Ask HN: Advice about possible extortion? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Advice about possible extortion?

43 pointsabsconditus25 comments

I am posting this on behalf of another HN member with less karma.

Someone close to me operates a medical practice in a fairly densely populated area of a very large city. Over the last few months, very negative reviews started appearing on review sites (like Yelp and Yahoo reviews) from users with no review history. The negative reviews are interspersed with others, which are a mixed bag (but tend towards the very positive) and probably valid. Normally I'd assume she's just getting negative reviews and move on, but she's received a fax from someone saying they're aware of the problem and can help her fix it, with a return phone number and an address that's geographically on the other side of the country. I'm assuming as soon as she contacts them they'll ask for money (or worse) to take them down. In my opinion, this is a terrible precedent to set.

I remember hearing about Yelp doing this themselves, but never a third party. Googling for the problem also lead to few similar situations. Given that the practice has very few reviews as it is, it is tarnishing her image quite a bit and she has noticed a downturn in the number of patients she's been seeing.

So far, we've been advising, under no circumstances, to reach out to this person.

Does anyone have any experience with situations like this or can offer advice?

Please whatever you do and no matter how much it may hurt in the short term: completely and utterly ignore these people.

Once they figure you're vulnerable they will start to work on your account 'overtime'.

Yelp is a bunch of scum (for not verifying that a relation between reviewer and reviewee exists) and I wouldn't be surprised if they were involved directly or indirectly, the temptation must be huge. A negative review system should be run based on verified ID of the reviewer, anything less is simply setting up a vehicle for blackmail. Apparently one of Yelps income streams is to influence the sort order for paying customers, positive reviews on top. Of course that only works when there are negative reviews.

Blackmailers are cowards and as a rule they move to the softest targets, any kind of response that they've been noticed is going to backfire big time.

good luck with this

Very good advice. We had something, not quite the same but relating to some negative posts on forums, where our lawyers suggested we go after them. I spoke to a friend of a friend who is a litigator, who told me (in a friendly capacity) that "principals can be expensive things" and that I should just continue doing a good job. We did that and it went away thanks to our own user-base coming to our aid. Turned out that it was one competitor (in our case) who decided to talk negatively about us. As an aside though, we now monitor forums and social media that relate to us. The added benefit of this is that we can provide better customer service in an event where someone has a gripe and they express it publicly, rather than via our own support channels.

Anyway, I'd agree with the above advice. Tell your friend good luck. Maybe she should find a way to help her customers to be more vocal about her business

"Principles can be expensive things"...

You had me confused there.

lol. Sorry, spelling has never been my strong point :)

> Please whatever you do and no matter how much it may hurt in the short term: completely and utterly ignore these people.

Exactly.

A bit of game theory. You contact them, workout a deal, pay them off or whatnot, and guess what? You leave them with the incentive to pull this stunt again. It's a never ending cycle that will only stop when they realize that you couldn't care less about the negative reviews that they are flooding you with (at the point you will not give them any reward for stopping). If you won't reward them for stopping then they have no reason to continue wasting time and money flooding your business with negative reviews. There is no incentive for them to continue.

I agree that contacting the 'marketing firm' would be mistake, but I think that there might be benefit in involving Yelp. My view of them is mixed (at best), but I have to presume that they have people within their organization who are willing to distance themselves from extortion attempts.

So while they may be indirectly involved, I think they'll respond by taking down the negative reviews if they appear to be suspicious after a short review. As they are unlikely to be the direct source of the fax, I think it's unlikely that further repercussions would be triggered.

I also don't think there is much to lose in contacting the FBI and seeing if they want to treat it as extortion. Perhaps they have 9 such fax's already, and are waiting for a 10th before they take action. I think they are unlikely to tip off the marketer the source of the complaint.

Yelp is an integral part of the problem here. They way they are set up they'll likely sell you their 'service' of ordering the reviews in a way that suits you better - for a fee.

The best thing all businesses can do is to break off contact with yelp entirely and let them slide into insignificance. Paying them only prolongs the agony and that's where it will end if you go through yelp.

Right now we have a good relationship with Yelp: http://www.yelp.com/biz/scream-sorbet-emeryville

We're not currently paying them, and did have some touchy points in the past regarding such offers of 'service'. As a consumer, I think they're a decent organization that's trying to provide a useful and compelling service. Like most other free services there are many potential conflicts of interest. I'm hoping that their self-interest in having credibility will keep them honest. But I don't think their influence is insignificant.

But perhaps like your issues with Paypal, it will turn out that I should have listened your sage advice :).

Things are better now as far as I know. See the link I included elsewhere in this discussion to learn about what Yelp did in the past.

The person being blackmailed should not communicate with or give-in to the person attempting blackmail.

But you shouldn't ignore it in the sense of doing nothing. Posting here is something and other counter-measures might be possible.

