You’re all probably highly aware of this phenomenon by now, but a reminder never hurts.
When you’re looking at reviews of apartment rental services – we call them bedbugs – at Yelp, be highly skeptical of positive reviews. The majority of them strike me, quite simply, as unbelievable fiction.
Take the reviews of a Lincoln Square rental service as an example. There are three reviews of My Town Realty Group at Yelp, all 5-star, two from individuals whose first review at Yelp concerned My Town. All read like the product of third-rate copywriters.
I bet these are actually all legitimate reviews. My Town Realty Group would ask people who used their services to share their experience with reviewing them online and give them a link to yelp. Some people obviously did but didn’t get into the whole yelp review of other businesses and therefore only have one, maybe two reviews that Yelp filtered out.
It’s a shame you’re so skeptical of this business as it is one of the few apartment places in Chicago that don’t treat you like a number. I know this from first hand experience in working with them.
Ashley,
Parsing your email address, it appears you worked for the company. If you’re such a believer, why wouldn’t you post under your full name?
Aren’t you skeptical when Yelp filters out all but one of the reviews for a company? When a Yelper who praised the company’s services but claimed to find an apartment through a different company still reports living in Brooklyn a year later? Etc.