Sued or legal threats for negative Yelp reviews?

What kind of service did you have from this local business? I doubt a restaurant bothers to call you

They can go to yelp and claim it’s false. Couple of years back this happened to my wife and Yelp took down the review without checking with her. She put the review up again and then they threatened to sue. I think she had to tone down her negative review ...

Most of my reviews on Yelp are negative. They deserve that. I would say just play hard all and don't worry much.

I thought that’s the reason for using yelp.

If they sue, get a lawyer. Assuming you haven’t said anything that’s proveably false, they won’t have a case. Afterwards, amend the review to indicate they are the type of business that sues customers unhappy enough to leave a bad review.

Yelp protect sources and if you ever get sued you should reach out to Yelp customer service. They always help. (Disclaimer I’m not in Yelp anymore)

I read a similar story on Reddit. The OP removed the review but sent a copy of the threat to Yelp. Now this business has "legal threat" thingy on their page, I'm pretty sure this would harm them more than a single negative review. Or if you are really pissed, send the threat to Yelp AND keep the review. This kind of business need a lesson.

So this happened to me too! A local business threatened to sue me after a negative Yelp review. I looked into it, but the business owner was a chickenshit and went away. I never deleted my review. I also reached out to Yelp. They won’t give you legal advice but they do say they’ll work with your attorney if you do get sued. CA protects you better than WA does me. They have anti-SLAPP laws in place which means if you are subjected to a frivolous defamation suit like this you can get it dismissed fast without accruing tons of attorney fees. I think you can even counter sue for them to pay your attorney. Google anti-SLAPP California. There’s a lot out there from free press advocates because journalists often get sued for defamation when people don’t like what they read. (Think Orange in Chief!) Furthermore, there’s a pretty high burden on proof for showing defamation. If you are just recounting your side of the story, the business owner is going to have a hard time disproving it. In my review I called the business owner a jerk. That’s my opinion and courts have long recognized opinion as protected feee speech. Lastly, as Yelp points out in their FAQ, the fact that a business owner is vindictive enough to go after customers often generates them such bad press that alone would put them out of business. If you are communicating with this person, you can remind them of this fact. It doubles down on their terrible PR, the very thing they’re suing you for. One last thing (which is funny). The owner said he “banned” me from this restaurant after my terrible Yelp review, and a few weeks ago my colleagues wanted to go for lunch, so I had to tell them I could only go in full disguise. 😂😂😂 PS: if you are living in a state with no anti-SLAPP laws, and you write lots of pissy Yelp reviews or blog honestly about people, consider getting an umbrella insurance policy. It’s like renters insurance, only cheaper, and it covers legal defense for defamation suits.

IANAL, but the only way they could (successfully) sue you is for defamation. That would require them proving that you posted something that was knowingly false, with the intent of harm them. A few businesses have tried that before, and I don’t believe they were particularly successful. Even better, once the news broke out, those businesses got a lot of negative PR, which damaged them way more than a bad review.

Put it up on Google instead. Fuck Yelp's bullshit takedowns.