Yelp.com’s secret is OUT ! Yelp.com extorts business owners

Yelp.com’s secret is OUT ! Yelp.com extorts business owners

Google this: Class action lawsuit against Yelp.com 

Allegations: Yelp.com extorts business owners to subscribe to their service or else pay the price of a bad review !

Read the threads:

1-       Yelp.com “employees” disguised as Yelp’s “elite reviewers” writes good and bad reviews about businesses. (Really…. how many people would spend countless hours writing reviews on over hundreds of businesses without getting paid?)

 

2-      Business owners with over 10 + reviews gets a call from a Yelp.com “customer service” employee soliciting a monthly subscription to being a yelp “business elite member”  with “special privileges” so that they can get maximum exposure. (“What? What else do you offer? Why would I want to subscribe just to be an elite business on yelp for $100 a month?)

 

3-      Now you’ve done it. Mr. Business Owner. You should’ve took Yelp’s “ offer to help your business grow”. You will soon see your positive reviews slowly disappear with an increased number of negative reviews. Next time a Yelp.com employee calls you, you better do as they say, or else!

 

4-      Ring… Ring… “Hello… Yelp.com at your service. How would you like to have those negative reviews removed? The price tag is now $300 per negative review to disappear. What? You want that in writing. No, We don’t put that in writing. Well, if you’re not interested, that’s up to you. We could offer you $300 a month to expose your business better. We have over a million subscribers looking for businesses, just like yours. What’ll it be?”  

 

((Hundreds of more stories just like this))

 

5-      Yelp.com , You call yourself credible?!  

 

http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/24/yelp-class-action-lawsuit/

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/eastbay/yelp-and-the-business-of-extortion-20/Content?oid=1176635

http://yelplawsuit.com/

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2360622,00.asp

http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Veterinary+business/Yelpcom-changes-policies-after-vet-files-class-act/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/664422?contextCategoryId=378

http://veterinarynews.dvm360.com/dvm/Veterinary+news/Calif-veterinarian-sues-Yelp-alleging-extortion/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/659145

http://gigaom.com/2010/02/24/finally-an-actual-yelp-class-action-lawsuit-for-extortion/

 

It’s no wonder Google.com pulls out of buying Yelp.com

Posted by Kee on February 18, 2009 at 1:55 PM | Report this comment

I was solicited by “Jason” from Yelp. No offer to remove negative reviews, they even refused to remove the bulls**t ones. BUT He DID promise that if I advertised with them that they would “drop down” and nothing below a 4 star would be “featured”. When I said no, the bad ones were featured and I received more negative ones. I have my phone records to prove it.

 12/5/2008 Yvette K. says:

Yelp has a sales force who speak to business owners and sell them an enhancement to their profile. Then the businesses can add more information to their Yelp profile and choose which reviews to put at the top and which to hide towards the end. I may not have this completely accurate, but this is more or less the gist of it.

I don’t have a problem with this, but I have heard horror stories about how aggressive their sales force is by calling businesses so many times it drives the business owners crazy.

3/3/2010 Mike R. says:

Yelp needs to take a hard look at is practices.  Defamation of character and slander are not protected under “Freedom of Speech” in the same way that yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre is not.  Yelp needs to stop using “Freedom of Speech” to hide behind, step up to the plate, and come up with a way to determine if a review is genuine or slanderous.  

I run a live theatre and I have an issue where I have asked that reviews of my business, both good and bad, be removed because they are not relevant, specifically because it only addresses plays seen at the theatre and not a first-hand experience of the venues core offerings.  One of these reviews includes a personal attack against a performer by a woman and her husband who brought a baby to the theatre and said that the actor stopped the performance to be rude to them and to “call them out”.  I was there that night – that simply did not happen.  The door to the lobby is directly next to the stage, and all the actor did was to pause while the husband left the theatre with the baby.

However, despite my repeated attempts to get the reviews removed and the fact that Yelp’s own rules say that reviews that do not apply to the scope of a business and reviews that contain personal attacks are not allowed, they adamantly refuse to remove these reviews.  In addition, despite repeated requests, refuse to call me to we can have a live discussion regarding the problem.

Delta Dental Insurance & Delta Dental Dentists

Delta Dental Insurance and Delta Dental Dentists

How many dentists are members of Delta Dental and hope one day to drop them?

How many of you dentists are members of Delta Dental and have been pushed to diagnose a certain way or get fined?

