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Yelp cracking down on fake reviews
Consumer investigators and the Federal Trade Commission have been reporting droves of fake reviews on business review sites for years. Now, business review platform Yelp is taking another step to crack down.
HOUSTON - Online reviews can influence where we dine, where we shop, and where we spend our money. You want them to be honest.
Consumer investigators and the Federal Trade Commission have been reporting droves of fake reviews on business review sites for years.
Now business review platform Yelp is taking another step to crack down. Yelp has posted an index of nearly 5,000 businesses across the country that it has flagged with its Compensated Activity Alert or Suspicious Review Activity Alert.
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Yelp writes that it posts Compensated Activity Alerts when it catches someone offering cash, discounts, gift certificates, or other incentives for reviews.
FILE PHOTO. The Yelp Inc. application is displayed on an Apple Inc. iPhone in an arranged photograph taken in New York, U.S., on Friday, Feb. 5, 2016. (Photographer: Chris Goodney/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
One business page on Yelp with that alert is Le Bijou Nails and Spa at 6134 Westheimer in Houston. Yelp says it had posted an offer of a $100 gift card for a 5-star review, reading "best review wins."
We went over and talked with the business owner, who said she doesn't remember when her marketing team posted it, but they have since taken it down.
"We weren’t trying to bribe anybody. We were just sort of, 'leave a positive review,' because we wanted to reach out to our own customers. That was it. I have no meaning to it. I wasn’t trying to bribe people to do it," said owner Nikki Tran.
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Yelp posted images of offers for reviews from other businesses all over the country, including, "Free Fries, review us on Yelp," "Give us 5 stars, win a free donut," "Positive review raffle, win a 58-inch TV," and a tattoo parlor that offered "10% off a piercing for a review on Yelp."
Yelp is also posting a list of businesses it says it has flagged for Suspicious Review Activity, warning of large numbers of positive reviews from a single IP address, or from users who may be connected to a group that coordinates reviews.
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Yelp says that when it discovers people posting reviews for compensation, their practice is to remove the reviews and close the reviewers' accounts.
The Federal Trade Commission is looking to make rules to fine people who write fake reviews.
Experts say red flags of fake reviews include mentioning the brand several times, the poster living outside the area while posting multiple reviews around the same time, and negative reviews that recommend a competitor.