Please watch this video: It summaries Yelp. You will see a poor business owner Louis gets fake negative review after declining advertising. it’s 30 minutes but worth it.
There are 1000′s of good citizens who have been bullied and troubled by Yelp clowns. As such. We have decided to say enough is enough. Please join good citizens and use the resources below to deal with the arrogant bullies at Yelp.
Better Business Bureau Complaint on Yelp
Federal Trade Commission
https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en
Attorney General of California Consumer Complaints
http://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company
You can also warn the public against Yelp when you post on your Yelp community pages Such as http://www.yelp.com/talk/
By the way. Did you know A Freedom of Information act request filed with the FTC has resulted in the release of OVER 1000 complaints against Yelp over the past four years
http://eater.com/archives/2013/01/23/ftc-complaints-about-yelp-allege-extortion-libel-more.php
And just recently:
Yelp accused of bullying businesses into paying for better reviews Some companies say positive reviews get buried, then they’re approached to buy ad
ALSO.
Yelp was ordered to pay a $450,000 civil penalty with a permanent restraining order [CLICK]
Yelp Complaints 
YELP, CONTINUES TO REMOVE MY POSTS WHEN THEY ARE NEGATIVE COMMENTS REGARDING A RENTAL COMPANY. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO FREE SPEECH.
Omg they did the same also to me and then they charged my bank account 520$.
Yelp is unethical scam master.
Their Sales man made solicit call to restart the paused campaign.
Offered me 7 days trial without any charges, added $900 credit.
Changed all my business profile with costly adjustment and asked me to start the campaign while on the phone.
Sales man promised no additional cost and said he will call me in 3 days.
No call since them, but got an email saying it will cost me 800$.
I stopped immediately after 2 days of campaign.
Charged my credit card about $120.
Not much but “IS that the way they do business?”
Never again with YELP.
They don’t even allow customer to remove credit card on file.
Have to call them to remove the credit card.
I’m DONE with them (Thief & Scammer).
Great piece of content.
we need to bring a lawsuit in the ability to have our companies removed from the site. the fine print when signing up is that we didnt look at the fine print since no other company does this. this should have been a large print to opp out before signing up. I want my company info removed from this site like many do. it is my companay information that i should have a right to have it removed. they do not own stock or rights my company
I’ll be the fist one in line, alternatively, look at this:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/
It’s free to create a petition, 100,000 needed, I’m sure we can do that if we push it online, I’ll freaking put up a webpage and pay google for ads to get off the dildo’s site
I just got another $300+ bill from yelp for 1/2 months of service. Ha! I got them because I canceled my credit card! They can’t charge anything any longer.
And I am contesting all previous charges.
Sneaky lying jerks. Shame on them.
Like all of you, I want to sue and get my company removed. Actually the latter doesn’t matter. They have blackballed me so that my company doesn’t show up when “landscaping” is the search term. Literally, doesn’t show up. Terrible evil site.
John I did it please sign it
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/yelp-stealing-money-small-businesses-saying-they-can-try-advertising-their-website-free
Sign me up. They just got me for $600 in October. When I canceled 2 days into November they upped the charge per click to $35. For those two days.
Sign my petition
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/yelp-stealing-money-small-businesses-saying-they-can-try-advertising-their-website-free
I agree I have asked for my business to be removed multiple times and they refuse to!! I never added my company to their site in the 1st place I claimed my business already listed on their site. I have bad reviews from people who live in a state I’ve never been to let alone worked there! A friend of a friend. It’s bad enough getting bad review but these people completely destroyed everything I had worked for by getting several people to write untrue reviews for them. Yelp won’t remove and good reviews are not shown at all. How is this fair at all??
anybody got any info on any current class action suits against them? they are really hurting my company. How about writing a new petition to get them investigated?
Sign my petition
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/yelp-stealing-money-small-businesses-saying-they-can-try-advertising-their-website-free
They have destroyed my business completely! Something needs to be done! They think they are invincible!
YELP only has a “Few” Reviews on the “Recommended Reviews” Page, but Literally Pages and Pages of “Valid Reviews” in their “Not Recommended Reviews” Area.
And if this wasn’t Bad Enough… Out of the Pages and Pages of Valid 4 & 5 Star Reviews, they placed the Only Four (4) Negative Reviews at the “Top” of the “Not Recommended Reviews” – which take up Roughly 1/2 of the 1st Page. So anyone Seriously Researching doing Business with me – by going to the “Not Recommended Reviews” will get Blasted by YELP, right off the Top, with the only 4 Negative Reviews before they get to the Pages and Pages of Valid 4 & 5 Star Reviews.
When I Called them… It was Basically “So Bad, So Sad”. That’s just the way the Algorithm (Programmed by their Employees) does it – and even though their Employees Programmed it this way – there’s nothing that can be done about it.
No matter how you “Slice it or Dice it” – this is the Equivalent of “Predatory Practices” – designed to Destroy Successful Small Businesses with the Only Tool they have… Review Manipulation – by Forcing the Prospect to see the (in most cases) “Old Negative Reviews” before – before – they let them see the Great Reviews.
