When I hear the word “Yelp,” one of two things comes immediately to mind…
The sound my dog makes when I accidentally step on his foot, or the online review company with a widely-touted reputation for sleaziness and financial shakedowns. And let’s be honest with each other for a moment – when your own website has a section devoted to refuting involvement with shaking down businesses for financial gain (one example of hundreds), it should leave you with more questions than answers.
And here’s the kicker…
Prior to yesterday, I didn’t have a single solitary review on Yelp, good, bad, ugly or otherwise. So; what did Yelp do to earn my ire and the ire of my patients? The company left the following statement on my Google Business Page (which makes it less curious as to why so many patients have recently asked if I’m planning on retiring).
Schierling Chiropractic LLC in Mountain View, Missouri, appears to be closed, according to recent user reports on Yelp, despite past listings showing hours and an address. While specific details about the practice are limited, it was a chiropractic service that likely focused on musculoskeletal and spinal health…
• Status: Likely closed.
• Past Location: 1219 S State Route 17, Mountain
View, MO 65548.
• Services: As a chiropractic practice, it would have focused on spinal and joint health…
Yelp itself states….
“Yelpers report this location has closed.“
Allow me to give you some excerpts of…
Firstly of letters I sent out this morning to Springfield attorneys who specialize in these sorts of online cases. And secondly; of the complaints I filed yesterday with both the Missouri Attorney General’s office (Confirmation CC-2026-01-005252) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)…
After being caught up in the massive government-run / taxpayer-funded censorship program against natural websites five years ago, my wife and children convinced me to give it another go.
So, starting Thursday we kicked things off with a simple online campaign to try and reclaim some of the web traffic that had been stolen from me, using my website, the X-PAGE my daughter recently created, and my BUSINESS FACEBOOK PAGE. Interestingly (and providentially), yesterday, a client of my wife, who also happens to be a patient of mine, called her and asked her if I had retired.
Huh?
This was news to me considering that I’ve been in the same town, had the same hours, using the same phone number, for 35 years. In fact, with the way the holidays fell this year I didn’t even take extra time off for Christmas or New Years.
Personally, I think Yelp needs to answer some questions…
- How is Yelp, a company with a terrible reputation in the first place, able to make claims like these without an iota of proof that said claims are factual? Doubly curious when Yelp has to know that making false online statements about the status of a business, whether those statements are automated or done by an actual human being, is clearly a “Tortious Interference with Business Expectancy” – ie, screwing with a person’s business in a manner that can get you sued.
- Who are the Yelp “users” making these claims? For a self-touted (cough cough) ‘trusted online review service‘ to make what amounts to unfounded anonymous statements about the business I started three-and-a-half decades ago, is proof that anyone (competitors, someone with a bone to pick, a local junior high student during study hall, ????) can weaponize Yelp to target a specific business or businesses (plural) for any reason.
- How long has this been going on – what was the exact date Yelp made these claims about my business being closed? I have no idea. But Yelp certainly does. I would love to see their records subpoenaed in order to see how the date they first posted their claims correlates with my business stats.
The unfortunate punch to the gut for all of you business owners reading this? It could happen to you just as easily as it happened to me! And while I am not the kind of guy that would ever describe a company that engages in these sorts of BS business practices as a (CENSORED), I’m also not going to take what Yelp is doing laying down.
If anyone reading this has had issues with Yelp, please respond for everyone to see.
2 Responses
When I first opened my chiropractic practice 6 years ago it seemed appropriate to get a yelp presence going. After initiating a profile and getting financially shaken down I changed my tune. The endless yelp employee sales calls following that were the nail in the coffin. They used classic high pressure sales tactics and really turned me off. I’m sure the google review system really took the air out of their sails and they’ve been grasping ever since. Glad to see you’re posting again!
Thanks Tony. Will play around a bit and see what happens. Have a good one!