YELP REPRESENTS LOCO CHARLIE’S UNFAIRLY

A few months ago, Yelp reached out to us to use their advertisement services. At first, I agreed. I advertised with them for a couple of months but did not see results for my restaurant business in Indio, CA. Therefore, I contacted their office and politely asked them to discontinue our advertising with them.

Coincidentally, a week later, Yelp moved many of our recommended reviews for the Indio location into the unrecommended section.

For context, Yelp has a section below the recommended reviews that aren’t factored into the overall star rating and are difficult to find. Yelp claims they use an algorithm to determine what reviews are recommended or unrecommended based on three main components:

quality (helpful or unhelpful), reliability (real or fake/biased), and activity as a reviewer on Yelp.

Yelp says typically 25% of the reviews for any restaurant are unrecommended. As of August 12, 2019, Loco Charlie’s Mexican Grill Extra in Indio has been reviewed by 242 people. 184 are currently unrecommended – or 76% - many of which do not fall into these three categories.

Recently, I watched a documentary called Billion Dollar Bully – which discusses how Yelp has been unfairly pressuring small to medium sized businesses into advertising with them or suffering consequences with their Yelp page, a site used by millions of people.

I reached out to everyone I could at Yelp, from correspondence to senior representatives, and wrote countless emails, but they all refused to help me saying there is nothing they can do. They wouldn’t give me an explanation on why many of the unrecommended reviews – which appeared to follow their standards of an acceptable review - weren’t being counted. I am in the process of sending a cease-and-desist letter to the company for letting this poison continue to affect my Yelp page and business.

Please click on - Loco Charlie's Mexican Grill Extra Indio - to find a complete list of our reviews.

Or If you’d like to leave a review, please click on - Loco Charlie's TripAdvisor OR Loco Charlie's Facebook – companies who don’t filter their reviews or show favoritism based on who is advertising with them or not.

Ultimately, we care about each customer’s experience at Loco Charlie’s. If you have any questions, concerns, or recommendations, we always love to hear from our valued customers. Please feel free to contact me directly at 760-703-1860.