We, in general, certainly shouldn't ignore the fact that this happening or chalk it up to how the world works.

I suspect this stuff will come to a head sooner or later legally and it might be better if it happens sooner.

I agree, Yelp is not a reliable source at all. I've gone to places that had 4-4.5 star ratings on Yelp and were utter garbage in service, food quality, and price. I've been let down more times than not.

Ignore these people and maybe try contacting Yelp and see if they can do anything about the reviews from people with no other review history and fill them in on the blackmail threat, maybe they can help, I don't know though.

I suggest calling your local FBI field office, and discussing your best course of action with an agent.

Most likely they'll tell you that you're on your own, but you never know. The level of loss is far below what normally interests them, but if you could show that this is widespread, that could change things.

Really think its a better idea to find out what this is first -- really could just be marketing (albeit dumb marketing). Unless there was a direct threat (wording would need to be shared here by original poster), sounds like there's not much of a case for involving law enforcement, at least at this point.

You're absolutely right; I jumped to conclusions a little too hastily.

That said, I just did a check on online reviews for a doctor I know well and whom I know has been one the most loved and respected doctors in the community for decades. I also know his reviews were excellent 6 months ago. However, today, there are now some 1 star reviews.

Hmmm...

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Here's the thing with review sites; the reviews are not made by people qualified to write reviews. I've seen one-star reviews on Amazon because the person bought the wrong item and they didn't like the return policy. I've seen one-star reviews on Yelp because the restaurant didn't use recyclable takeout forks.

It's really dumb to put any value into the star-rating system, and yet people do it. I only look at the stars if there are 40 or more reviews. Then at least a few people with some common sense got a chance to weigh in.

Here is a previous discussion about Yelp's practices:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1148458

Hi, my name is Rob Frappier and I am the Community Manager for ReputationDefender. Our company focuses on helping individuals and businesses protect their reputations online.

Unfortunately, there are a variety of companies that operate under the extortionate business model that the original poster discusses. They offer "solutions" to the problems that they themselves have created. The fact that most consumer review sites do not require individuals to disclose their actual identity makes it difficult for business owners to determine the validity of reviews and to pursue legal action in the case of defamation.

In our experience, the best solution to mitigate damage done by inaccurate or defamatory online reviews is to focus on proactive reputation management efforts. Increasingly, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals are turning to social media tools to help build their brands online. This provides the dual benefit of protecting against reputation damage while also creating positive content for Google and other search engines.

At ReputationDefender, we offer solutions to help business owners get started on a proactive reputation management campaign. However, there are steps that your friend can take to help repair the damage on her own. Here is some advice from our Online Resource Center tailored for medical professionals - http://www.reputationdefender.com/how_to/online-reputation-m....

On a related note, Yelp co-founder Jeremy Stoppelman recently did an interview with Mashable.com to discuss how Yelp has added new features to try and deal with false and malicious reviews in the wake of multiple class-action lawsuits against the company. Here's a link to the interview - http://mashable.com/2010/10/28/jeremy-stoppelman-yelp-interv....

Best regards, Rob

I think the review scene is going to be open to data mining for fraud detection (or some kind of karma), and I think the HN community should pay attention to this as a problem that needs fixing.

In your case, I would rally friends to place positive reviews to counter-balance the forces of evil. Involve the patients of the practitioner (usually works when the operation is smaller and the relationships are stronger).

I suspect this is marketing more than anything. There are companies out there that specialize in cleaning up online reputations. Perhaps that's just how they market -- look up companies, then try to reach out to do it -- but not in a very good way, it sounds like.

Have you done a reverse look-up on the numbers (phone # provided and fax)?

A simple solution is to append a request for feedback on Yelp / Yahoo to the bottom of all receipts or invoices:

Our goal at [Name of Medical Office] is to provide you with the best care possible. If you liked your experience today, please let us know by leaving a review on our Yelp [url] or Yahoo [url] review pages.

I think that it would be a great time to start encouraging current patients to leave reviews online. I know there are some startups that automate this kind of thing. It's a good thing to do anyway, and it especially makes sense in this situation.

I would reach out to them, though only to get their contact info. Anything that may be personally identifiable would be great. I'd also record the conversation. Then I'd take it all to the FBI. I'd also send it into Yelp, they'll probably remove the offending posts if you've gotten all that.

Extortion is just as illegal on Yelp as anywhere else.

Of course as many mentioned here, don't pay. They'll just do it to you again if you do.

> They'll just do it to you again if you do.

And to others too. Don't forget that a blackmailer that is successful is encouraged that 'the formula' works. If people en-bloc refuse to give in it will eventually stop.

Record the call (if it is legal to do so), when they start asking for money, send the tape to the FBI.

Don't play police. Get real police involved and let them drive.

They know what they're doing. You're not going to do it any better and you might do it significantly worse.

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