CONSUMER ALERT!! Yelp Has No Value and I Am Shocked

  Perhaps I'm just behind the times on these things, but did you know that Yelp's consumer reviews have the equivalent of ZERO value to consumers? It's true and let me explain why. I was shocked about this and when I began digging, I found out it's been going along for a LONG time..
  I've never been one to rely too heavily on consumer reviews. You really have to see past a lot of phony reviews to get good information. What I've learned is to pay more attention to the negative reviews than the positive ones. However, Yelp doesn't even want you to have that choice.
  I went on Yelp because myself and a friend of mine had a terrible experience at a local dentist. I'd written a few Yelp consumer reviews and started liking their site because it had a cool social media aspect. I thought to myself "Here's a site with consumer reviews that can really make a difference!"
  I wrote up my consumer review and Yelp e-mailed me and told me they had removed my review because it violated their terms. They stated that my consumer review contained second hand information. Okay, so I revised the review. I wrote another consumer review and a few days later, the same thing happened. Your consumer review contains second hand information. Finally, I wrote my consume review VERY carefully and made sure it had no he said she said in it. After all, I had my own terrible experience!
  I didn't hear anything back, so I thought it was fine. Time goes on, I write a few more consumer reviews, and everything seems okay. Then, I get an e-mail from someone about the dentist out of the blue. I wasn't even sure how they got my contact information, but we laughed about how terrible of a dentist she was. I thought it was odd that someone would contact me over a consumer review, but at least she agreed with me.
  Then one day I went on Yelp out of boredom to read other consumer reviews. I clicked on my profile and on my reviews and saw the dentist, Dr. Berger, had five stars and one review. Hold up, no way! Not possible.
  I click on Dr. Berger's profile and sure enough, the dentist has 1 review and 5 stars.

  How is this possible Yelp?!? Why would you do this to me? People need to be warned about this lady for real! I dug a little deeper. Were my eyes deceiving me? This was ludicrous.

  More lies. Yelp lies. How are they getting away with this? Why doesn't everyone know about this? I did some research and found out there's hundreds of complaints and they've even been taken to court on this very matter and won! It seems like a crime. A certified ripoff of the American people regarding consumer reviews. Apparently, if a business spend money with Yelp (sounds like extortion), then Yelp will not only hide the undesirable reviews, but they also won't consider them in the star rating. Then I read this on their site.

  Really Yelp? I don't think so. Now I must admit, I was fooled by these claims when I first joined the site. They do a VERY good job of keeping this hidden. I'm actually impressed at their ability to hide information from consumers. Then I get angry. Look at what they've done.

  Yelp "hides" consumer reviews. VALID ones. They put more stock in a consumer review from someone who lives across the country, 3,129 miles away in California, than the people who see her regularly and live in Florida. So, when searching for consumer reviews on Yelp, you've definitely not getting the full picture. It's more likely that you're reading a fake review than not. If you dig a little deeper, you may see something else like this.

  This is a CONSUMER ALERT. Yelp manipulates reviews. This company has been investigated, tried, and found guilty by Save A Consumer. We want you to remember that every time you write a negative Yelp review, you're giving Yelp ammo to blackmail the company and most people will never see your review.