Am I Angry? You Bet I am. Although I Strongly Disagree with them only Finding a “Select Few Reviews” out of the Pages and Pages of Actual Valid Reviews – whatever. But… As has been Mentioned already… At least put them in Chronological Order – or – Add the Same “Sort Option” on their Chosen “Recommended Reviews” Area (even though it does not Work either) – on the “Not Recommended Reviews” Area. But hey… That would be Honorable and Ethical. Wouldn’t want that, huh?
I had a disagreement with yelp because I declined a promotional offer they were pushing on me. They have now hidden my business so no one can find me and they have laughed at me and refused to let me do anything about it unless I change my mind about their advertising. I want nothing to do with them but it’s affecting my SEO.
I had a similar situation. My company has been black-balled by yelp.
I wish I would disappear on that extortion site so I could just use Google ads, yelp is horrible, class action lawsuit!!
Okay!!
I literally only signed up to the app to try out the free credits to see if their advertisements would benefit my business in any way.
I set my budget (despite using a seemingly free service), and a month later I received a bill for over $400!
They stated it was for a bunch of “programs” and website clicks, yet according to my Wix analytics, Yelp only drove 2% of the traffic to my site! They are COMPLETE rip offs.
I had the same happen to me. Were you able to get your money back?
My recourse? I paid for Yelp with my debit card. I contacted my bank and said the charges were fraudulent. My bank sided with me. I got $600 back. I canceled my debit card (huge pain in the ass) before they could charge me another $300 for nada.
I have been black-balled. My name doesn’t come up when “landscaping” is the search term. Really bad practices. What a shame.
MG
That’s a blessing if you were taken completely off their site! Now you can use a real advertiser like google who shows all the reviews not just the bad ones!
Yelp should respect freedom of speech and their supposed “protections” under the Communications Decency Act (“CDA 230”) by publishing all of my already existing positive reviews, not hiding them, while ceasing from accentuating/showcasing my few fake negative reviews obviously written by disgruntled competitors/ex-employees/ex-girlfriends/or other gang-stalkers. When Yelp.com edits and prevents most of my good reviews from showing up, they are acting as a “Publisher,” or “Editor,” and then they can, and should, be sued into oblivion without CDA 230 immunity.
Lol well I know some of the resources on the post are internationally available. But Kaleena @Reader Voracious knows a lot about stuff for international bloggers.LikeLike
Interesting court finding on Yelp and defamatory Statements.
https://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/jim-porter-fraudulent-yelp-posting-protected-under-the-law-ridiculous/
Yelp is losing money because of horrible and evil staff at Yelp. Recently someone with no picture and a fake profile attacked and slandered my business. When I contacted Yelp, they supported the slander and attack. Read what “Liz” from Yelp said:
Hello,
Thank you for writing.
We looked at the review you brought to our attention and since it appears to reflect the personal experience and opinions of the reviewer, we’ve decided to leave it up. We would suggest sending a friendly note to the reviewer with more information about your business in an effort to clear up any misunderstandings. You can do this fairly easily (and for free) from within your business account on Yelp (https://biz.yelp.ca).
Don’t fret over any particular review; if it’s obviously unfair and skewed in your eyes, chances are that those reading it will come to the same conclusion as you.
Regards,
Liz
I am a former reviewer but I won’t support putting down businesses. I have to leave. There are stalkers too. Kind of scary.
We operate a small business that serves our local community and had only a few Yelp reviews. After several sales calls from Yelp salesperson, and our refusing to advertise with them, the positive reviews were removed. What a coincidence! How tacky is that? We won’t allow them to bully us.
Sales person Lied to me about an ad service. They offered me on the phone a $300 Yelp Credit (which they do have and gives you credit for your first $300 of ad clicks) but then I was billed #389. They claimed they never offered me the credit but offered me a #300 Yelp Bonus (which means that I would get an additional $300 of ad clicks AFTER I reach my minimum of $450). Complete Bait and Switch. Yelp is a Scam!!!
They did the exact same thing to me. Its disgusting amd misleading.
they do offer the credit and also the system itself offers you a credit when you try to cancel, my problem with them is a little different and | am interested on a class action lawsuit if anyone knows any lawsuits please let me know, my deal with them is that I pay for my advertising in a delimited area and they are showing my advertisement on a national scale so I get more clicks to pay for and thats not on my agreement with them so this is technically a fraud so I want to proceed with but with peoples help because alone nobody will believe me
This happened to us, too. Ended up costing us $1669.83 for one month. Yelp would NOT return calls.
They just ripped me off. Took 450 bucks right out of my bank account. The sales person told me it will be now more than 100 bucks. F’n scammers. Now what can I do??
Exact same thing happened to me. I requested a refund because I was assured over the phone that this was free, and they just denied it, I told them to listen to their call records and see that I asked various times to make sure it was free and they haven’t replied. I have a small business and have paid for Yelp ads a couple times, but can’t afford paying a ton like they sneaked me into
Worst review website ai have ever some across. Nothing but a scam. Have had 12 posts reviews and only 2 stayed on Yelp. One of them was false review from someone I have never done business with and was reviewed before we had even installed 1 roof. Yelp has sone ablsolutly nothing to resolve this, even I ask for them to provide proof from this fake review. If I had known Yelpnwouls have been this deceiving I have never created an account with them. ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING COMPANY AND SERVICE.
