Sigh... Tired of drama finding me. Now it is affecting my business ..(long)

[FuzzyKitten99]

I try to keep a self-contained persona, especially as a business owner who is pretty well known around the DT area I live in.

DH and I live in a small townhome development where we are great friends with the neighbors...except the ones across from us.

We have never really done anything to them but they are the DINK (this is how they will be referred to going forward) types who hate kids (they make it clear at any interaction), but they live in a kid-filled development, and DH and I have 5 alone. Neighbors have about 2-4 each themselves.

We rent, as do most of who live there. DINKS own theirs. They also have a superiority complex. Most of the time we all ignore them, and everyone else does too. However they tend to inject themselves into every situation possible to assert the fact that THEY own their place while we all must be deadbeats and poor people because we rent. Ugh.

Normally I don't engage in this crap but when I had a couple friends stay with us until their new house was ready (their current place's lease ended and the new place was supposed to be ready, but obviously as government inspectors move slowly like they do, it was delayed). They have two young kids so I wasn't about to let them sleep in their cars, especially with how hot it was getting.

Anyway, the DINKS got all upset at a bunch of BS stuff that was not really affecting them (such as a short-term parking situation that wasn't illegal nor obstructing the DINK's cars). I told them to suck it up and deal with it. This angered Mrs. Dink. She started calling me AND my friends (to their faces) trailer trash and all sorts of childish names.

I really didn't engage much and just let it go. Then within the same evening, the DINKS went out to dinner and came back. My friends had things they had to go do, so I was hanging out with the neighbors and we were 'beer can bowling' with a softball, near where my friend's car was parked before.

Well, the DINKS came back and Mrs. Dink was obviously 3-sheets. She started yelling stuff like 'hey isn't it great you can do this because there aren't any trailer park trash cars in the way', and all sorts of crap. The neighbors and I just told her to can it and go in her house. She didn't. She continued. I got sick of it and just yelled back "At least I don't cheat on my husband". Which touched a nerve...cuz apparently from a couple of neighbors confirming it... she slept around with a couple of the single guys who lived next door (had since moved out) and was quite popular with the young guys at a local bar down the road. Honestly, I was just trying to get her to shut her yapper and go in her house.

She came after me and if Mr. Dink hadn't held her back, she would have attacked me physically. Then I thought that was where it ended because they went in their house and for the past couple weeks, we haven't seen much of them both. I thought for sure that they were gonna split up because she was gone for a week straight after that. This was about a month ago now.

Well, being the spiteful and angry soul she is... now she is going online to Yelp.com and posting under anonymous names and pulling our ranking down, and saying negative things about me (which are definitely not true nor is some of the other information she posted not true). While online reviews should always be taken with a grain of salt, not everyone realizes that.

We have contacted Yelp.com and they are not of any help, stating that the opinions are just that. I asked why the reviews that show us positively, and are more recent (thanks to our REAL customers going to defend us) are hidden unless you register your info and those reviews also are not counted in the 'ratings'. I got a general response that talked about 'filter algorithms'... basically BS. Initially it says we have only 3 reviews. When in reality, we have 11 when you add in the EIGHT filtered reviews that you cannot possibly know are there unless you are told.

Apparently I am not the only one having issues with Yelp.com. While I don't read the HuffPost personally, I found this in a google search.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_985513.html

Quote from one of the slides:

A blog post on the SFWeekly website this week brought a troubling Yelp-related incident to light. A Yelper claimed, falsely, to be a writer for SFWeekly in a restaurant review. SF Weekly's Food editor caught the lie and contacted the reviewer; she admitted that she actually wrote for SF Weekly Voice, and said she'd ask Yelp to change the review. But the website refused to amend the review -- a representative told SF Weekly that the lie in question was "personal opinion."

My husband has written responses to these two reviews on our listing, but I really don't see this doing much. I am just sick over this. I know I shouldn't be over just an online review but still... we have to continue to grow the business as it is not at that sweet spot of daily sales that we need to be profitable.

I hate this drama, and I really don't go looking for it. I just seem to attract it like this. Why can't I just lead a quiet, normal life where I don't deal with the daily BS that seems to flow my way??? If it isn't the MN Dept of Revenue breathing down our neck, the owner of the bar next door to our shop is griping to us about something...now this.

Thanks for listening/reading.

[Akasa]

Could you go after her for slander?

[FuzzyKitten99]

Could you go after her for slander?

