Interviewing Lawyers Familiar with Yelp
McMillan Law Group defeats Yelp, Inc.
by JULIAN on MAY 9, 2013
In a recent small claims court case in San Diego, CA, the McMillan Law Group (MLG) achieved a monumental victory against Yelp, Inc. MLG had been coerced into entering into an advertising contract with the internet giant who promised results. The judge in the case agreed that (a) the contract was void due to fraud in the inducement, and duress, (b) that Yelp had failed to provide any of the promisedservices, and (c)that the contract itself was a contract of adhesion.
This is a massive victory for every small business in the country currently advertising with Yelp, Inc. We can help you get your hard earned money back. At present, we are asking anyone who was threatened by Yelp to contact the firm. If Yelp contacted you and similarly tried to coerce you or did coerce you into an advertising contract with the Company, please contact McMillan Law Group.
The judge stated, “this is like the mafia going door to door extorting protection money from small businesses.”
Call 858 375 1718 now to discuss your case or please fill in the Yelp Contact form to get our advice.
Spread the word.
Those reviewers on Yelp would review the opening of an envelope if they could, some of them are just ridiculous what they review. I live in a community where I never thought that I would see somebody reviewing their hospital operation, it just looks like they wanted to hike the number of reviews on their profile. Absolutely stupid!
I think yelp has now denied readers close to 30 5 star reviews on our business. While some of the reviews were not from active yelpers many were. I have 2 damning reviews. One of them is from some one who has just 3 reviews (absolutely would be screened if it was a 5 star). The other is clearly a bogus 2 star review. It as does not seem to have a relation to our business.
My point is, by eradicating so many of our 5 star reviews ( ALL LEGIT) makes a negative review much more credible. I am a leader in my industry who has served thousands of happy clients. I feel mistreated and abused. Needless to say I am frustrated by yelp. BTW, I did advertise with them. It did not help at all.
Yelp has filtered 49 5-star reviews I have received throughout the years.
I am left with a 2.5 star rating on the front page as a result.
Yelp is allowing false reviews from "unhappy" customers -But Yelp wasn't there so Yelp DOES NOT know the details of the business transaction, therefore Yelp should further investigate the bad reviews, and allow businesses to contest and provide them with proof that the bad reviews are false -But Yelp Don’t care, Yelp people said to me that their policy is to provide "customer satisfaction" —Yelp produces defamation on good and honest businesses, because they are allowing false reviews from bad and dishonest customers!
My recent post “El FBI mato a el amigo del sospechoso de las explosiones en Boston”
I would like to propose a law whereby businesses can opt out of review sites run by for profit businesses. They ARE like the mafia and though they try to pitch that their advertising is good for businesses, it is EVIL, EVIL, EVIL – and there are much more productive and civil ways for businesses to advertise other than being forced to. I have wasted so much time and energy chasing people who left reviews that were completely bogus, one left by someone who applied for a job and another left by a competitor – I got the reviews removed but Yelp did absolutely nothing and their attitude was absolutely rotten! Anyone else in and is this a feasible goal? If this is something we might be able to achieve, let's get together and get a bill written up – and prove that more businesses are actually hurt, frustrated and/or taken by Yelp than helped!
Hello, we should join forces……
Would love a class action suit. We have a 2 star on one of our reviews that is utterly false. We are a medical facility so we can not even send information to show that this woman never showed up for a visit ( her dad did) and the Dr she mentions in the reveiw was not the Dr on her case. How is someone allowed to review a place who did not even attend a visit. Her major claim was opposite of what actually happened. Yelp will not remove it, but has removed many positive legitimate reviews. It is actually causing us an obvious decline in new clients. We typically get higher ratings. I want to cry. I have been told that we should get people to write good review to over come the bad. Many people do but not on Yelp. The consensus is that it is a difficult site that often removes good reveiws
I recently filed a John Doe lawsuit in Fairfax County and am preparing the subpoena for Yelp. I thought about avoiding the procedural issue (currently on appeal) by using the CA law to serve Yelp directly, but CA might be more inclined to deny the subpoena on substantive grounds. I'm going to follow on the coattails of Hadeed Carpet and wait out their appeal. Unfortunately, it might be a while.
My recent post The #Internet and #Defamation: Jumping to Conclusions #tort #law #yelp
I recently filed a John Doe lawsuit and am getting ready to file a subpoena to compel Yelp to provide user information for defamatory, pseudonymous posts. Unfortunately, we’re probably going to have to wait until the Court of Appeals of Virginia decides the appeal in “Hadeed,” and possibly wait for a VA Supreme Court case after that. I considered just going through the California courts but didn’t want to accentuate the fact that CA will probably rule against us on substantive (i.e., privacy) grounds. I’d rather keep everything in VA in case VA allows the subpoena.
I’ve spoken with my client and have been given the green light to research whether Yelp can actually be a defendant. This is no trivial issue. Navigating between the safe harbor provision and free speech clause is akin to Odysseus navigating between the Scylla and Charybdis. Stray too far in one direction or the other, and you’re toast;. We’ll be trying to carve out a fine line between the two.
Do you have anyone doing data analysis? I think I found something and it's visible. I'm not in Virginia, but I bet it could be found on a business in Virginia.
I'm sure we have businesses in Virginia. What did you find?
is there a lawsuit back in action. This should be brought to 60 minutes show
I am a big contributor on Yelp and I am fan of the site. I am an Elite member and I have never posted a so called fake review. I do not work for them and I am not taking sides. I am expressing my take on this issue. I have been on Yelp going on 5 years and I review businesses of all kinds on a daily basis. I have given many 5 star reviews and some negative reviews but they were all based on my experience.
Javier, I've read your *7* posts here.
