Yelp Battles Supporters of the Meier Family
The listing for Lori Drew's marketing business on Yelp has been ravaged by negative reviews posted by Yelpers, including yours truly. The number of reviews numbered six or seven dozen. Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, I received the following email from Yelp HQ:
Hi,
I'm writing to let you know about our decision to remove your review of Drew Advantage in O'Fallon, MO. Your review was flagged by the Yelp community, and our Customer Service team has determined that it falls outside our review guidelines: http://www.yelp.com/faq#great
_review. We review every situation with detail and care and take the removal of reviews very seriously. If you have additional questions about this policy, please contact us at http://www.yelp.com/contact.
Regards,
Kris
Yelp User Support
I checked -- not only did Yelp delete my review, they deleted every single one. I just checked again -- two fresh negative reviews have been posted since the deletions.
I can't blame Yelp for asserting themselves as alpha dog on their boards, but the truly fair solution is to remove the listing for Drew Advantage altogether because is it really a business anymore? With the notoriety of the Drew family in their community and the negative goodwill from being associated with them, what business in their right mind would today or ever? Can Yelp name a standing client of Drew Advantage?
Just in case it is not clear, Drew Advantage is a marketing company for small local businesses. They most likely send out those advertiser packs you get in the mail with coupons for pizza, dry cleaning, car washing, etc. What does this business have to do with the Yelp demographic anyway? My coupons were late in the mail? They don't come anymore? By implicitly coming down on the side of a now defunct B2B business, Yelp is risking a PR blunder for naught.
Meanwhile, I am the boss of me and I'm abstaining from posting reviews of DC area businesses on Yelp for six months.
Thank you for reading this post. You can now Read Comments (18) or Leave A Trackback.
Post Info
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 22nd, 2007 and is filed under news.You can follow any responses to this entry through the Comments Feed. You can Leave A Comment, or A Trackback.
Previous Post: Pictures of Lori Drew »
Next Post: Errata for Programming Collective Intelligence »
- How to Get MagicJack and Lifecam Cinema Working on Windows 7 64-bit
- Fix for Error Installing do_mysql Datamapper Adapter on Ubuntu
- Devious New Targeted Financial Phishing Scam Strikes Your Cellphone
- Errata for Programming Collective Intelligence
- Yelp Battles Supporters of the Meier Family
- Pictures of Lori Drew
- Picture of Curt Drew
- Brandon Antron Rolle Goes on Trial Today
- Fixing Spurious Rails Routing Error
- MySpace Stumbles Playing Catchup to Facebook with Status Updates “Friendsmoods”
November 22nd, 2007 15:06
Lori J & Curt D Drew
269 Waterford Crystal Dr
O Fallon, MO 63368-7130
(636) 272-2670 (home)
Curt Drew: (314) 520-8688 - cell
(636) 379-8500 - office
Lori Drew: (314) 520-7916 - cell
Sarah Drew: confirmed creator of:
http://meganhaditcomin...
Ashley Grills (accomplice):
6337 Star Buck Dr
OFallon, MO 63368
636-240-5013
November 24th, 2007 12:34
I hate Yelp anyways. There’s online review places. Plus unless you put your pic on there you can’t be elite.
I will also abstain from Yelp as well. I think we should boycott Yelp.
If Yelp is going to “protect” the Drews, then I am no longer part of Yelp. There are ways of leaving reviews on yahoo, and other places. Let’s do that. Insider pages.
No more Yelp.
November 24th, 2007 12:35
There’s OTHER online review places is what I meant. Judy’s book, yahoo, insiderpages.
Let’s all boycott YELP.
November 24th, 2007 21:19
Here’s where I disagree with you. I’m as disgusted as anyone by this story, but Yelp exists as a place to review businesses. Posting hate messages there serves no purpose. Besides, it was a hate-poster who first created the business profile (businesses don’t “list” themselves on Yelp, as far as I know).
November 24th, 2007 21:23
By the way, if some tech-savvy person can identify the creep who posted THIS:
http://meganhaditcoming.blogspot.com
that would be a useful bit of work.
