Bad Yelp review made up entirely of lies, fake person account--what next
March 3, 2020 8:21 PM Subscribe
My company recently received a very bad Yelp review. We know the reviewer is lying about having used our service, having come into our office, having had the conversations he says he's had with our staff. What steps can we take to either a) have Yelp take it down or b) write a response that will be well-received by other potential clients reading our reviews (we know there's nothing we can say to this guy that will change his mind)?
We know the reviewer is a competitor who lost business to us. He joined Yelp just to leave this review (his info page says joined March 2020), as he has only this review to his name and exactly one friend (I doubt the "friend" knows him). The photo he's used is of a man who works at a university that is 550 miles away (thanks, reverse image search!).
We have several offices and great reviews at each location except the newest one (due mostly to it being new and not having built a customer base yet), and that's the one where he left the review. The claims he makes in his review are ridiculous on their face (think "They don't allow for any holidays except Christian ones," basically accusing us of religious discrimination--which is laughable--I wish I could give more info but suffice it to say that's bullshit), but businesses like ours live and die on Yelp star ratings.
What kind of action can we take?
We know the reviewer is a competitor who lost business to us. He joined Yelp just to leave this review (his info page says joined March 2020), as he has only this review to his name and exactly one friend (I doubt the "friend" knows him). The photo he's used is of a man who works at a university that is 550 miles away (thanks, reverse image search!).
We have several offices and great reviews at each location except the newest one (due mostly to it being new and not having built a customer base yet), and that's the one where he left the review. The claims he makes in his review are ridiculous on their face (think "They don't allow for any holidays except Christian ones," basically accusing us of religious discrimination--which is laughable--I wish I could give more info but suffice it to say that's bullshit), but businesses like ours live and die on Yelp star ratings.
What kind of action can we take?
Will Yelp remove a false or defamatory review? (Yelp)
posted by katra at 8:42 PM on March 3, 2020 [8 favorites]
If you see a questionable review, please report it and include any information that our moderators can independently verify. Please note, however, that we don't typically take sides in factual disputes and generally allow Yelpers to stand behind their reviews.Particularly due to how important it is to your business, you can get a lawyer (MeFi Wiki), at least for a consultation about your options.
If you received notification that the review you reported was not removed by our moderators, but you or your lawyer have obtained a final adjudication from a court of competent jurisdiction indicating that the review is defamatory, please contact our Support team.
posted by katra at 8:42 PM on March 3, 2020 [8 favorites]
You may want to look into Illinois' laws on commercial defamation and unfair competition (e.g. 815 ILCS 510 et. seq).
Some reasonably informative Google results from IL attorneys (these are not endorsements):
What is Commercial Disparagement?
What is Unfair Competition in Illinois?
Yelp will shelter under CDA § 230, past whatever your get out of their informal CYA processes, and you should consider the possibility that whatever login and IP address etc. data they can be made to cough up should you sue the poster as an anonymous defendant may not be enough to identify your competitor as the poster for evidentiary purposes, depending on how careless he was.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:55 PM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Some reasonably informative Google results from IL attorneys (these are not endorsements):
What is Commercial Disparagement?
What is Unfair Competition in Illinois?
Yelp will shelter under CDA § 230, past whatever your get out of their informal CYA processes, and you should consider the possibility that whatever login and IP address etc. data they can be made to cough up should you sue the poster as an anonymous defendant may not be enough to identify your competitor as the poster for evidentiary purposes, depending on how careless he was.
posted by snuffleupagus at 9:55 PM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Make Yelp take it down. They usually do in cases like this. They don’t benefit from gross misuse of their platform.
posted by quince at 10:47 PM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by quince at 10:47 PM on March 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
They don’t benefit from gross misuse of their platform
unless they're grossly misusing it themselves.
posted by flabdablet at 11:15 PM on March 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
unless they're grossly misusing it themselves.
posted by flabdablet at 11:15 PM on March 3, 2020 [9 favorites]
a) Do all the things ^^^ to try to get it taken down...maybe it will be!
b) In the meantime, write a public response. Be extremely gracious, kind, and understanding to the reviewer. Do NOT go tit-for-tat on everything they say. Make a statement about your values and the way you run the business. Invite them to reach out to address their issues.
