I'm serious. Its bad.
Yelp.com has officially pissed me off. They've gone after my auto mechanic. That doesn't sit well with me at all. Yelp uses extortion tactics against small businesses and they've now made it personal.
More below the orange hoopty-do of "you don't fuck with my mechanic..."
...You don't have to dig too deep to see how yelp.com tries to squeeze small business owners. From a business perspective, it makes sense- you get a business that is raking in high reviews on your privately-owned sight, and you move in on them.
Kind of like the guys from Providence in The Departed:
..only thing is, my mechanic doesn't have screen writers to save him. Let alone Leonardo DeCrappio. He ran afoul of yelp.com and they've gone out of their way to fuck him. This is wrong. My buddy posted a 5-star review on Saturday: filtered! I posted this review on Sunday:
I have been going to Dave as my auto mechanic for almost ten years. He is fair, he has never screwed me over on the price, he's ethical and a damned nice guy to boot.I'm not making this stuff up- here's the direct link to one of LA's best mechanics that yelp.com is screwing:I have turned many friends onto him as their go-to guy for any type of auto service, from engine rebuilds, paint jobs and alignment issues to replacing a rear-view mirror. Dave and his crew are always professional and never try to over-charge. This is as good of a shop as you'll ever find in Los Angeles. The previous reviewer got a lot of things wrong, IMHO.
I've trusted High Tech with my vehicles for a long time. Dave is an honest and fair mechanic who runs a clean business. I would send anyone to him, hands down.
Guess what? Less than 24 hours later? Filtered! Yelp.com is only allowing two reviews through and they're both 1-star.
This is extortion. This is squeezing a fair and honest man and business for profit. It's disgusting. This is my second write up of this injustice against a good man and an honest business. My next write up is getting forwarded to the LA Times Business section- CC- Kamala Harris, California's Attourney General.
The more I find out about yelp screwing good people, the more upset I get. And when I get upset, well, I make noise. A lot of noise. Don't fuck with my people.
And yeah, there will be a third write-up. At this point, Yelp has picked a fight with me, personally. The research will become hardened and this scheme will be blown open and light shone in- fuck this behavior. You don't treat good people like this for corporate profit.