How to Report Reviews on Yelp
The internet is a wonderful and horrible place. Always and all at the same time. While there are a lot of good things to find - from entertainment to education - there is also a lot of garbage you’ll wish you hadn’t seen, and as such, might want to prevent others from seeing.
You see, sometimes reviews are no good. The same trolls that live in the comments section of YouTube, Facebook, and your preferred source of news also frequent the places you look for and leave reviews. Today we’re focusing on Yelp, but there should be similar actions you can take no matter the review platform.
Why Report a Review?
A review is a preview of a product or a service. A review in itself can also be a service- it’s a selfless act of sharing knowledge from a personal experience, all so that others are more informed and can better judge how to spend their time and money.
But again, people can suck, and not everyone has the same impetus for writing a review, not everyone has that same selfless act in mind. Sometimes it’s a protest, sometimes it’s an act of hate. Generally, you’ll know a nasty review when you see one, but if you need to reference it, here is Yelp’s Content Guidelines, which speak to Relevance, Inappropriate Content, Conflicts of Interest, Privacy, Promotional Content, and Intellectual Property.
There are further Review Guidelines which dictate that reviews be accurate, describe a personal experience, and must not demand payment.
There are many reasons you might report a review, but if you’re unsure, here’s what it will look like if you attempt to report.
To actually report the review, simply click the three dots on the review, or the flag icon if you are viewing on reviewer’s profile.
Then you pick the reason that best aligns with what you see wrong, and finalize your report, leaving comments if necessary.
For the past week or two, I have been reporting reviews on a local business that attempted to host an all-ages drag show. Those that disagreed with the very concept were weaponizing one star reviews, simply using Yelp as a platform to voice their disagreement. The business was eventually vandalized (and a man charged with a hate crime), but still the negative reviews come in. And I keep reporting. So, I can tell you what the process looks like.
Immediately after filing a report, you will receive an email thanking you (this is assuming you have a Yelp account yourself). The email will inform you that Yelp HQ will review and try to close the case within 48 hours, and if the review is removed, you will receive an additional message. It’ll be a little like this:
In the event that a user removes the review themselves, you will also get an email notifying you of the change.
Your identity as the one who raised the flag is never revealed, but the reviewer is fully free to write another review, which does not appear to pass any scrutiny; I’ve reported one woman four times in a row, and counting.
But it needs to be done. People aren’t coming to see reviews based on personal biases, they want actual experiences reported. So if you see something bogus out there, don’t be afraid to raise that flag.
