May It Please the Palate: Yelp reviews for sale

I received an email from Emma Williams entitled, “I love your restaurant.” She went on to write:

Nowadays attracting customers is becoming difficult as this world is now like a global village all the information you need, you can find in just a few clicks like which restaurant is serving the best food in town, which restaurant is awful.

Yelp is one of the best website for finding customer reviews and deciding what restaurant to visit and what to not.

I am having over 300 yelp accounts, I can give you positive reviews (5-star reviews) that will help you to find new clients.

Not only did Emma fail to realize that I don’t actually own a restaurant, but she made the rookie mistake of copying 498 other recipients.

They were only too eager to respond, and like Emma, copied the lot of us.

MargheritaNYC (pizza chain, 4 stars on Yelp) unironically responded: “Next time, bcc everyone.”

MaryAnne from New Jersey chimed in: “Agree, blind cc everyone ... and unsubscribe me ... Fake Yelp reviews is dishonest and that's not how I operate. How did I get on this list anyway?

I'm an editor, ghost writer, and public speaker -- not a restaurant owner.”

Rustic Table (Mediterranean, Hell’s Kitchen, 4 stars) kindly requested to unsubscribe, adding, “We do not wish to be associated with shady business.”

Sandro’s (Italian, NY, 4 stars) was more direct: “I want absolutely nothing to do with you or this type of shady business.”

Chef David Santos (most recently of the Ryland Inn and Nicholas, New Jersey, 4 stars on Yelp) did not mince words. I had to delete a lot of them, so use your imagination to complete his message:

Dear whoever the h*** you are,

You are a dingle berry on a rash riddled *****. Remove me from your disgusting dishonest superficial fake ******* world. Im sure like many of us you blind cc'd I don't belong in that world.

You are a **** bag and exactly whats wrong with the world today.

Sincerely
Dave ******* Santos

The lack of email etiquette notwithstanding, these responders have a point.

Shady third party vendors, like Emma who “am having over 300 accounts,” serves to disrupt operations not only at Yelp, but at other online review sites.

NBC Los Angeles uncovered fake reviews — positive and negative — on Yelp, Google, and Facebook. Often, bizarrely, they combined a fake name with a celebrity’s photo.

Yelp does not like this.

Their aggressive filters try to stop fake reviews from publication.

They’ve penalized merchants for knowingly posting fake reviews, and they have even sued a couple the fraudsters directly.

So, Emma, be careful. If you’re not busted for your unethical business practices, you just might suffer some karmic retribution for cc’ing 499 addressees.

You dingleberry. We am having none of it.
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Nick Roumel is a principal with Nacht & Roumel PC, a firm in Ann Arbor specializing in employment and civil rights litigation. He has many years of varied restaurant and catering experience, has taught Greek cooking classes, and wrote a food/restaurant column for “Current” magazine in Ann Arbor. Follow him at Twitter @nickroumel or Instagram @nroumel, or see fortyyearsacrossamerica.blogspot.com.