Retailers say they're struggling with rogue sales pitches from Yelp staff

Some Seattle-area businesses say the consumer-review site Yelp isn't exactly what it claims to be: "Real People. Real Reviews." Instead, they say, Yelp manipulates how reviews appear to coerce businesses to advertise.

"If you buy ad space with them ($300 to $800 per month), this will help 'control' or eliminate negative reviews by reviewers of your business." That's the proposition Marcia Evans, owner of Jewel Hospitality, a Seattle catering company, described in a 2009 complaint to the Washington Attorney General's Office. Asked recently about Yelp, Evans said, "I hate them."

Stacy Oltman, the general manager of Hill's Neighborhood Restaurant in Shoreline, said she got a call in June from a Yelp salesperson who said, "You have gotten a terrible review online. We would love to help you remove it."

The number the salesperson gave her led Oltman to a Yelp call center where she got a pitch to advertise.

Stewart Patey, owner of Mattress City in Everett, and Kim Nguyen, owner of Hoa Nails and Spa in Redmond, have similar complaints: They say legitimate positive reviews on their Yelp pages disappeared recently because they did not agree to advertise with Yelp.

The San Francisco-based company says it doesn't do business that way. Regarding the offer to remove or downplay a negative review, Darnell Holloway, Yelp's manager of local business outreach, said, "Generally speaking that is not a sales tactic from our company."

He insisted the company's approach is straightforward: "Businesses can't pay for favorable reviews, and our automated filter doesn't penalize nonadvertisers."

Yelp hosts about 30 million reviews -- anyone can write what they think about a company