Do NOT say they're lying, DO acknowledge their upsetness. Say what you've done, are doing (spoken with the staff). Because your staff does not recognize this incident, you may invite them to reach out to Specific Person so you can gather more details.
A pleasant, kind, and gracious response can go a long way. Especially when in contrast to an angry, unpleasant review. You SHOW (not say) that you're great to work with. If you go addressing/arguing with every detail, you both end up looking bad.
posted by hannahelastic at 11:20 PM on March 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
b) In the meantime, write a public response. Be extremely gracious, kind, and understanding to the reviewer. Do NOT go tit-for-tat on everything they say. Make a statement about your values and the way you run the business. Invite them to reach out to address their issues.
Do NOT say they're lying, DO acknowledge their upsetness. Say what you've done, are doing (spoken with the staff). Because your staff does not recognize this incident, you may invite them to reach out to Specific Person so you can gather more details.
A pleasant, kind, and gracious response can go a long way. Especially when in contrast to an angry, unpleasant review. You SHOW (not say) that you're great to work with. If you go addressing/arguing with every detail, you both end up looking bad.
posted by hannahelastic at 11:20 PM on March 3, 2020 [10 favorites]
Yeah, Yelp’s entire business model is extortion, to the point if you call them up they will likely offer remove the bad review as long as you sign up for a business membership.
posted by sideshow at 11:20 PM on March 3, 2020 [11 favorites]
posted by sideshow at 11:20 PM on March 3, 2020 [11 favorites]
I saw this in a painting company Yelp review. Guy, the competitor, even used his real name.
I have had good luck with Yelp when we had someone using our photos. It was within a week if I recall. I can't speak to the Review take down process but I expect your argument can be bolstered by the reverse image search detail.
As they say in the internet review age: time to pile on with new positive reviews. If you haven't pursued them in the past encourage folks to take the time to leave a review of their experience on Yelp or much better Google. The more reviews the less exposure and value the negative one is.
posted by ashtray elvis at 2:48 AM on March 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
I have had good luck with Yelp when we had someone using our photos. It was within a week if I recall. I can't speak to the Review take down process but I expect your argument can be bolstered by the reverse image search detail.
As they say in the internet review age: time to pile on with new positive reviews. If you haven't pursued them in the past encourage folks to take the time to leave a review of their experience on Yelp or much better Google. The more reviews the less exposure and value the negative one is.
posted by ashtray elvis at 2:48 AM on March 4, 2020 [4 favorites]
Yelp will definitely take down fake reviews, but you should be able back up the claim that it’s a competitor and not just an unsatisfied customer.
Having a new account and fake picture doesn’t actually mean much — there’s no reason a real customer couldn’t have just joined Yelp. And they don’t require you use a real photo of yourself unless you’re a part of Yelp elite. So fine, mention those, but it is in your best interest if you further back up your claim of it being fake - like did this competitor threaten to post a bad review, does it clearly include details that are nothing like what your business does/looks like, etc. If there’s evidence in the review that the “customer” did not actually use your services, you should have a pretty easy time with this.
posted by DoubleLune at 4:21 AM on March 4, 2020
Having a new account and fake picture doesn’t actually mean much — there’s no reason a real customer couldn’t have just joined Yelp. And they don’t require you use a real photo of yourself unless you’re a part of Yelp elite. So fine, mention those, but it is in your best interest if you further back up your claim of it being fake - like did this competitor threaten to post a bad review, does it clearly include details that are nothing like what your business does/looks like, etc. If there’s evidence in the review that the “customer” did not actually use your services, you should have a pretty easy time with this.
