Virginia Builder Sues Customer Over Negative Yelp Review

Review sites like Yelp are enormously helpful for consumers when they’re looking to see if a business is indeed legit, and such sites can be beneficial for the businesses themselves if they build up a history of feedback from satisfied customers.

But there’s also a downside for businesses, in that just one bad review can have a huge negative impact on a company’s reputation, resulting in missed job opportunities and a subsequent loss of revenue. In most cases, those that receive negative reviews probably deserve them, but there’s always the chance that a company’s reputation can be sabotaged by ‘fake’ bad reviews.

According to one Virginia builder, that’s exactly what happened to him when a customer refused to pay outstanding bills. In an attempt to collect the money owed to him, Christopher Dietz has filed a lawsuit against one of his customers, only to discover later that the person in question had given him a ‘1 star’ rating on Yelp, accusing him of charging her for work that was never completed and also stealing jewelry.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Dietz reckons he’s lost quite a bit of business due to this negative review, but he’s refusing to take it lying down, filing a lawsuit against the woman that he says has sabotaged his business.

Dietz has filed a lawsuit asking for $750,000 as compensation for lost business and harming his company’s reputation, claiming that he’s missed out on many new contracts as a result of that bad review.