Public reviews can be powerful, especially after a company ignores you for months.

So, what would you do if a billing company refused to pay you back, no matter how many times you called or emailed? Would you keep chasing them behind the scenes? Or would you take your story public and see if that got their attention?

In the following story, one frustrated patient deals with this very situation and decides to give the CEO a taste of his own medicine. Here’s how it all played out.

Sure, I’ll take down my negative Yelp review

This happened to me a few years ago. I was owed a significant sum of money by the company that handles my doctor’s billing (she worked at a large healthcare system that outsourced billing to this company).

For months and months, I tried via email and phone to get the money back….but each time I contacted them, I was treated rudely or ignored. They would either say they were still working on it or act as if I had never requested the money in the first place, and needed to start the process over. It was maddening.

One day after receiving another rude email from this company, I decided to leave a Yelp review on my doctor’s page. I essentially said that while the doctor and her staff were helpful and professional, the billing company they used was atrocious and made the entire experience not worth it.

Finally, the CEO made a deal with her.

Lo and behold, the very next day, I get a call from the CEO OF THE BILLING COMPANY. He asks what the problem is, and I explain.

He says, “Ok, I’ll make sure the money gets sent ASAP. Could you please take the review down?”

Apparently, he was getting angry calls from my doctor, and he seemed pretty pressured to get it taken down.

I respond that I can take the review down after I get my money back. He gladly accepts my offer. A week later, there is my check in the mail.

The only problem was that she never said when she’d take it down.

Here’s the thing, though. I never specified how long it would take me to take the review down after I get the money.

So I wait a week. Get some calls/texts from the CEO. Ignore them. Wait another week.

Respond that I’m having technical problems logging into Yelp, but should have it resolved ‘soon’. After about 6 months of him reaching out and me being as unhelpful as possible, I finally took it down.

The next time I returned to that doctor’s office, it was a whole new billing system, not sure if my review made a difference, but it was sweet malicious compliance regardless.

Wow! She definitely turned that around!

Let’s see what the fine folks over at Reddit have to say about what she did.

This person is thankful that their country protects them in these situations.

Here’s someone who forced a bad company into a verified one-star review.

That was the best part!

According to this person, they would’ve handled it differently.

What a great outcome! Hopefully, the CEO learned an important lesson after what happened here.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.