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Yelp Website Accused of Extortion -- More Examples of Corrupt Review Sites

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J-Mac:
Official reply from Yelp:

Given how many spammers and scammers are out there writing fake reviews, I do have some sympathy for their claim that they need to remove reviews aggressively if they suspect the reviews are planted.
-mouser (March 02, 2010, 01:36 PM)
--- End quote ---

True to a point, but it still looks a lot like Yelp does not have a handle on their advertising sales staff. Actually if they don’t stop the "review fixing" claims made by their sales people then they are as much to blame as the "rogue" sales reps.

At least IMO.

Thanks!

Jim

mouser:
good point Jim, and let's not forget that this is one of the oldest games in business -- to hire aggressive sales people and let them loose to see how far they can bend the rules and use questionable practices while looking the other way.

J-Mac:
good point Jim, and let's not forget that this is one of the oldest games in business -- to hire aggressive sales people and let them loose to see how far they can bend the rules and use questionable practices while looking the other way.
-mouser (March 02, 2010, 03:23 PM)
--- End quote ---

Plus the blog article you linked to says that they never have employees write reviews; what they DO (or did) is to appoint Ambassadors and Scouts and instruct them to write reviews. And they were paid - not sure if they still are now. Revisionist history?

Thanks!

Jim

xtabber:
If you are on the USA. Extortion is one of the pillars of our society. Just look at the IRS, one might think they invented it :)
-rxantos (February 25, 2010, 08:24 PM)
--- End quote ---

Not true. The IRS only enforces the tax laws devised by our elected representatives.

My experience is that, as long as you are honest in dealing with them and don't try to bend the rules, the IRS can be tremendously helpful to people in business for themselves.

I wish I could say as much about our elected representatives.

J-Mac:
Hehehe - You have apparently never run afoul of the IRS....  Or are too young to remember a couple decades back....

At one time - not so very long ago - the IRS was said to have more legal power to seize and arrest than any other regime in modern history. Seizures of all types of property were made without warrants from any court. BTW, this is still the law, however changes - I think back around 2003 or 2004 - require notice to be given; previously none was required at all. Meaning that the IRS could show up at your house, forcibly remove you and your family, and then take possession of all your belongings - including the house itself. This was nothing you could then reverse; once seized it was no longer yours. You couldn't pony up the cash owed and get it back.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the IRS had a policy of selecting a certain number of households - even with very minor tax law infractions - and completely ruining their lives. Their reasoning was that they couldn't possibly audit and prosecute all the tax cheats; too many of them and not nearly enough IRS agents. But to make examples of families in select areas would frighten many other taxpayers into being honest. I remember a news film showing IRS agents breaking  the driver's window in an old VW Beetle - with a woman sitting in the driver's seat! - and then dragging her out, sitting her in the street, and taking the car. Part of a seizure of all her property, sans warrant. (She had locked herself in thinking they wouldn’t do that.

The IRS of the period from about 1975 through 1990 was the most feared police agency in the free world!

Jim

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