Why Yelp Reviews Are Neglected
Let's start by explaining a little about ourselves.
Move Car is a 2010 company that has been shipping vehicles to customers for more than 12 years. We have been rated five stars on multiple review sites and received thousands of positive reviews over the years.
Yelp, however, is something we have had to struggle with in order to keep our stellar reputation. This is not because we're not a great shipping company. Yelp's history of manipulating reviews and using predatory, shady tactics is what it is. They employ manipulative language and bait-and-switch pricing strategies to advertise their products. Furthermore, they don't have any control over who is actually posting reviews about companies featured on their website.
Yelp also has a history of using retaliatory tactics against businesses who opt out of its advertising campaigns. They refuse to admit when they are wrong, which is detrimental to many small businesses like ours.
The Case Against Yelp!
Yelp has been sued many times for "extorting" advertising payments in return for manipulating online reviews. The most well-known case was actually for Yelp. It ruled against the defendants, claiming certain reviews were libelous. This decision was made primarily because of the possibility that an opposing ruling could result in further suppression of online speech.
The California Supreme Court stated that Yelp could not be ordered to remove defamatory or libelous reviews.
Yelp is now using defamatory or libelous reviews to blackmail companies into signing up for their advertising programs. Then they change the price. We'll get there soon enough.
How the Extortion Racket Works
Yelp has been accused by many people of trying to extort money from advertisers in return for positive ratings or at least featuring them. Yelp can hide reviews it considers to be unhelpful.
This is how it works
Yelp has chosen to display reviews only from disgruntled or fake customers. We won't talk about fake Yelp reviews for a while as we don't participate in their advertising campaigns. There are many services that they charge for, such as clicks to local businesses, premium placement on Yelp search results, targeted local advertising, and a better presence on mobile and desktop sites.
It's all fine and dandy. These are all very common advertising campaign strategies.
Yelp will make sure you sign up for their advertisements by hiding reviews from customers. Yelp is known to engage in bait-and-switch pricing strategies.
Businesses claim that they are sold advertising campaigns for one price by sales reps, but the invoice shows a different amount. The complaint also states that positive reviews have been filtered from profiles and are not visible anymore. Some businesses claim that positive reviews have been removed from their profiles after they refuse to buy advertising.
We also allege all of these complaints in this post. Although we didn't opt for Yelp advertising, we have noticed a pattern of positive reviews filtering off our profile. We believe this is because we refused to buy advertising.
We believe the Yelp advertising ban that causes customers to see warnings in their reviews is also a result of our refusal to buy Yelp advertising.
In conclusion
Yelp reviews are no longer being answered by us. Yelp is nothing but an extortion scheme that preys upon small businesses to make a profit. Yelp is a predatory business practice that ignores clearly libelous reviews and inaction. Yelp reviews will not be answered by us.
If you are a customer and wish to give feedback about how we helped, please select a website that doesn't extort businesses who use their platform. There are many other websites to choose from, such as Transport Reviews (perhaps best for car transport-specific businesses) and Google.
To ship your car, call us anytime to speak with a representative. Get a quote today and start working on your shipment.