GOTCHA! Yelp posted e-mails it says it exchanged with businesses, including a jeweler, that offered to pay for good reviews. (
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Yelp is tired of all the “fake” positivity on its Web site — so yesterday, the online giant began outing merchants trying to pay for positive reviews.
Nine businesses, including a Flatiron District nightclub and a Lower East Side exterminator, saw their Yelp profiles slapped with a virtual scarlet letter — a “Consumer Alert” box warning, “We caught someone red-handed trying to buy reviews for this business.”
“We weren’t fooled but wanted you to know because buying reviews not only hurts customers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules.”
Yelp plans to keep the warnings up for at least 90 days — and will flag other business profiles “as warranted,” it said.
The social-media site, which boasts 78 million unique monthly visitors, found Craigslist ads soliciting Yelp users to write reviews of businesses for amounts ranging from just $5 to the $200 it says was offered for positive reviews for Bert Levi’s Jewelers in San Diego.
The solicitations and subsequent e-mail exchanges with “Yelp’s secret ops team” are linked to the consumer alerts.
“Some businesses will go to extreme lengths to bolster their reviews,” said Yelp Vice President Eric Singley.
Now-shuttered Flatiron District nightclub La Pomme’s profile earned a Yelp consumer alert after Yelp found a Craigslist ad offered a $30 money order to users willing to review an unnamed company.
In an e-mail to the Yelp operative, the payer wrote, “La Pomme Nightclub of NYC needs a great review.” The payer suggested the review should say something like “Great crowd, great music . . . a change from the standard Meatpacking haunts.”
A spokesman for La Pomme’s owner, Tommy Tardie, who now operates the Flatiron Room at the same location, declined to comment.
The Orchard Street exterminating company First Choice Environmental also saw a consumer alert placed on its Yelp profile page after Yelp said it had found a Craigslist poster offering $5 for a review who later told a respondent to give the firm four stars.
A man who identified himself as “Jack” at First Choice Environmental fumed: “Yelp got it wrong. I’m going to sue them.”
Mike Leahy, whose family runs Atlantic Appliance in Westchester County, was stunned to learn his Yorktown Heights location received a consumer alert after Yelp discovered a solicitation offering $10 for a “well-written” five-star review.
Leahy said Atlantic Appliance never paid for Yelp reviews but believes one of several search-engine optimization companies he hired may have made such an offer.
“I had no clue,” Leahy said. “It’s going to teach me not to use cheap Web sites anymore.”
Additional reporting by Garett Sloane
A woman who wrote one of Atlantic Appliance’s reviews also wrote a review for another company that earned a Yelp red flag — Los Angeles moving company Excalibur Van Lines.
“When your [sic] finished writing the review, just sent it to me so I can make sure it looks ok,” wrote someone offering $40 for a review for the Excalibur — whose owner was unavailable for comment when a reporter called yesterday.