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Tag: Revleap

  • Revleap Wants Businesses Wronged By Yelp To Help Fund Its Legal Defense

    As previously reported, Yelp recently filed a lawsuit against a company called Revleap, claiming to “take a stand against misleading ‘reputation management’ companies”.

    Revleap, which seeks to get businesses a “large constant flow of positive reviews that stay on top of your profile” and to “remove fake reviews,” says Yelp’s allegations, which include trademark infringement, trademark dilution, unfair competition, cybersquatting, breach of contract, interference with contractual relations, and false advertising, are “completely false and unsubstantiated.”

    “Revleap services are legal in all aspects of the law, and we specialize in only legitimate reviews from real customers,” a spokesperson for Revleap told WebProNews in a statement. “Yelp has filed completely false and unsubstantiated claims against our company. We aim to decrease defamation and increase awareness of free speech for businesses. We level the playing field for everyone who uses the internet or reviews on any site.”

    The company says it’s now looking for help from the “business community” that has been negatively affected by Yelp, and has set up a crowdfunding campaign via GoFundMe to help with its legal defense. Here’s what the campaign’s description says:

    We set out on a mission to make one small thing easier for businesses, managing their reviews on various platforms. Along the way we discovered person after person who’s business has suffered because of Yelp’s unfair practices. Our average client is someone who has been in business for 20+ years, that is obviously doing great business or they would not have been in business for so long. They’re listed 5 stars on Google, City Search and Facebok, and they also have an A rating with the BBB. This small business owner usually will have 15 reviews on Yelp. 13 Positive and 2 negative, all verifiable from real customers. Yelp will hide all 13 of their positive reviews in the not recommended section that and only show the 2 negative reviews on the front page. Taking this 5 star business down to 1 star, plumeting their revenue, hurting their family and even forcing some completely out of business.

    Outraged business owners call our company daily asking for help, Revleap only specializes in real, legitimate reviews from customers that are completely unbiased. We simply facilitate an easier way for people to leave you feedback. We didn’t break any law, and we have helped many business owers save their business. The corporate tech giant has filed a lawsuit last Friday in an attempt to strong arm us, just as they have many other small business owenrs to cease operating.

    We ask for the help of the American business owners, and anyone reading this to help us defend this case.

    Yelp aims to make an example of us. They wish to discorage any attempt from anyone looking to relenquish some control from their overbearing dictatorship of your online presence. If we lose this case, it will be a loss for business owners across the world because the grip they have on you will become even tighter.

    When we win, it will open the door for more companies like ours, and more innovation from all over to help you, the small business owner control your presence online.

    RevLeap provides a valuable service to businesses in almost every industry with a simple feedback-gathering tool that prompts customers to write reviews online.

    Any donation from a business owner will receive 1 month free of our service, if you’re an individual we’ll send you a signed thank you card and know in your heart that you’re really helping support the American dream by countering this lawsuit.

    (sic)

    Yelp says Revleap is a scam and that business owners should fall for offers like what it claims to provide, or they’ll end up “paying dearly, both with their bank accounts and their online reputations.”

    As of the time of this writing, Revleap has raised just north of a hundred bucks.

    Image via GoFundMe

  • Revleap: Yelp’s Allegations Completely False, Unsubstantiated

    Last week, Yelp said it was “taking a stand against misleading ‘reputation management’ companies,” as it filed a lawsuit against a company called Revleap, which it said is a scam, and puts small businesses at risk because of the Yelp Consumer Alert program in addition to federal and state regulations.

    Yelp said has Revleap had operated under various names like Yelpdirector and Revpley, and “has spammed businesses with unsolicited messages claiming that they can get good reviews to stick and remove bad reviews.”

    The actual suit alleges trademark infringement, trademark dilution, unfair competition, cybersquatting, breach of contract, interference with contractual relations, and false advertising.

    We reached out to Revleap for comment, and the company said Yelp’s claims are “completely false and unsubstantiated.”

    Here’s the full statement we received:

    Since RevLeap’s inception as a platform for businesses to connect with their customers to gather feedback in a new way, we champion the freedom of speech and open internet. “The Open Internet” as described by the FCC calls for 1. Transparency, 2. No Blocking, and 3. No Unreasonable Discrimination.

    RevLeap services are legal in all aspects of the law, and we specialize in only legitimate reviews from real customers. Yelp has filed completely false and unsubstantiated claims against our company. We aim to decrease defamation and increase awareness of free speech for businesses. We level the playing field for everyone who uses the internet or reviews on any site.

    We believe the internet, business owners, and their customers benefit greatly from having an open internet. Any disruption of these principles like the Yelp “Filter” or described on Yelp’s website as “Recommendation Software” preys on businesses using the reviews as leverage as described in thousands of FTC complaints against Yelp from 2008-2014. Yelp’s Yelp Profile has over 10,000 1-Star Reviews from business owners, friends and family of business owners who have been hurt by Yelp and we hope through our services we can restore faith in the internet and reach a point of transparency with Yelp.

    Yelp has been talking about the “open Internet” itself. On Wednesday, the company released a blog post calling for people to express their support for Net Neutrality before the FCC votes on February 26, and saying that Yelp values users and works with other companies and organizations to “support adoption of the strongest Net Neutrality principles to protect the American Public.”

    Here’s an excerpt from that:

    Since Yelp’s inception as a platform to connect people with great local businesses around them, we have supported and relied on the principles of an open and free Internet in order to do business. These principles, which have become enshrined in the term “Net Neutrality,” provide that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should treat all legal data and content equally, and not discriminate, throttle, or charge different rates depending on the nature of the site, platform or data being transmitted.

    Regarding Revleap, Yelp says business owners often fall for such “scams” and pay “dearly, both with their bank accounts and their online reputations.”

    You can see the full complaint here.

    Image via Yelp