked him into letting the manager do it instead, got much better. Less people tried to do it after that because they were responded to properly. You always felt that if you were in the right the company would back you. if you were wrong, they would let you know you were wrong. It was pretty cut and dry. People are shitty man. Yelp seems like one of those things that was intended for good things, but got turned into a negative. That company that I worked for that used to respond never paid off yelp. No matter how many reviews we got on there our rating never changed from 2.5 stars. They would flat out not show good reviews unless we paid. We had a little standoff with them and they dropped it to 1.5 stars. We went through this review site called review buzz who directly linked to yelp. No matter what was posted from review buzz they also pulled them. We basically agreed that yelp would return our 2.5 rating and they could go back to posting or not posting our reviews. Got better for a while, some good ones showed but never changed rating over next year. Yelp is ran by complete crooks

 

[Pivot]

About 8 months ago. I copy pasted the email I sent to the gm of Mercedes Benz of Laguna Nigel By the time Yelp had me going through all the sign up shit I gave up. I'd like to write a negative review to Yelp about how difficult it was to leave a negative review on Yelp.

Either way , don't buy from mbln. Fuck them

 

[Ziggy]

Yelp ... pure extortion :finger

This..

The instant you can pay and have the negative comments deleted it's more or less
Extortion.

As is most any customer satisfaction rater.........blame it on R.L.Polk back in the late 80's.:rolleyes

 

[Wicky]

3 years after I sold my sushi biz and I still got reviews as the new owner never opened the sushi bar. Fuck Yelp and Restaurant.com.
I told several restaurant.com penny pinchin cheapskate motherfuckers to just get the fuck out of my restaurant.

 

[77charger]

I don't rely on those reviews you can do hundreds of good jobs and the one unhappy costumer is going to be the one who slams you then that's all people remember. IMO these types of business are there just to cash in and extort.

A good company will stay in biz from word of mouth not yelp help.

 

[drejustice]

After reading the article, the issue isn't a yelp issue. The issue is a violation of a signed contract. The individuals signed a contract with a non-disparaging contract clause and then violated that clause.
1) They never should have signed it.
2) They should lose the lawsuit because the evidence is pretty evident-i.e. public yelp.

Let it be a lesson to us all to read the fine print.

 

[Boozer]

It's not just Yelp. The BBB kind of started all this shit. Back in the day you become a member of the BBB and things are more often than not going to go your way, not because you're a great business but because you pay the BBB an annual payment to ensure your good rating. Mind you the BBB was started by the Italian mafia.

Today you've got Yelp, rip off report and others. Pay them and you'll see the negative publicity go away, they don't cost much so it's worth the money to pay them.

The biggest extortion juggernaut today is Gartner. A good friend owns a tech company. He was trying to win a big deal, the client asked Gartner about his company and he got a bad review. That deal was worth a couple million in revenue for him. He paid Gartner $25Kish for "consulting" and now he gets weekly emails with insider reports and Gartner has nothing but positive things to say about his business.

 

[Singleton]

It's not just Yelp. The BBB kind of started all this shit. Back in the day you become a member of the BBB and things are more often than not going to go your way, not because you're a great business but because you pay the BBB an annual payment to ensure your good rating. Mind you the BBB was started by the Italian mafia.

Today you've got Yelp, rip off report and others. Pay them and you'll see the negative publicity go away, they don't cost much so it's worth the money to pay them.

The biggest extortion juggernaut today is Gartner. A good friend owns a tech company. He was trying to win a big deal, the client asked Gartner about his company and he got a bad review. That deal was worth a couple million in revenue for him. He paid Gartner $25Kish for "consulting" and now he gets weekly emails with insider reports and Gartner has nothing but positive things to say about his business.

I deal with Gartner weekly. Pay the fee and keep them happy and you are always in the upper quadrant

 

[Tinkerer]

I don't believe the customer should lose the lawsuit. The company should not only lose but have to pay all costs for the customer. Lets face it folks IF the company had performed their contracted duty there wouldn't have been a negative report.
So in reality the company broke the contract first and that opened the door for the customer to complain. I think any good lawyer will win this case for the customer.

 

[JDKRXW]

So in reality the company broke the contract first and that opened the door for the customer to complain. I think any good lawyer will win this case for the customer.

Did you read the entire article?
The couple;
1) Was gone from Fri - Tues and they're complaining about a cloudy fish bowl?? ... did they expect a free cleaning as part of the deal?
2) Knew the hours the company was open, and that they were closed on Sunday, before they signed up, but now they are complaining?
3) They were told how the company communicated (by email, and not by phone) before they signed up.
4) Complaining about 8 days to get a credit card refund.

They were mooches and hopefully the Judge gives the company everything they're asking for.

 

[rivermobster]

You can NOT pay to have a negative review removed.....Trust me, we advertise heavily on Yelp and Angie's list and you can't have reviews removed unless they can be proven to be false.

So not sure why people think you can. We have been involved with Yelp for years.

I just wanted to quote this.

It's Fact. Not fiction. [emoji4]

 

[Sleek-Jet]

Did you read the entire article?
The couple;
1) Was gone from Fri - Tues and they're complaining about a cloudy fish bowl?? ... did they expect a free cleaning as part of the deal?
2) Knew the hours the company was open, and that they were closed on Sunday, before they signed up, but now they are complaining?
3) They were told how the company communicated (by email, and not by phone) before they signed up.
4) Complaining about 8 days to get a credit card refund.

They were mooches and hopefully the Judge gives the company everything they're asking for.

Then the company should respond on yelp and not use chickin shit lawsuits to garner good ratings.

 

[Tinkerer]

Yes I did read it. If you have ever had fish you would KNOW that a dirty fish bowl is real bad. They could have lost some or all of their fish because of it. If the company said they would take care of their fish that means what it takes to keep them healthy.
Like I said the company dropped the ball and did not perform their duties. So If the fish had died because the tank got dirty due to a failed filter your saying that the customer would have no recourse.

 

[Wakebrdr94]

Is this a sign of things to come?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/02/2...ompany-negative-yelp-review.html?intcmp=hpbt3

Donald trump has sued a lot of people for less....

It's been a sign of the times for a long while....

 

[Singleton]

Yes I did read it. If you have ever had fish you would KNOW that a dirty fish bowl is real bad. They could have lost some or all of their fish because of it. If the company said they would take care of their fish that means what it takes to keep them healthy.
Like I said the company dropped the ball and did not perform their duties. So If the fish had died because the tank got dirty due to a failed filter your saying that the customer would have no recourse.

Your assuming the company is wrong based on the Yelp review. IMO the lawsuit is BS and should be thrown out and the customer should have to pay their invoice in full.