My friend hired a cleaning crew that she found on Yelp. After describing her apartment and the job, they quoted her $200 for three hours. She hired them.
Fast forward to the morning of the cleaning. The crew shows up and raises the fee by $100 to $300 total. They argue for a while and the cleaning crew isn’t budging. They’ve raised the price and that’s final. My friend tells them “no deal” and is now without a cleaning crew. She’s wasted 2 hours of her morning, so she decides to tell them that she’s writing a horrible review of their company on Yelp. And then this amazing thing happened. They offered my friend $100 to NOT post a negative review on YELP about them. So although she didn’t get her place cleaned, they paid her $100 for her time (aka silence).
Aside from the clear moral bribery issue here, there’s a brilliant new business idea: The Yelp Blackmailers.
Approach 1,000 businesses on Yelp. Tell them to pay you $500 or your team of Yelp Commandos will destroy their Yelp profile with negative reviews. You don’t even need a team of Yelp Commandos – the threat alone will suffice. Collect the cash in a nondescript blue Chevy Caprice (or similar) in an underground parking garage. Repeat.
Good luck.
Posted by markshedletsky 