Yelp Penalizes Over 100 Movers Alliance Business Listings After Allegations Of Fraudulent Behavior

In an effort to continue its Consumer Protection initiative, Yelp reports that it has issued Reputation Warnings on more than 100 listings that are connected to Movers Alliance. According to Yelp, this group has engaged in suspicious activity by pressuring customers to write positive reviews for the company.

Yelp’s Reputation Warnings are part of the site’s continuing efforts to prevent businesses from manipulating their online reputations and to stop them from engaging in deceptive practices, such as misleading customers in order to gain positive online reviews.

Yelp explained its reason for issuing the warning labels in a blog post. “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 a dispute, and purchase fake reviews online,” wrote Yelp.

Movers Alliance is a California-based organization that operates several moving and relocation companies, and Yelp’s warning will almost definitely hurt the company’s business, at least in the short term.

Listings connected to Movers Alliance will now include the following Reputation Warning:

Business listings that have been issued Yelp’s Reputation Warning will no longer include any reviews or star ratings. Instead, the listings will only display the warning, along with a link to evidence of the company’s deceptive behavior that has been collected by Yelp.

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

While it appears that Yelp’s moves to prevent fraudulent behavior on its website could result in positive changes, the company itself has been accused of illegitimate and deceptive activities numerous times, and many auto dealerships don’t trust the site to be accurate or fair. In fact, there are a lot of consumers who are also suspicious of the legitimacy of reviews on Yelp, considering the many allegations of deceptive practices by both Yelp and businesses with listings on the website.