Amateur reviewers are the backbone
of America's consumer culture,
and for eating out, the go-to site is Yelp.
But how exactly do Yelp reviews work?
And is it completely unbiased?
Well, Desi Lydic filed this report.
LYDIC: Yelp-- the most popular
crowd source review forum online, and a vital resource
when choosing which waxing place doesn't laugh so loudly.
But can we trust everything we read on Yelp?
One extremely Italian restaurant owner
finds Yelp's business practices so devious
he's protesting.
-How are you? -So nice to meet you. Mwa! Mwa!
Mwa! Mwa! Mwa! Mwa!
My name is, uh, Chef Davide Cerretini.
I'm a chef-owner. I bought a bistro,
and I give 50% off a pizza
if you give me a one star on Yelp.
Why would you want a one-star review?
Sorry, let me ask you in, uh, terms you can understand.
What's a matta you?
If you want to have a good rating on Yelp,
you need to pay for advertise.
And at this site, you don't pay advertise.
So what they do, they, um, manipulate your rating
in order for you to give up and pay for advertising.
LYDIC: According to Davide,
when he refused to pay Yelp to advertise,
he noticed dozens of five-star reviews
disappearing from his Yelp page.
To me, that is extortion.
-Money... -Extortion?
Yes. I'm Italian.
We invent extortion.
Well, yeah. I mean, you're not just Italian.
You're, like, cartoonishly Italian.
I agree with you.
How exactly did Yelp try to extort you?
Walk-walk me through
-from the beginning. -Yes, absolutely.
You open your business.
In couple of weeks, you have your business placed
in that forum, you start to have good review.
And then in three or four weeks,
you start to receive phone calls.
They call you every single day. They're pushy.
They don't give up. They keep calling you.
We were answering the phone, looking at the number,
and we would just tell them to go (bleep) themself immediately.
Sure. That's what I tell my mother-in-law.
After couple of days, you start to see the results
of your bad decision.
So immediately, your ratings change.
Somehow these good review, they're gone.
LYDIC: Davide's claim that Yelp extorts businesses
was a serious allegation.
And he's not the only one with a Yelp grievance.
In fact, Yelp gets accused of extortion so much
that they have an entire page on their website
dedicated to explaining how they don't extort businesses.
So I went to Yelp's headquarters
to meet with their spokesperson,
but not just any spokesperson.
My name's Ben Flajnik.
I am currently Yelp San Francisco's Community Manager.
And...?
And I did some television a number of years ago.
You were on...?
It was on The Bachelor.
-I was the Bachelor. -That's right.
Forget about Yelp extorting people,
I had to ask season 16's Bachelor
what really went down on that horseback ride with Lindzi,
or the time he totally dump...
I would prefer that we probably keep this...
this conversation about Yelp today,
if that's cool with you.
Yeah. No. Yeah. Absolutely.
No, I'm... I am a hundred percent a professional
and I'm here to talk to you about Yelp.
I would never, you know, want to talk about...
Go, go, go, go. Get out of here. Go.
Clean it up. Clean these up.
-I didn't arrange that. -No, no, it's fine, it's fine.
Sorry. Excuse me. What would you say to someone
who says that Yelp extorts businesses?
Um, I would say that's simply not true.
Great.
I'm also not in sales. I don't...
you know, I-I-I run the community side of things here.
Um, Yelp makes its money primarily through advertising.
You don't have to advertise.
Reviews are-are shown just the same
whether you're a paid advertiser or not.
So businesses can control the order in reviews
that come up, description...
Reviews are a bit different.
We have... this-this algorithm,
it's called "recommendation software."
And unfortunately, the business owners
get frustrated with the algorithm.
Alongside that, you have sales reps that are calling them,
and they think that the two are correlated,
but they're absolutely not.
We don't extort businesses.
Bullshit.
You are going to work.
You are going to be harassed from these people.
It's blackmail, it's racket.
Bring the money in... "to the family."
-Mm. -And that's the Yelp Mafia.
Does it cause you pain being so Italian
and seeing your noble tradition of Mafia culture
be portrayed by these Silicon Valley douchebags?
It is. It's insulting.
The Italian community got really mad,
not because the intentional extortion,
it's the way that it's being done.
That a little stupid guy called me from the Silicon Valley,
because he's manipulator.
That's humiliating for the Italians. He should know.
At least do it the right way.
Send couple of guy with a baseball bat.
Do it a classic, "I'll give you the money."
Nobody say anything.
But what if he was on The Bachelor?
Well, you congratulate him,
but also tell him to go (bleep) himself.
These people are protect by politics, law and lawyers,
and we don't give a shit anymore.
It might be legal, but it's not okay.
LYDIC: Choosing who to trust between these two guys
was gonna be tough.
Yelp's business practices are totally legal,
but Davide had a point:
harassing businesses and adjusting reviews
feels dishonest.
Almost as dishonest as calling this "Italian-style pizza."
In the end, I had to listen to my heart.
(echoing): It might be legal, but it's not okay.
Just because it's legal doesn't make it right.
I was gonna have to let Ben down easy.
Ben, I spent a lot of time with Yelp today,
and I think it... it's just that Yelp and businesses
are somehow not trusting one another.
It just feels like there are some things
that Yelp is keeping from businesses.
But... I really hope that Yelp finds happiness.
I'm sure one day they'll make a business very happy.
Oh, thanks.
♪ ♪
-(cheering, applause) -Desi Lydic, everyone.