In May, a customer alerted her to a Yelp review that called her business a "shady hack-job repair service." She says the unnamed writer claimed the work was done on a wheel as it remained on the car, a practice the nine-year-old business doesn't do. "I feel helpless," says 63-year-old Judy Scales, who co-owns Alloy Wheel Repair Specialists of Northern Virginia with her husband. Loten says that other business owners are watching Hadeed’s fight closely. He’s won twice, but Yelp continues to appeal, arguing that the reviews are protected under the First Amendment. So he sued the seven reviewers he argues are fraudulent, asking Yelp to reveal their true identities, and for the reviewers to prove that they used his business in the first place. Whether they are posted by competitors, or someone else, Hadeed says that the negative reviews did their job and harmed his business. In fact, a recent lawsuit is demanding that anonymous reviewers show their faces, and prove that they did indeed frequent the business they reviewed.Īngus Loten at the Wall Street Journal outlines the plight of Joe Hadeed, a carpet cleaner who claims that several negative reviews of his carpet cleaning service came from people with malicious intent, and who may not have ever even used his business. ![]() But some businesses say that not everybody on Yelp is a genuine customer. Amateur online critics tend to write about either great or terrible experiences and leave reviews full of gory details or glowing praise. For small businesses, the Yelp reviewer is either a blessing or a curse.
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