I could... if I can prove unequivocally it is her.

The 'reviews' are under other names not even close to her's or her DH's. However I know it is them because a couple of things they posted were said to me personally, using the exact phrasing.

Plus there is no person who has walked through the doors that I have ever treated in a way that would justify any review saying 'the woman behind the counter has little or no class'. Even my husband who has had to throw people out (I never have) wasn't mentioned. Only me.

It is OBVIOUS the reviews were meant to target me personally, not necessarily the business, but using the business to get to me, etc. And if that goes down along with me, then so be it, I am guessing is her mindset.

But back to the slander thing... unless there was a way I could prove it was her, or her husband, or both, then I don't think there is anything I can do.

Yelp is NO help at all. We have had about 10 of our customers go to bat for us and write reviews to our defense, but Yelp only features the two negative ones and 'filters out' the others. Initially it says we have 3 reviews, but if you scroll down to the bottom, there is a small, grey font that says "filtered reviews". Click on those and you see all the rest of them. And those aren't counted. They are from registered reviewers, but are not counted in our ratings.

I think our only recourse is to change the info AND business name completely to something random and remove all our actual contact info off so in searches, it doesn't come up.

[Pedersen]

Actually, you have one other option: Yelp is presenting these as opinion, but the reviews are stating actual events. Take Yelp to small claims court, citing libel (not slander: libel is published, slander is spoken). Demand that the reviews be removed on the grounds that they are presenting falsehoods. Also, sue for the maximum amount allowed in small claims, as you have documentation of how Yelp has refused to remove the falsehoods from the site.

That [B]is[/B[ a viable course. By going through small claims court, you'll also make it more difficult for them to use their lawyers to fight it. It's fairly cheap, and will likely see them offer to settle.

It's an option, at least.

[Andara Bledin]

You don't actually have to take Yelp to court.

Take the people making the libelous comments to court as Does and then have your attorney subpoena Yelp to get the IP information for those Does. Odds are very good that they will have come from the same place.

If you want to be vindictive, though, you can go after Yelp as well, although I'm not sure why anybody even trusts them with how much crap has been slung about how they game their results (especially if you pay them to make bad ratings go away >_> ).

At the very least, the libel suit will most likely result in a court order that requires Yelp to remove the slanderous reviews, if not actual damages (for court fees at the least) from the people responsible.

^-.-^

[FuzzyKitten99]

You don't actually have to take Yelp to court.

Take the people making the libelous comments to court as Does and then have your attorney subpoena Yelp to get the IP information for those Does. Odds are very good that they will have come from the same place.

If you want to be vindictive, though, you can go after Yelp as well, although I'm not sure why anybody even trusts them with how much crap has been slung about how they game their results (especially if you pay them to make bad ratings go away >_> ).

At the very least, the libel suit will most likely result in a court order that requires Yelp to remove the slanderous reviews, if not actual damages (for court fees at the least) from the people responsible.

^-.-^

If I can do this legally, I think I will.

I have a few numbers of attorneys that specialize in this kind of thing. I'll keep this updated as things move along, if anything.

[csquared]

Article in the news today about Cyber Extortion. In your case, it is not extortion. You may want to talk to the police just the same. If they can frame this as a criminal act (harassment?), then you don't need an attorney. You will have the DA prosecute.

[Pixilated]

Proving libel may depend on what is written, and also your specific laws. "The woman behind the counter has little or no class" may not be actionable, because what exactly does it mean? 'Class' is really vague; it means different things to different people.

It's like saying, "You've obviously got brains of oatmeal" (a comment that once did get a former newspaper threatened with legal action. Our lawyer just laughed.)

OTOH, saying something like, "The restaurant's artificial mashed potatoes" (meaning stuff that comes from a box) might be actionable if you boil and mash real potatoes (this came from an actual lawsuit that the defendant won, for that very reason. If the person had said, "The potatoes TASTE like a boxed mix" they'd have been safe, because that's an opinion.)

Just throwing my 2 Knuts out there. A lawyer would give you better advice once they saw what was posted.

I can see why you want to do something about this. Even if Yelp.com has no real standards, a lot of people won't know that. And it really is odd that the negative comments are visible to anyone, but the positive ones are only visible to registered site members. Is it that way with every review on the site?

She sounds like a real piece of work. Can you just pointedly ignore her from now on, when she starts screaming epithets across the road (speaking of no class!!)?