This is the number one question I get asked, and while there is no definitive answer, a number of community members have been successful!

Remember, there is a difference between deleting your personal Yelp account, and deleting your business listing. If you want to remove your personal account, there are step by step instructions here. Even that requires a human to approve your request and a majority of the time they will say, “No”!

If you just want to automagically have negative reviews removed, just sign up for this new service, free, no credit card required:

I’ve been asked by a member of our community to keep his identity a secret, but he has confirmed that he has had 10 negative reviews removed using the following tactic AND that one of the reviews was in fact a competitor and he received a settlement.

  1. 1. Identify a prospective defendant that posted a negative review. This is important because, in CA, Doe defendants may not be sued in Small Claims court (step 2)
  2. 2. File an action for defamation in Small Claims court.
    (Questions below are from CA Small Claims forms)
    Q: Why does the Defendant owe the plaintiff money?
    A: I request $1.00 in nominal damages and injunctive relief requiring the defendant to remove all comments/reviews posted online and preventing posting of additional review(s) about plaintiff.
  3. Upon acceptance of your case by the Small Claims Court, complete and submit a Small Claims Subpoena as follows:
    1. Ordered to appear as a witness: Yelp, Inc.
      760 Mission St., 7th Floor
      San Francisco, CA 94105
    2. For the Production of Documents – Not required to appear in person….
    3. The witness (Yelp) shall produce…: All user information including I.P. (internet protocol) addresses for every user that has posted a review of 2 stars or fewer about (your business).
    4. Good cause exists for the production of documents…: This information is required to determine and/or confirm the defendant is the user that posted the defamatory statements at issue and only the witness company is in possession of this information.
    5. These documents are material…: This information is required to determine and/or confirm the defendant is the user that posted the defamatory statements at issue and only the witness company is in possession of this information.
  4. Submit the Small Claims Subpoena to the Small Claims court.
  5. Upon acceptance by the court of your subpoena, you must serve Yelp. Do a Google search to find a process server in San Francisco. The entire transaction can be handled electronically.
  6. Once served, Yelp will notify the user/defendant. This may be all that’s needed for the user/defendant to take the review down.

If that all sounds arduous and a lot of heavy lifting it is. And sometimes it’s worth it. If you watched the video above, you see that challenging a negative review just got a whole lot easier. Objection.co has developed an AI that has a knack for knowing just what to say that will result in a flagged review getting removed. It’s smart, and the best part, it’s like the terminator and just keeps going and going and going. Imagine having the smartest lawyer on call 24/7 who jumps when you call at 2am and gets to work. Yeah, like that. And the best part? You don’t have to take my word for it. You can test it out on your worst review for free, no credit card needed. You’re welcome!

And while researching how to do it, I ran across a great article on how to delete a RipOffReport.com listing from the Google Search Index… it says:

“Here’s what you need to do, in three steps:

First, file a lawsuit against the original author of the report for defamation, business disparagement, false light, or any other claim that is legally appropriate. The big point here is that you have to prove your case in a court of law — you have the burden to prove the report made about you is false.

Be honest with yourself here (otherwise, you’re just wasting time and money). If the report about you is true (or if you can’t prove your case), you do not have a valid claim for defamation, and this option will not work for you. Again, the key here is being able to prove your case in a court of law. If you can’t do that, game over. You’re stuck with one of the other options above.

Also, you should only sue the author of the report—do not sue Google. Your lawsuit will cost a fortune (Google has plenty of good lawyers), fail very quickly, and you will only serve to anger the one company that can help you the most.

Second, obtain a court order declaring the offending report to be false and defamatory (this, of course, assumes you win your case). The specific content of this order can take various forms, but you should make sure to seek an order that refers to the offending report specifically.

Third, present the court order to Google.”