I&#x27;m convinced that there is an untold number of third parties&#x2F;scammers cold-calling listed business numbers falsely representing themselves as Yelp, targeting owners who are not technologically savvy.<p>Unfortunately, Yelp&#x27;s current model seems to encourage extortion at the hands of these third parties, and is also incapable of punishing them.<p>What I think happens &#x2F; Paraphrase of what I&#x27;d imagine a 3rd party call to be like:<p>&quot;Hi, this is Yelp. Pay us and we&#x27;ll boost your rating&#x2F;visibility and hide bad reviews. If you don&#x27;t pay, your Yelp ratings will suffer.&quot;<p>Then they just manipulate ratings and review visibility with fake accounts. Add good reviews and hide bad ones if the owner paid, and add bad reviews and hide good ones if they didn&#x27;t.<p>(Also I&#x27;m aware that there are plenty of &quot;legitimate&quot; businesses that provide this service and don&#x27;t misrepresent themselves as Yelp itself)