posted by DoubleLune at 4:21 AM on March 4, 2020
Definitely try to get it taken down, but if that doesn't work/in the meantime, write the most gracious, factual response you can. When I write things like this, I try to write a calm, level-headed first draft, but then I edit it to be calmer and more level-headed about 3 or 4 times. I also edit it to be shorter - you want to explain yourself but not over-explain yourself, because that can make you look "guilty" as well. I like Homo neanderthalensis' suggestion of faking some confusion as well.
posted by sillysally at 4:56 AM on March 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by sillysally at 4:56 AM on March 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
FWIW a year ago Yelp did change how it displays and counts reviews, including removing a lot of reviews to the "not recommended" (the review, not the product) status so they dont count towards number of reviews or overall ratings. It seems like they do generally try to determine the reliability of reviewers (based on things like having a lot of reviews and with a reasonable variance of ratings). So they should care about this, but maybe they wont.
Signing up for the first time to leave a bad review is a red flag - i would bet that if this person doesnt populate their fake account with some more reviews you would have success with your case that theyre not real and doing it to harm your business.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 8:16 AM on March 4, 2020
Signing up for the first time to leave a bad review is a red flag - i would bet that if this person doesnt populate their fake account with some more reviews you would have success with your case that theyre not real and doing it to harm your business.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 8:16 AM on March 4, 2020
As a potential customer, I am usually much more interested in how (if) the company responds to a negative review than the negative review itself. Trust that people are suspicious of overly bad reviews and may be looking for evidence that the reviewer is untrustworthy. hannahelastic's advice is good. Look at other options for removal, but in the meantime, having a prompt, professional, response shows other customers that you care and that you won't be baited into having a nutty argument.
posted by LKWorking at 8:33 AM on March 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
posted by LKWorking at 8:33 AM on March 4, 2020 [5 favorites]
I'm actually surprised that this review didn't end up in the "not recommended" section already. We were trying to get people to write reviews for a nonprofit that I worked with us. Many of our members were not already on yelp. If they signed up just to support us, their review got shunted to the back section since they were brand new and had no other reviews. So, definitely see what you can do via Yelp.
posted by metahawk at 7:31 PM on March 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by metahawk at 7:31 PM on March 4, 2020 [1 favorite]
There is a sort of meme genre on Facebook of entitled customers getting their asses handed to them on yelp by calm, rational business owners. People eat this shit up.
Things like "I have a hard time taking this review seriously as we have never served burritos."
Or "I suspect this review has more to do with the fact that our bartender refused to serve you because you were too drunk to stand straight. Our security cameras show (etc.)..."
I mention this because a) yes, you have the potential to come out of this exchange sounding really good because people hate entitled customers and b) Sites like Cheezburger and Fail Blog might be interested, depending on how nuts the other guy sounds.
posted by Omnomnom at 11:24 PM on March 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
Things like "I have a hard time taking this review seriously as we have never served burritos."
Or "I suspect this review has more to do with the fact that our bartender refused to serve you because you were too drunk to stand straight. Our security cameras show (etc.)..."
I mention this because a) yes, you have the potential to come out of this exchange sounding really good because people hate entitled customers and b) Sites like Cheezburger and Fail Blog might be interested, depending on how nuts the other guy sounds.
posted by Omnomnom at 11:24 PM on March 4, 2020 [2 favorites]
Do not try to win an argument with a customer in public, especially not in a way that could go viral. This will do more to harm potential customers' perception of how they might be treated by you than did the negative review in the first place. The best response is to say nothing and give your guests space to have their own opinions on their subjective experiences. If you really insist on responding keep it short and gracious.
posted by mikek at 11:32 AM on March 5, 2020
posted by mikek at 11:32 AM on March 5, 2020
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Write a review response that is very very nice- but basically dares him to prove it. Something like "I'm very sorry to hear about your experience but I'm also confused? It's very clear that our policies on holidays are X Y and Z and I don't know who told you otherwise. Also I am pretty sure the day you claim to have experienced Z from our staff was a day X staff member was off (or we were closed)? If you could please contact us or Yelp with more information I'm sure we can figure out what went wrong here! Always happy to help our customers! (therefore implying he isn't one)"
Something like that.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:40 PM on March 3, 2020 [33 favorites]