Utopia's Yelp Reviews: An Open Letter to our Customers

Since 1994 Utopia Management has prided ourselves at providing top-notch property management services to our customers. Today we manage over 1,000 properties throughout Southern California. So how does an established, reputable company end up with such an alarmingly low Yelp rating? The answer, while unfortunate, is quite simple. Yelp has been accused of extorting thousands of businesses like ours in an attempt to drive their “premium listings” and other services. We absolutely understand the importance of thoroughly researching and vetting any business you are considering patronizing, in fact we have an extremely stringent process that we put all of our vendors through prior to working with them. But sadly, the fact of the matter is Yelp is not an unbiased source of information. A quick Google search of “Yelp Extortion” will return over 150,000 results, ranging from articles in major news outlets to lawsuits that are currently pending against the company.

We have been contacted by Yelp sales reps on countless occasions, and we have always politely declined their services. We do not believe in supporting a business that bases itself in deception of both consumers and business owners. When we realized that our Yelp page was being manipulated, we asked Yelp to simply remove our listing, which has been refused by them each and every time.

We urge you to extend your research beyond the manipulated reviews on our Yelp page. We have a 5 star rating on Customer Lobby, an A+ rating on Better Business Bureau, and a 4.1 average rating on Google. In addition, we would love to put you in touch with some of our current customers who we feel can provide honest, transparent feedback that won’t be subject to the financial motives that Yelp is.

If you’re interested in talking to one of our many happy customers, please fill out the form on the right and we will happy to put you in touch.

We appreciate that our customers go the extra mile to ensure that their properties will be taken care of by their property management company, which is why we are always open and honest about our service offerings. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us so we can help clarify any misconceptions you may have seen on our Yelp page.

If you are still skeptical about the legitimacy of Yelp reviews, we recommend the video below which is one small business owners well-documented account of this shady behavior on Yelp’s behalf.

It deeply saddens us that we have to write this post, but you as the consumer deserve better than to end up in the hands of a company that provides subpar service but is willing to pay to conceal it.

Sincerely,

Utopia Management Team