November 25th, 2007 01:45
Don’t worry. New comments are coming in faster than Lori can get them removed.
November 30th, 2007 16:40
Yelp doesn’t have anything to do with the Drews, retard. Anybody can go onto Yelp and create a listing for any business. You’ll notice that there wasn’t even a listing for Drew Advantage until the story broke, so obviously the listing was started by someone wanted to trash the Drews, not by the Drews themselves.
November 30th, 2007 16:54
hey Kevin, retard, all business listings must be approved by Yelp to be listed. The point here is that Yelp controls both everything on their website, listings and their reviews. And how is Drew Advantage a business anymore? Has your car wash utilized their marketing services lately?
November 30th, 2007 17:16
You’re expecting Yelp moderators to make a judgment call on whether or not to allow the listing of Drew Advantage because of some internet drama bullshit? From their standpoint, it’s a legitimate business that’s still possibly in operation. They’re not going to go “OMG they did bad stuffs, they must not be around anymore LOL!” and take down the listing. I’d guess that if they receive some kind of actual proof that it’s no longer in operation, they they’ll obviously take it down.
They removed your comment because Yelp is a forum for customers to review businesses they’ve had dealings with, not for you to have a personal morality soapbox.
And I’m sure your boycott is really hurting them.
November 30th, 2007 17:23
You’re projecting stuff that I didn’t say. Why don’t they list Kevin’s House of B$ as since it is possibly in business too? What’s the bar for listing businesses on Yelp? You’re not even a Yelp member. Notice that Yelp has not deleted any of the new crop of Drew Advantage reviews since their last cleaning. Obviously they have no consistent policy towards anything. Again, my only point is that Yelp controls Yelp. What’s your point?
November 30th, 2007 17:57
I don’t know what the criteria for listing businesses on Yelp, but Drew Advantage is listed … STILL listed … on several area business directories, including this one. So if someone from Yelp were actually checking into whether or not the organization exists, most people in their right mind would probably conclude that it does. Kevin’s House of B Dollars isn’t on any such directory
Whether or not Yelp has the time and manpower to delete each and every ridiculous comment the moment it’s posted doesn’t necessarily mean they “have no consistent policy towards anything” - they’re probably getting around to it. Okay, so your point is “yelp controls yelp” and it’s inconsistent, so that’s why you’re boycotting it? That makes sense. My point is that getting upset at Yelp for keeping the listing is really retarded.
November 30th, 2007 18:02
If I’m upset and retarded for being so, then you are doubly retarded for being upset at my upset because you’re not even a member of Yelp. My observation is written as a longstanding member of Yelp. What’s it to you?
November 30th, 2007 18:16
Being a member of Yelp has no bearing on whether I can tell that your outraged eblogulation is ill-targeted. What’s it to me? Dude, you’re opining and ranting in a public blog with commenting functionality, what did you expect?
November 30th, 2007 18:17
Kevin, my blog is your blog, brother. Welcome
December 3rd, 2007 16:42
You know there is a freedom of speech in ths constituion! This bitch used it to kill a young lady and has gotten away with it!! We need to have an old fashion town party!! Take out the whole family and put them in stockades in the middle of town!!
December 7th, 2007 11:58
While I sympathize with people being angry about this - a kid’s death is a terrible thing, and these were terrible circumstances - , is it really right to destroy the business of a woman you’ve never met and know very little about, because of a recent news story that likely doesn’t cover all of the facts?
I dunno, guys. I know what she and her daughter supposedly did was terrible, but I feel like there’s something wrong about this.
December 9th, 2007 22:42
Kevin….what the hell does eblogulation mean? It’s not in the dictionary!
November 30th, 2007 18:16 Being a member of Yelp has no bearing on whether I can tell that your outraged eblogulation is ill-targeted. What’s it to me? Dude, you’re opining and ranting in a public blog with commenting functionality, what did you expect?
December 10th, 2007 07:52
“Meanwhile, I am the boss of me and I’m abstaining from posting reviews of DC area businesses on Yelp for six months.”
Ewwwwww, {{{{{{{{shudder}}}}}}}}}