Man pans bookstore on Yelp. Bookstore owner tracks him down, writes harassing emails, and tries to break into his house. Man responds by calling police--and Yelping about the entire experience.
In what can only be described as a paradigm of Internet justice, a California Yelp user named "Sean C." was able to follow up his initial negative review of a San Fransisco bookstore with this gem:
The user created a Flickr set of screenshots containing threatening message that the bookstore owner had sent. Only once he produced the screenshots did a Yelp administrator offer to help Sean C. stop the harassment, according to Gawker.
As Gawker notes, the store owner's swings between plaintive hurt ("I have no money to pay for help") and outright fury ("Do you not have a girlfriend... I can see why") are perhaps unique to that unique brand of Internet passive aggression that allows for brutal, anonymous honesty.
The bookstore owner was arrested and placed in psychiatric holding, and has been served with a restraining order, according to Sean C.
Related Stories: | Topics:Technology, yelp, review, store, Internet, , Yelp! Inc., San Francisco, Flickr.com |
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Recent Comments | 2 Total
November 4, 2009 at 5:36pm by Steve Elliott
How on Earth did the lady get the user's home address? Is this a real story or just a clever attempt at viral marketing.
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http://www.gadgets4nowt.co.uk - The name says it all!
November 5, 2009 at 5:55pm by SERGI BOSCH
whoa! i'm a yelper. i would not want the world to find out about my horrible experience staying at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. they run a sneaky advertising/promotions scam on their reservations page of their website. and they are aware of it. (like, it says, "book now and save an additional 10%" - but what they mean is "book now and you'll get the price above - not an additional 10% off of that"). they get about 4 complaints a month regarding this issue, the concierge told me. and yet- they don't fix it. why? well, how many people that are 40 and up (ie, the average Palace Hotel customer) will actually argue U.I. (user interface) with them? well, i will. but they bounced me around to about 4 different "customer sales" managers. sigh...