Setting up GoFundMe's on business's Yelp pages without permission, and making them claim and opt out of them.

1.) Not every business wants to work with GoFundMe (which keeps 15% overhead.) Hell, not every business wants to acknowledge Yelp, a company that incessantly hits you up for advertising $$, and has had its own ethical lapses.
2.) A lot of businesses aren't doing fundraisers period, they have found ways to keep their employees paid. Yelp making you opt out sounds like a health club tactic. There's not even a disclaimer that these were set up without the business's permission. Yelp says they are changing them to "opt in," but there is still one of these on our page that we did not agree to.
3.) Honestly, a lot of small businesses are waiting to see what the bailout package will entail. You start accepting donations (as a business, not into some general employee fund) you could end up in a different bracket (maybe not, but no one knows at this point.)

It's unseemly and shady. I have been playing whack-a-mole with all of these tech/third party companies offering "opt in" deferred payment or fee options disguised as "relief." A lot of Mom-and-Pops might not be pouring over the details of this stuff. There will be a robust profiteering industry coming out of this.

https://www.eater.com/2020/3/27/21196593/yelp-gofundme-automatic-fundraisers-restaurants-coronavirus-covid-19

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

I hate pretty much everything about Yelp. But the United States, for very valid reasons, does not have the right to be forgotten so we are stuck with them and their practices. I wish they'd just go out of business but they are propped up by one of the few figures in American society more vile than Yelp itself: the Yelp Reviewer.

That is beyond shady. This guy from the article says it best:

Nick Kokonas, co-owner of Chicago’s Alinea restaurant group, was “beyond angry” to find a Yelp-linked GoFundMe for one of his businesses, St. Clair Supper Club, yesterday. “Our customers think that we are asking for charity for our workers. We are not. We are working hard to provide for them by selling food to-go, and will participate in the government programs being crafted for hospitality workers.”

“I truly cannot believe that Yelp and GoFundMe thought this was a good idea,” Kokonas says. “It’s the worst kind of fake stewardship in a crisis, crafted to look like charity but really taking advantage of a horrific situation.”

Oddly enough, last night El Tommo was on the Yelp site for your business. He told his wife he was going there soon. "You're going all the way up there for a burger?" she asked.

"Well, yeah," El Tommo replied. He paused for a second to think about that one curvy woman on The Weather Channel; he'd like to order her, he thought. Inwardly, he giggled at his wit; yet upon recognizing the woman in front of him as his wife, he began to chastise himself, imagining Sister Emma was thwacking his knuckles once again with her ruler. Sister Emma was not hot, he thought. But she did claim to have gone into the convent on the day ("but not because") JFK was assassinated. He wished he, too, had a connection to a world-changing event, but other than winning the CFMB Poster of the Year contest in a fucking landslide in 2019, he had none. He shifted on his haunches and asked his wife to repeat her question.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I know the guy. Gotta support the team. Like Gopher and Isaac did on the Love Boat."

"You know him?"

"What, are you ADD? Yeah, I know the guy! Sheesh. Is it, like, a rule that people don't have to listen to me in this house?"

His wife inhaled, held it for a second, and then exhaled. "Ok. What's his name?"

"Oh, so I don't actually know that."

That sounds illegal to me.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Its not illegal but Yelp has to know how hated they are by business owners and how this gesture, even if it was in good faith (really doubtful), would be received by the business they bully around.

Seems like a case of good intentions gone bad.

Sam is right, though, that the profiteering from this will be rampant.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Well, let's go to his place. I'm going tonight. Any other merchants here? Let me know. Why should I give money to Meijer when I can give it to people I actually know (electronically).

Edit: Tomorrow.

I like yelp.

I hate Google reviews.

Yelp was first.

As far as this GoFundMe thing, I havent noticed, but just ignore it.

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Seriously, fuck this company.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjwebw/yelp-is-sneakily-replacing-restaurants-phone-numbers-so-grubhub-can-take-a-cut

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I don't remember half the time if I'm hiding or I'm lost

Google and their fucking algorithm is involved in this scam too. Why in the hell, if a business has its own website, isn't that website ALWAYS the number one search when I enter its name? That's the ONLY THING I'm actually looking for. Instead I get one and a half pages of Yelp and Yelp clones before, maybe, there's the actual website.

We're creating a new feudalism and this pandemic has sped up the process. Eventually we'll all be vassals to Lord Bezos and Lord Brin. Hell, we probably are already.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Does this happen with your location or others in Chicagoland? I tried this with a couple of our locations (also serviced by Grubhub) but the one, correct phone number appeared. I wonder if the OK for this was buried in their GrubHub agreements?

And yes, no reviewer is worse than a Yelp reveiwer. Phil Vettel wannabes who couldn't pass 5th grade.

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"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."