I'm one of the small business that has been extorted by Yelp to "promote" my business by buying advertising. There are currently 7 reviews on my company, 5 positive and 2 negative. Yelp ONLY publishes the 2 negative reviews. The other 5 are on a 2nd page that says they and "not recommended". So instead of getting a 4 star rating, we get a 1 star rating. Then they advertise my competitors right on my page!!!
Yelp is not a benevolent company looking our for others. They are greedy manipulators who don't give a whit about helping small businesses succeed. You are a fool for believing anything different.
If you were a small business owner whom has experienced the abuse by yelp in regards to there $300.00 a month advertising scheme, and who has had all of there legitimate excellent 5 star reviews removed and only bad reviews viewable because you did not pay for the advertising then you would understand! This is not about the customer it's about the honest small business owner trying to survive!!! Do some research on YouTube and you will also be informed of yelps unethical playing God attempts to sabotage the innocence with their corrupt practices!!!
Here in Florida, we experience horrible customer service on a daily basis because of poor management, poor training of employees, incompetence or just plain lack of professionalism by the employee. If I am spending my hard earned money on a business, I expect to be treated with some level of respect and I expect a decent level of customer service. If it's a restaurant, I expect decent food, not raw or overcooked food. If it's a high end restaurant with ridiculous prices, my expectations will be higher because I am spending a larger sum of money for food that is priced to impress.
If I encounter a positive or negative experience, I have the right to post my experience. Owner's of businesses have reached out to me when I have posted a negative experience and they have apologized for what has happened and in those instances I have updated my review accordingly. They have offered me free dinners and free drinks and I have never chosen to accept it because I don't do it for that specific reason. I enjoy writing reviews and I am not looking for perks as a result of my positive/negative reviews. If I receive something, I expect to pay for it even if it's something that has let me down. I have encountered top notch service where I was floored by how genuine people have been and those are the reviews I love to write. I recognize individuals in many of my reviews. Yelp doesn't allow you to distinguish between service and food because the stars are based on everything. That's one of the aspects I would change in order to be fair to everyone.
I agree that there are fake reviewers out there but it's very obvious who they are. The ones that have no friends, no pictures and one review are obviously either fake or just people looking to lash out at a business. I agree those people should be filtered and banned. Those of us who are dedicated to writing reviews with actual substance and quality, feel that those types of reviews, give all of us a bad name. I have flagged hundreds of reviews and forwarded them to Yelp and sometimes it gets removed and sometimes it doesn't. There are also people who use Yelp to voice their agendas and I am very opposed to that because it's based on actual experience not personal views. SeaWorld is a perfect example of that with the recent Killer Whale controversy. People are writing reviews based on their opinion of the treatment of whales and not based on their visit to the park which contradicts Yelp's policy. I have flagged tons of those and some get removed and some don't. I agree that's not fair to any business, whether it's a corporate monstrosity or a small business.
Yelp does expose a lot of businesses that are scamming consumers outright. Places like car rental companies that are charging for things that perhaps someone didn't think about asking or accepted because they were not informed, saves the consumers a lot of money and frustration. In places where they expect the consumer to sign a contract, reviews may allow people to address some issues that perhaps were not discussed and it allows future customers to ask questions before signing that contract. Owners needs to be aware if their employees are not performing at their best or representing their products the way their supposed to. If I encounter a rude server, I ask to speak to a manager. If the manager never shows, I can say at least I tried to rectify the situation with no success. At that point, I have the choice to post it and most times I do. I don't do it maliciously, I do it to inform others as well as management to what happened in my particular case. Take it as you want and make an informed decision on your own. I have also written emails and/or letters to corporate informing them of my experience in hopes something will change in order to benefit everyone who visits their establishment.
I have read Yelp reviews and in some cases it has influenced my decision to a certain extent. I have attended many Yelp Events and have met people as passionate as I am about writing quality reviews. I don't have hundreds or thousands of friends, I have under a 100 because I look for people like myself to associate with. If I see that my Yelp friends have been somewhere and most of them have had a negative experience, I may choose to skip that place because I trust their judgment. Other times, I will take the chance in hopes that they have changed their ways. I also check other sites besides Yelp and if they are all pointing to the same negative issues, it's a pretty good sign that perhaps something is not working properly.
I don't think it's fair to just dismiss the whole Yelp community based on some negative experiences. There are going to be bad apples anywhere you go on the internet, Yelp is not the only place that reviews places. Some of us are passionate about helping small business get recognized and it's based on the customer experience and the product you are marketing. We don't get paid to say these things, we take time out of busy lives to help others and many of us enjoy it. I hope I have not bored you too much. Some of my reviews are this long but details are important especially when it's all positive.
– Orlando Yelper –
Everyone like me who is being trashed by yelp one put out a you tube video and compile a list of all the news stories about Yelp's practices. They are plentiful. Forbes, NY Times Wash post. NBC CBS ABC CNN FOX.
Everyone post that list on their own Web Site so that eventually almost any site you go to has the truth about Yelp.
In addition lobby 60 Min. to do a story on them. If they do Yelp is dead. The stock will crash. Best way to get them is in the Market. Trash the stock and it is death to yelp. They will have to sell out cheap to some one with Ethics or close their doors.
If a mass murderer wrote a bad review on Yelp about about a gun shop who refused to sell him ammo Yelp probably would never take down the review because it was a real shopper who had a bad shopping experience at the store.
by eradicating so many of our 5 star reviews ( ALL LEGIT) makes a negative review much more credible. I am a leader in my industry who has served thousands of happy clients. I feel mistreated and abused. Needless to say I am frustrated by yelp. BTW, I did advertise with them. It did not help at all.
My recent post Click one of the post titles above to include it at the end of your comment
This is a massive victory for every small business in the country currently advertising with Yelp.