Is Yelp the Work of Satan?

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Bruce Papier

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Apr 25, 2011
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I got a call from Yelp about advertising. I said no, but I ended up filling out the info on the Yelp listing so people looking us up could see our store hours et al. Almost immediately, my spam went through the roof. I now get more spam in a day than I used to get in a month. Coincidence or not?
 
I know those who want to use every avenue of online media to attract business will probably disagree, but I don't even want yelp to know about me.
I consider it basically a protection racket.
:cool: Rick
 
I hate Yelp, they are such a scam. Their sales people are so sleezy, constantly calling trying to get me to advertise with them. whenever I see Yelp on the caller ID I don't pick up. They quoted me like $600/month to advertise with them, no thank you. Some customers left me a positive review and it didn't show up.
 
i blocked their # on my phone
a side benefit of a internet phone that gets transferred to my cell phone...no spam and there is a voice recording that answers 1st!
 
I just looked for picture framing in my town on yelp. There are several but none showed up in Yelp. There are a couple of big framing places but since they didn't pay yelp, they don't appear. Most of the places were 25-80 miles away. Interestingly, the Michael's in town wasn't on the list but one 70 miles away was.
 
Larry Peterson said:
I just looked for picture framing in my town on yelp. There are several but none showed up in Yelp. There are a couple of big framing places but since they didn't pay yelp, they don't appear. Most of the places were 25-80 miles away. Interestingly, the Michael's in town wasn't on the list but one 70 miles away was.
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I just tried looking. I typed "picture framing" and then "wilkes-barre" and on the results page 2 ads show up on top which are for furniture stores and then it lists 5 results. Most are a good distance away, no Michael's showed up for me at all. But I noticed #4 is ME, only about 9 miles away. (I only have the free listing, I don't advertise with them, and I didn't log in when I did the search.)

When I get my monthly email from Yelp on how my listing is doing, it usually says "0 views this month".
 
As much as I *AGREE* that yelp is likely the devil, I think they may be innocent in this situation. :( :D

Any time you post an email address on the web, the spammers will harvest it by automated means (scanners that crawl every site). You have your email address posted clearly on your website feedback form at https://www.fortwaynepictureframing.com/contact-us.html so this is where the spammers likely got it. The form on the same page is generally to hide your email address, so its probably not necessary to also display it there.

Unfortunately, once the spammers have it.... it's out there for good, on lists that they will sell to others. Since its gmail, the good news is you can just get a new one if it gets too bad. :)

Have a great day!
Mike
 
MnSue said:
i blocked their # on my phone
a side benefit of a internet phone that gets transferred to my cell phone...no spam and there is a voice recording that answers 1st!
Click to expand...
I also blocked their numbers because the called every week. recently I went to view my listing with them they had me marked a "gone out of business" I tweeted them and got it fixed. I bet it was because I don't answer their calls.
 
Mike Labbe said:
As much as I *AGREE* that yelp is likely the devil, I think they may be innocent in this situation. :( :D

Any time you post an email address on the web, the spammers will harvest it by automated means (scanners that crawl every site). You have your email address posted clearly on your website feedback form at https://www.fortwaynepictureframing.com/contact-us.html so this is where the spammers likely got it. The form on the same page is generally to hide your email address, so its probably not necessary to also display it there.

Unfortunately, once the spammers have it.... it's out there for good, on lists that they will sell to others. Since its gmail, the good news is you can just get a new one if it gets too bad. :)
Click to expand...

As mike says, the horse is out of the barn. BTW, it's in your meta tags as well.

For others that have their email posted on their sites, you can obfuscate it so that harvesters can't see it. Take a look at https://www.albionresearch.com/misc/obfuscator.php for more info.
 
On our sites we have our email address made into a picture, or we offer a form with a reCaptcha challenge. We don't get too much spam.

Never heard of email obfuscation, but I like the idea of having a hypertext mailto link. How well does it work?
 
Okay, I going to assume it's a bad sign if you get a spam email from yourself. I got one today with my name in the subject line, but from an email address other than my own.
 
bruce papier said:
Okay, I going to assume it's a bad sign if you get a spam email from yourself. I got one today with my name in the subject line, but from an email address other than my own.
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I've gotten them with both my name and email address spoofed. Looking at the source, the email appeared to come from me and was sent to me.
 
David Waldmann said:
On our sites we have our email address made into a picture, or we offer a form with a reCaptcha challenge. We don't get too much spam.

Never heard of email obfuscation, but I like the idea of having a hypertext mailto link. How well does it work?
Click to expand...

It works well. The Contact Me form with a Captcha, not so well.

Here is my obfuscated mailto:

Code: 
<p>
    Comments, questions, feedback? Click
    <a style='&#109;a&#105;l&#116;&#111;:&#108;&#97;&#114;&#114;&#121;&#64;&#116;&#104;&#101;&#112;&#97;&#112;&#101;&#114;&#102;&#114;&#97;&#109;&#101;&#114;&#46;&#99;&#111;&#109;">here</a>
    to send me an email.
    </p>

I used to have a ContactMe form on the site but hackers found their way around the Captcha for the form and I got deluged with Contact form spam so the form is gone. Now just the mailto:
 
Larry Peterson said:
I've gotten them with both my name and email address spoofed. Looking at the source, the email appeared to come from me and was sent to me.
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Yup, get one every couple weeks. Mostly "I hacked your computer and recorded you on a porn site, and will post the video I recorded from your camera simultaneous with what you're watching on all your social media sites and email addresses if you don't pay me X bitcoins, blah, blah, blah". I'm still waiting...
 
David Waldmann said:
Yup, get one every couple weeks. Mostly "I hacked your computer and recorded you on a porn site, and will post the video I recorded from your camera simultaneous with what you're watching on all your social media sites and email addresses if you don't pay me X bitcoins, blah, blah, blah". I'm still waiting...
Click to expand...

I have had this one a few times too but I have never figured out how they managed to film me at my keyboard because I don't have a webcam. Maybe they peeked through my monitor?
 
David Waldmann said:
Yup, get one every couple weeks. Mostly "I hacked your computer and recorded you on a porn site, and will post the video I recorded from your camera simultaneous with what you're watching on all your social media sites and email addresses if you don't pay me X bitcoins, blah, blah, blah". I'm still waiting...
Click to expand...

artfolio said:
I have had this one a few times too but I have never figured out how they managed to film me at my keyboard because I don't have a webcam. Maybe they peeked through my monitor?
Click to expand...

They are blowing smoke. What happened is that they got lists of hacked emails/passwords from sites that have been breached. These lists are all over the dark web. They blanket the ether with mass emails using that list. I constantly get emails where the title of the email is an old password from a site that had been hacked.

Google "has my password been hacked" or something similar for tools that can tell you if your passwords have been exposed.
 
Documentary about Yelp
https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Bully-Davide-Cerretini/dp/B07QV5RQTZ
2019-06-17_084053.jpg
 
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