Yelp Penalizes 100+ Movers Alliance Business Listings After Group Charged With Misleading Customers

Listings managed by the moving company received Reputation Warning alerts after Yelp discovered customers were being pressured to write positive reviews.

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To further its Consumer Protection Initiative, Yelp reports that it has issued Reputation Warnings on more than 100 listings connected to Movers Alliance. It’s a group that, according to Yelp, has engaged in suspicious behavior by pressuring customers to write positive reviews.

Yelp’s Reputation Warnings are part of the site’s overall efforts to stop businesses from manipulating their online reputations and being involved in deceptive practices to gain positive online reviews and mislead customers.

[blockquote cite = “Yelp Blog”]We have evidence that this group and the businesses connected to it pressure customers into writing positive reviews (sometimes on the spot) in exchange for a discount, manipulate customers into posting reviews to listings other than the one they transacted with (sometimes in an entirely different state), ask customers to sign a contract preventing them from publishing negative reviews in case of dispute, and purchase fake reviews online.[/blockquote]

Now, listings connected to Movers Alliance, an organization that operates several moving and relocation companies, will include the following Reputation Warning.

Yelp Warning

Business listings with Yelp’s Reputation Warning will not include any reviews or star ratings. Instead, the listing will only display the warning, along with a link to evidence of the business’ deceptive behavior collected by Yelp.

Yelp says its Reputations Warnings are just one part of its evolving Consumer Alerts program, noting that it has added public health scores for restaurants and government ranking data for health care providers. The site is asking users to report any suspicious behavior on its Support Center page.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Amy Gesenhues
Contributor
Amy Gesenhues was a senior editor for Third Door Media, covering the latest news and updates for Marketing Land, Search Engine Land and MarTech Today. From 2009 to 2012, she was an award-winning syndicated columnist for a number of daily newspapers from New York to Texas. With more than ten years of marketing management experience, she has contributed to a variety of traditional and online publications, including MarketingProfs, SoftwareCEO, and Sales and Marketing Management Magazine. Read more of Amy's articles.

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