How many of you Delta Dental dentist have diagnosed patients with severe periodontal disease, therefore recommended a deep cleaning (root planing) more often than once every 2 yrs (which is what Delta is only willing to pay for), have informed patients of this choice, believes you, gets their root planing more than once within 2 yrs, pays for the treatment out of their own pocket because they want to keep their teeth from falling out or prevent more bone loss, and Delta Dental turns around and tells you that you were over billing the patient and takes your money by subtracting it from your Delta insurance bulk payments?

How many of you Delta Dental Doctors have experienced patients who tell Delta they don’t like the crown you put on them (the patients chose & paid for the cheaper metal based porcelain crown vs the more expensive white empress all ceramic crowns), claims that no one in your office explained that there was a difference, even though the patient has signed a consent form stating that they were happy with the color, size, shape, contour, fit, & look of their new crown, & that they chose the cheaper crown, yet Delta Dental takes your insurance money anyway ?

How many of you Delta Dental Dentists do such a high volume of work that you get audited more than once a year, and feel interrogated every time they go to your office, when they make you pull 20 + charts and go over all the work that you’ve done, like you have to prove that the patient even exists, & stays to hound you for at least 3 hours at a time? Oh, an x-ray fell off the chart missing, & you cannot find it at that exact moment. Ding. Kiss that money you spent to take that xray good-bye because Delta Dental will subtract it from your Delta Dental check because you cannot find that xray on that day they came over. Oops, your assistant forgot to put the patient’s name or the date of the xray. Ding. Bye bye hard work. Money subtracted from you. It’s not that you didn’t do the xrays,  and didn’t pay your staff to get this done.

What Delta Dental insurance claim? You Lost your Delta  insurance claims? Delta Dental didn’t loose your insurance claim Doctor, you did (This will be Delta Dental’s version.) Or your staff did! How many times has that happen to you, Delta Dental Doctor? Like, every 10th insurance claim? Why are every 10th (on average) Delta Dental insurance claims always missing? Delta Dental never received it from your office
,Doctor, therefore you must waste your staff time and money to resubmit the insurance claims again!, even though you’ve resubmitted your Delta Dental insurance claim at least 3 x on average!

How many times has Dental Dental ever told this to your patients,(at least 2  months or later) “Patient, your Dentist and his team never gave us your insurance claim.” or “We asked your dentist for an explanation of the treatment & we are still waiting for their response, that’s why we haven’t paid your claim yet. (they have a cavity, okay?) (& Delta, you never sent any letter to us about this!)

What other games has Dental Dental insurance played on you, Doctor?

Did you know that Delta Dental has been subtracting (taking money) from your bulk payments, and you might not even know it? Have you really looked at your Delta Dental statements lately? Time to find out why? Don’t have the time to figure this out? Don’t you think they know this?

 

When you want something from Delta Dental, they can take months or years to give you that information. When Delta Dental wants something from you, they expect it at that moment or within days, or else ding! money will be taken from you! or subtracted from your Delta Dental paycheck. What a stressful and unfair relationship!

Disclosure:

Fortunately we at Emeryville Dental Care, are no longer pons of Delta Dental. We are treating our patients the way they should be treated. It feels very good not to be dictated by non dentists, ex dental assistants, or retired/old school/behind the times dentist who work for Delta Dental,on what your treatment should be on your patients they’ve never seen.

Unfortunately Delta Dental tells their members that they dropped us, however, at the time (almost 10 years ago), we refused to play their paperwork games, ( we were done & refused to give them any more of their “required ” paper work and mutually consented to separating ourselves from them instead by refusing to play their stalling / non-payment games. Of course, Delta Dental tells their patient members to go elsewhere.

Fortunately, we have Delta Dental patients (who see through the insurance company games & nonsense) who have stayed with us throughout the years and many incoming referred new patients who are still coming to our office who expect higher standards and want better service and care.  

 

Side note:

To Delta Dental Patients: Delta Dental must pay your dental claim, even if you choose to go to a non Delta Dental provider. Even though Delta tells you to go elsewhere and find Delta Dental member Dentists, Delta Dental must pay your insurance claim even if you go to a non Delta Dental provider. A non Delta Dental provider can still treat you and some will bill your insurance for you, so that your insurance claim will be paid. If Delta Dental tells you otherwise, complain to the Dept of Managed Care, 980 -9^th St # 500, Sacramento, CA 95814, Fax 916-229-0465

Response to James S of Yelp.com

James St_ _ _ _ _ ,

 

Thank you for at least mentioning that we have premium service! Not everyone who does cosmetic , neuromuscular treatment work at our office has a 6 figure job and not all of them have jobs that is all about looks.

