Saturday, September 8, 2007

Pay Per Yelp

Despite their misleading tagline, "Real People, Real Reviews", Yelp pays people to post Worse, yet there is no disclosure on these paid hacks, so you have no idea who is real or who is a plant.

Even more interesting are the comments below the article including one from founder, Jeremy Stoppelman, who says that the article "misrepresented our marketing programs by insinuating that users often interact with paid shills and that's simply not the case."

Thanks Jeremy, but it just doesn't jive with your craig's list job posting:

Yelp.com Hiring Witty Writers with Flair for Social Networking”:

"This critical role includes:

· Writing witty and insightful reviews of all the places you frequent.

· Getting your well-written friends (and their friends to join Yelp and start writing

· Moderating the Talk Boards, creating Lists, sending Compliments, and generally being a model Yelp community member

· Spreading the word about Yelp to the broader community.

The right candidate:

a. Knows Atlanta’s hot spots and influencers

b. Is extremely well-written

c. Is one of those “connectors” that makes other people want to follow them.”


Hey Jeremy,

So let me get this straight. Your "marketing assistants" "critical role" is for " Writing witty and insightful reviews of all the places you frequent."

here's the definition of shill:

1.a person who poses as a customer in order to decoy others into participating, as at a gambling house, auction, confidence game, etc.

Thanks for the update Jeremy. You have confirmed for everyone Yelp hires paid shills.

"Real Shills, Paid Reviews."

6 comments:

Adryenn Ashley said...

So how is this different from a business group who yelps about the members that they have used? Basically, all of Ladies Who Launch and all of eWomenNetwork have been yanked due to "fraud, rating swapping, and violations of terms of service". None of it is true, and we're putting together a class action lawsuit! see yelp-sucks.com for more info...

Nish Nadaraja said...

All of you assholes need to lay off the yelp bashing until you get your fucking facts straight!

PastYelper said...

Below's a thread about someone giving a company a bad review, and then a Yelp employee going out of their way to contact and eventually harass the reviewer. When the reviewer blocks the employee's communications to avoid further harassment, the employee then opens a public thread, and divulges private emails.



The employee at first vehemently denies being paid by Yelp, but later gets caught confessing to the whole thing:
"yelps pays me a lot of money to protect its sponsors. its a good racket. dont blow it for me."
The fact that this same employee who began the harassment has also given the other company a glowing review, is completely unethical to say the least.



See for yourself, and quickly, before Yelp pulls the thread down to cover up their tracks:

http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-francisco-calling-you-out-atlas-plumbing-review

Maryanne said...

Yelp deletes positive blogs and controls who can sign in to blog.
I have been CLOSED OUT of YELP fom my home computer completely.
Yelp has gone in and changed my business phone number (I registered my business with them before I understood their deceptive business strategies, the number listed now belongs to a client who wrote a positive blog about me, since then, all of my reviews have been deleted!
If any one knows who I can contact please E-Mail at westcoastproperties@yahoo.com
Maryanne

Maryanne said...

YELP ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!
HOW DARE YOU ASSHOLES DELETE MY REVIEWS.
YOUR DECEPTIVE

BostonDavid said...

All I know is it seems there are some people that yelp a lot. Way more than a normal person would if that person was not paid to yelp.