Here’s My Question: How Do I Make Pests Go Away?

We’ve all heard of Yelp, right? The crowd-sourced review site started in 2004. You can get feedback and tips about everything from dog groomers and restaurants to parks and hikes.

Sounds cool, and it is, except that Yelp also has a very complicated relationship with businesses, especially small or independent ones. Because anyone can weigh in on anything for any reason, there’s no standardization across the reviews. This means the sandwich place in a local mall’s food court can get both five stars and one star, depending on a diner’s palate or mood.

This little tidbit alone is enough to make any business owner’s relationship with the site — ranked 42nd in U.S. traffic and 233rd in global traffic, according to Alexa.com — tricky at best. As a potential cache for every customer’s shitty experience or employee’s bad day, business owners seem to tread lightly, with good reason.

Cam models may find themselves in a Yelp-like situation when pesky dudes develop an attachment and won’t stop messaging. How do you deal with such annoyances, especially when spiteful retaliatory reviews are a very real possibility?

Here are a few suggestions from cam models and sex workers.

Always respond; never leave anyone hanging. A simple “I don’t think we’re going to be a good match” is sufficient. If they continue to contact you, keep the emails in the event they submit a fake review. Most networks forbid members from leaving reviews about models with whom they have not interacted. If they do, they may find themselves banned.

Say “My schedule is too full to give you the attention you deserve.” If “We’re not a good match” doesn’t work, make yourself unavailable. You obviously can’t be offline, so this may involve distancing yourself from the unwanted client with a little white lie.

Don’t stress. Fake reviews are a problem, but not as big an issue as one might think. For starters, no matter how frustrated members may get, it takes a bit of effort to pop online and start hammering out a review, much less clicking submit. There are lots of “barriers to entry” when posting angry reviews. If you do receive a negative review from someone with whom you’ve never interacted, you can ask to have it removed. You may have to jump through some hoops, but persistence pays off.

Whatever you do, outright ignoring someone is not a good idea. (Blocking is different.) “Unresponsive” reviews are like two stars on Yelp: too purposeful to be a petulant one star, resulting in a kiss of slow internet death.

And here’s the real truth about Yelp reviewers via South Park Season 19 — “You’re Not Yelping”

Got a question you’d like to ask? Email erika@ynotcam.com.