Pimlico Plumbers boss Charlie Mullins is suing Yelp for “defamatory and disgusting” reviews about the company.
The London-based plumbing company complained to Yelp about five reviews which were subsequently removed by the San Francisco-based website.
However, Mullins has taken issue with two other reviews Yelp has refused to take down.
Speaking to LondonlovesBusiness.com, Mullins said: “Yelp refused to remove defamatory and disgusting reviews or give us proof of authenticity of reviews about our company. Yelp has been incredibly slow and unhelpful in responding to telephone calls and letters. But we aren’t going to give in.
“We threatened legal action following which they took down five libellous reviews. However, they refused to take down two [other] reviews.
“The reviewers on Yelp are absolutely disgusting with the way they carry on with their bullying tactics. We told Yelp that if they can’t send us proof of purchase, we want them to remove these reviews as they’re libellous. We told them we’ll take them to court but they said ‘no one has ever won a case against us and we are not prepared to remove the reviews’.
Mullins said that review sites should ask users “to provide a proof of purchase in order to avoid fake reviews”. He also added that other small London businesses have got in touch with him to support him.
“We’ve had a few small companies come to us who said, ‘We don’t have the financial resources to do what you’re doing,’ but they felt that a lot of false reviews are by competitors. We should do a review sites about reviews to see how they like the comments,” he said.
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