My Dad moved on Saturday, and the experience was horrible: the nominal “company” lied about whether the movers were employees or contractors, the movers themselves were inept and late, and they damaged a piece of furniture.
On Sunday my Dad wrote a nasty e-mail to the owner about the experience. On Monday he hadn’t heard anything, so he posted a scathing Yelp review. This afternoon—Tuesday—someone from the company called and said they’d refund the money if he took down the Yelp review.
My Dad paid $1,400 for the move. I hate to repeat myself, but it’s worth contemplating: The moving company found that a single negative Yelp review could be worth $1,400.
Why? As far as we can tell, the moving company consists of a guy with a telephone and a Yelp rating. He hires crews and rents trucks. If he loses his Internet ratings, he’s cooked.
Nonetheless, the important lesson for people on the Internet is that you shouldn’t trust Yelp and similar reviews.
One could argue that my Dad shouldn’t accept money to take down the review, but, as he observed, he’s not out to save the world from crappy movers.
The Story's Story 
I once took a French lesson from a guy I found on the internet. He thought I was flirting with him the whole time. By the way, his site showed an office building, but the class was at his house-in his daughter’s room. He started harassing me to take more lessons. He started calling my supervisors and I wound up paying him for a lesson just to get him to leave me alone. I looked at his yelp page and all the reviews were written by him. I wanted to warn others, but I was afraid he would retaliate. I do not trust yelp or all amazon.com reviews.
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I don’t trust online reviews like Yelp, Amazon and Trip Advisor. I get my reviews from people I choose to follow on Chekplate. I can see where my friends/family/people I care to follow, have gone to eat and what they think of that restaurant. At least I know it’s real and trustworthy.
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