Here is some more information regarding the Yelp / Razzberry Lips story:* Yelp’s sales reps use negative postings as a “lead source” to call the owner and attempt to sell Business Owner Accounts.* I received a phone call from a sales rep named Summer who stated that negative reviews could be moved to the bottom of the page and possibly removed in the future if I purchased a Business Owner Account.* The hypocrisy of the Yelp founders Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons is legendary , and is further amplified by their removal of my negative “review” of Yelp on their own website. So much for , “The voice of the people” or “Real People. Real Reviews” *

Yelp hires paid “Yelpers” $15 / dollars an hour to write reviews because their business model is not succeeding. The ads for paid Yelpers can be found on Craigslist in every metro area in the U.S. You could call this, ” Paid People . Fake Reviews”.* On Friday July 4th , 2008 , the SF Chronicle ran an article about how Yelp removes establishments from Yelp if they complain or expose the Yelp hypocrisy publicly.* It is a known fact that Yelp is losing money at a burn rate that could put them out of business by next year. There is another popular website which has a “dead pool” in which the overwhelming number of readers select Yelp to go out of business within a year.

When considering eating at any restaurant or hiring any business to do some work for you, don’t look to Yelp for any help. Businesses everywhere are creating fake accounts to make themselves look good and to discredit the bad reviews which come from genuine reviews. Let’s face it, people who are pissed off about bad food or bad service will actually go out of their way to complain.  It is a lot less often that someone raves about the food they eat or the business they receive.  Yelp is nothing but fake profiles from businesses trying to discredit bad reviews from genuine customers. I will however say that there is another perpatrator on Yelp and that is  former employees or competitors putting up fake accounts to discredit a business.  Bottom line, the only somewhat truthful reviews on Yelp are those that are bad.  If the good outweighs the bad, BEWARE!

I have a friend in the restaurant business that actually had all of his bad reviews removed and positive reviews added, by people Yelp pay, by purchasing a business account and I don’t blame him as I would do the same, but it just shows how unreliable Yelp is for a honest review.

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