San Francisco, CA
San Francisco restaurants threatened by scammers leaving negative online reviews
San Francisco eating places receiving pretend adverse evaluations online really feel scammed
SAN FRANCISCO – A rising variety of San Francisco restaurant homeowners are saying they’re dropping enterprise to on-line scammers.
The restaurant homeowners stated they’re receiving emails from scammers threatening to submit adverse evaluations on-line except they obtain a payment, in response to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Some focused eating places embrace the NIghtbird, Sons and Daughters, and Third Cousin.
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The scammers threaten to offer them a single star, the bottom doable ranking. They don’t have any further feedback within the electronic mail.
[CORRECTION TO PREVIOUS STORY STATING YELP PLATFORM]
As the SF Chronicle and SF Eater reported, these bad actors are able to get away with this behavior because Google Reviews allows consumers to leave star ratings with no review text as opposed to Yelp reviews. A star rating without review text is less reliable and useful to consumers, which is why Yelp has always required ratings to be accompanied by actual reviews. In fact, in 2021 the average length of reviews contributed to Yelp was more than 500 characters.
Many stated it is a type of on-line extortion happening on Google Reviews.
Pissed off with how one can take care of the problem, the homeowners stated it is affecting their companies negatively.