Perhaps Yelp’s TOS could be relevant to the discussion, but what do I know?
https://terms.yelp.com/tos/en_us/20200101_en_us/
You also represent and warrant that you will not, and will not assist, encourage, or enable others to use the Service to:
Depends on interpretation on whether this constitutes as buying a positive review, and I’ll leave that to the actual lawyers (e.g. @hungryhungryhippos). And while businesses are encouraged to comply now, they won’t be rolled out or enforced for months if not years.
Regarding Yelp, this does not apply to third-party review platforms unless the platform knew or should have known that a review that was disseminated was false.
Here’s the updated guide (as of April 30): Federal Register :: Request Access
Again, that regulation applies only to advertising. You don’t have to be a lawyer to read and understand those regulations.
Yelp’s terms of service ban a lot of things that are not illegal. The relevant portion is
B. You represent and warrant that you will not, and will not authorize or induce any other party, to:
i. offer incentives of any kind, such as discounts, freebies, refunds, gift cards, contest entries, offers, or deals in exchange for the posting of reviews of your Business, or to prevent or remove reviews, and you understand and acknowledge that Yelp, through its Consumer Alerts, may publicly notify consumers about such incentives and other attempts to obtain, prevent, or remove reviews;
ii. solicit or ask for reviews from your customers; …
iv. pay or induce anyone to post, refrain from posting, or remove reviews, or otherwise attempt to circumvent Yelp’s Recommendation Software (defined below) or fraud detection systems;
Friend told me he’s headed here tomorrow. It’s now a high-end AYCE buffet?
lawsuit forthcoming?
https://www.reddit.com/r/FoodLosAngeles/comments/1ifwf86/niku_x_and_chubby_group_misleading_advertising/
Wow, that’s nuts. I don’t see anything about a lawsuit yet, plenty of grounds for one but so far the guy’s just asking for a refund?
Some of the non-fake Yelp reviews are about as harsh as can be.
I can speak to the glowing yelp reviews part.
At the end there is a high pressure spiel from the server to give a good review. They have QR codes direct to the Niku X yelp page that they ask you to scan with your phone. Then they will “help you out”, tap the 5* button, use the AI feature to auto-fill the rest of the review, and post. Entire 5* review process takes about 15-30 seconds at the end of the meal.
the ai feature is something from yelp or something from niku x?!
Per the Reddit thread:
… one of the owners of Chubby Group, David Zhao, previously ran a business called MoreViews Inc., which specializes in selling online engagement, including fake followers, artificial traffic, and directory submissions. While the MoreViews website does not explicitly list Yelp review services, it offers digital strategies commonly associated with online reputation management through non-organic means.
Shady AF but impressive technology
My plumber does the same QR code thing at the end of a house call. I say I have a flip phone.
That’s so, so disturbing…
I remember seeing a bumper sticker in Berkeley that read: if you aren’t outraged you aren’t paying attention.
I’m not outraged.
that reddit thread and the subsequent video have got to be the most self interested thing I’ve read in awhile. People got way too much time on their hands
WallStreetBet’s due diligence posts are leaking 
I kind of respect the founder for engaging so deeply with a hostile audience.
I love that the poster and people are saying “show me the certificate for the cow” as if that would really prevent fraud. You’d really have no idea if an authenticity certificate was for the cut up beef they put in front of you! IMO it should be pretty easy to tell from visual inspection if something is A5 wagyu if you’ve seen the real version up close before. Maybe there’s some top end Australian cross bred or SRF gold that might get close?
I wouldn’t be surprised if they are playing fast and loose with what they say about their sourcing, reviews, etc. I’d be shocked if they could get away with passing off lower grade beef for A5 for very long. It’s just too hard to fake and anything close is not really that much cheaper.
A restaurant engaging in fraud could make up phony A5 certificates of authenticity, sure, but why would a restaurant that is selling real A5 not be able to provide them?
Any number of reasons, Hanlon’s razor could apply “don’t ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence”
The certificate that I’ve seen when participating in a group buy is for the entire cow, but they only sent one per cow for the entire shipment. I couldn’t even tell which cow my piece came from. Expand that to a restaurant that does higher volume and then has multiple locations and concepts. I can see why they don’t bother. Anymore than you’d expect to see that at Costco or mitsuwa when they have packaged A5 for sale.