 

Let’s go back to memory lane for a minute. We never had problems with you, until your fiance took over your bills. In fact, we have lots of documentations of  you saying that you were very happy with our work. You wanted all types of dental work done before you got married, so we did as you requested. Everything was explained to you and you had signed a consent for all of the cost and treatment prior to any work being done (which has always been our policy). For your “fiance” to tell us that “ you didn’t know what all the dental treatment was about and that you didn’t know what you were paying for” was rather peculiar.

 

Soon after you completed your dental work, we get a call from your fiance, yelling at us, to explain why you had such a bill. Since you two were not married yet, and you had not given us your permission to disclose any information to her, we were not obligated to give her any of your personal and confidential information, which most likely caused her to be furious at us. After that incident, you came to our office insisting on getting your billing information, as if we were trying to hide that information from you, (in retrospect, she probably made it seem to you as if we were). Then, another problem came up, when you lost (or took or your wife took) our insurance check that was given to you (instead of us) from your insurance company.We spent months helping you track down that check instead of just making you pay for it, which is really your responsibility. (There was nothing wrong with the billing, it was just the “lost check” which took months tracking down.) 

 

Then your wife, Irene S_ _ _, started writing about our office of things she didn’t even know for a fact about , on the internet, while all the time, we were trying to help you. She claims to be exercising her freedom of speech, but instead was spreading not credible and false information on the internet. She convinced you that we were overcharging you, when in fact, we were not. She didn’t understand what your insurance had discussed with us and what we had told you (& you had agreed to) prior to beginning your treatment. We told you then what your estimated  insurance coverage will and will not cover and you agreed to treatment in writing, even though your insurance company was not going to cover part of the work.

 

After your fiance got a hold of your paid bills (which was right before your wedding), upon her insistent, you requested a break down of our billing codes,  fees and wanted to break it down the way your wife wanted it broken down, which was not the way our computer prints it out.

 

You wanted the best work, and you got it. You wanted the top of the line in treatment, and you got it. Your insurance did not cover for antibiotic (not chemo) periodontal disease treatment or any other cosmetic treatment (which was explained to you and you signed an agreement that said that you understood what we had told you) .

 

Your wife then called our office insisting that you were getting treatment done at our office that you did not need. (As you can imagine, we were in the middle of your dispute with her.) Your wife wanted you to get all your records and go to her dentist, so being a good fiance, you did. But don’t negate what we’ve done for you and your health. We had a good relationship for years before your wife came into the picture.Of course, your current dentist won’t find any more problems in your mouth & cost you “lots of money”, since we already fixed all your teeth. Just make sure you take care of & maintain what we made for you.Thank you for your past business. It was a pleasure to serve you. Regards.

 

Emeryville Dental Care response to Christopher R. of yelp.com

 Thanks Christopher R. (aka: Christopher C, jetajaguar, jaguar)(who has posted multiple negative reviews on our company on multiple websites. )

 Correction: Better Business Bureau has rated our company with an “A” rating.  We have been in business for over 10 years and we have an “A” rating with Better Business Bureau. 

 

BBB does NOT randomly post people’s complaints unless it is proven to be CREDIBLE. So for those postings (same people?) ranting about our company on random websites ,THEIR POSTINGS are NOT CREDIBLE.

There’s a very good reason why the Better Business Bureau has Emeryville Dental Care listed as ‘UNSATISFACTORY’.  Read the reviews here, my experience was similar.  

Read above.

My mother, old as wise as she is, said that any medical practice that needs to advertise via full color mailings to random residents is not to be trusted.

 Our Response: You are misinformed. We have an “A” rating with Better Business Bureau(BBB).Also, It’s an old myth that reputable businesses shouldn’t advertise. Medical practices in your mother’s days are long gone. There were no HMO’s nor PPO’s that have now taken over hospitals & some dental offices. The least work the HMO& PPO doctors diagnose & treat, the less the insurance co. need to pay. Of course, they pressure their Drs & dentists, who get paid $5-$20/a month per patient (whether you show up or not),to diagnose the least amount of dental work or minimal medical treatment, or else risk being kicked off their plan. 

Trust me, trust my mother, go elsewhere for your dental work.

Lots of Mothers come here and refer their family members and friends here. Again, see the above comments.

Websites where there’s no section for the businesses to respond to, are not reputable websites.

Of course, we have to defend our place, for people such as yourself who make false judgment and accusations for which they know nothing about, can write whatever they want on the internet; credible or not. 

  0  1  Christopher R.   San Francisco, CA   1 star rating   09/25/2008