A Los Angeles startup named Revleap makes some pretty bold claims, like “GET ALL POSITIVE REVIEWS FOR YOUR BUSINESS.”

Needless to say, Yelp doesn’t take too kindly to people and companies that purport to gaming its review system.

That’s why, just last week, Yelp filed a civil suit against Revleap, alleging trademark violation, unfair competition, and breach of contract, amongst other claims.

How does Revleap do this? According to the civil complaint, Revleap uses “a software” that helps it “proactively generate a large number of 4 and 5 star reviews from your customers in a way that makes them stick to the front page of Yelp.”

Edward James Herzstock, who is named as the lead defendant, called Ars on Tuesday afternoon to say that the company was about to meet with its lawyers to prepare its response. Herzstock promised Ars that he would call back once the meeting had concluded.

According to the 23-page complaint, Yelp first became aware of Revleap—then known as yelpdirector.com—in November 2013.

Defendants marketed and promoted these “services” by making unauthorized use of Yelp’s registered trademarks and sending spam e-mail and text messages to businesses listed on Yelp––including Yelp’s customers, prospective customers, and business account users. These services also seek to induce Yelp users to violate the Yelp TOS themselves. Additionally, Defendants’ spam promotional communications have confused recipients into believing that Yelp was affiliated with or sponsored these unlawful communications.

Yelp sent Revleap a cease-and-desist letter and complied with the company’s demands as of January 2014. But the company continued operating under the revleap.me and revpley.com domains.

One way that Revleap induced reviews, according to Yelp, was through the use of online surveys and the chance to win gift cards.

According to a Yelp blog post written by Vince Sollitto, a company spokesman:

One thing Revleap actually does, it seems, is bombard their clients’ customers with surveys. Customers that respond favorably, and agree to post a review, are entered in a drawing for gift cards in an effort to deceptively boost their clients’ reputations. Revleap’s business model is the sort of thing that can put small businesses at risk with respect to our Consumer Alert program and federal and state regulators who often crack down on businesses that try to artificially inflate their online reputations. We hope that taking action against Revleap will put a stop to their misleading practices and also help businesses distinguish between companies that are playing by the rules and those that are using Yelp’s name to make a dollar by taking advantage of unsuspecting small businesses.

UPDATE Wednesday 9:16pm CT: Revleap's Alec Farwell, the second named defendant and one of its owners, wrote to Ars with a statement, saying that its services "are legal in all aspects of the law."