Okay!!
I literally only signed up to the app to try out the free credits to see if their advertisements would benefit my business in any way.
I set my budget (despite using a seemingly free service), and a month later I received a bill for over $400!
They stated it was for a bunch of “programs” and website clicks, yet according to my Wix analytics, Yelp only drove 2% of the traffic to my site! They are COMPLETE rip offs.
Exactly. Scumbags.
I opened a new small business and created a Yelp profile. Then they immediately started hounding me to buy advertising. However, they put some legitimate reviews on the ‘not recommended’ list. They claim their ‘automated software’ makes all these decisions and is ‘unbiased’ and ‘not influenced by advertisers.’ Yet, while they were hounding me to buy advertising, my business appeared on their ‘Top 10’ list of similar stores. As soon as I told them to take a hike, my business disappeared from this list and immediately dropped to #46, despite my business earning all positive five-star reviews. Coincidence? I think not. Unbiased? Bullsh*t. Their twisted process hurts businesses. I am starting to get vocal about it and will continue to.
An identical situation happened to me. I understand that Yelp has been sued multiple times yet the plaintiff’s lost. What can we do collectively to put a stop to Yelp’s extortive practices.
I went through the exact same thing. This is crazy. I think all of us business owners need to come together and go after them. There is power in numbers. If it is a major class action lawsuit, with 1000 business owners vs. Yelp, I believe our chances of beating them are stronger. They are real bullies. They prey on businesses.
I had a very unpleasant experiencer with Hertz in Lincoln on O street 2-3 weeks prior to desired rental date, I requested a mini-van rental for June 8-18th. On June 7th, I contacted the office, and the rental of a mini-van was confirmed. @ 9:00 am on the 8th, I entered the office. Showing my credit card, I was told that I would be given a Chevy Tahoe, and that it wasn’t there yet. On its arrival, I informed that that wasn’t going to work. I was asked if I wanted to speak with a supervisor, I asked if it would do any good, I was told no. I informed them that if I wasn’t back in 1 hour, let it go. Trying other companies, there were no mini-vans available. I had no choice. I accepted it. The vehicle fuel mileage was unsatisfactory, cargo capacity was unsatisfactory, and the large size made for maneuvering the vehicle difficult in confined areas. I returned the vehicle on the 17th with out fueling it. hoping that some compassion would be shown and allowed to return it without refueling. no such luck. I was told that I would be charged $9.99/gallon if I didn’t fuel it. Being upset with the overall rental experience, I refueled it. I was told that for my inconvenience, the charges would be reduced by $60.00. In my opinion, for returning it 1 day early, the charges should have been reduced $111.51. After several unsuccessful attempts @ contacting Hertz by email, I finally was able to get a phone number and spoke to a person. this person was able to give me an additional $50.00. When I asked for consideration for the approximately 40 extra gallons of fuel that I used that the mini-van wouldn’t have used, I was told that this would be impossible. I have rented form Hertz before with no problem, but after this unpleasant fiasco, I am totally done with Hertz.
I am a small new restaurant just trying to survive. Once I declined to subscribe to their services for approx. monthly charge of $300 or so, they have squashed all my reviews except for 3. The most recent one appeared for just 6 hours or so. I can understand some of them could had been filtered through their automated system, as some of my reviewers have very few review records. However, even the reviews by the ones with fair amount of reviews are deleted. This is pure cyber extortion, and hope somebody can help all small businesses that are suffering.
Don’t put your companies on Yelp. Take your store off
Please tell me how to do that..They have been so rude to me and disrespectful. They don’t listen. All they do is tell you that they won’t do it cant do
How can I take my business off yelp.
we decided not to pay yelp for advertizing with them. on the same day 75% of my reviews were not lised as not recommended reviews. i called and asked and was told that they did not have enough reviews to list them my clients as real people or reviews. this is an insult to my company and my customers. now one of my customers seen this and contacted me and asked why this happened when they post other reviews for other companies. after calling yelp i must have had a guy that maybe his GF or wife just left him but he was rude as hell. some customer support you guys have, now i will be promoting the do not use Yelp advertizing.
proud member of the DO NOT USE YELP member
Buy game accounts cheap
Yelp mislead me into thinking i was trying out their services. They gave me $150 credit to try. 2 weeks later charged me $300. I asked for a refund. They denied giving me a refund.
That’s the exact same reason I am here watching this video too, its so sad cause once I realized the BBB is also on yelp, that’s when I knew this was a totally bogus fraudulent scamming company!!!
This is exactly what happened to me!!!
1 STAR REVIEWERS DON’T HAVE ANY FRIENDS?! I wanted to know if anyone else noticed this but our site has 6 reviews, 3 are 1 star and of the 3 there is only a friend total between them… is there a correlation? The other 3 reviews are all 5 stars and have 175 Friends… something to think about. Does 1 star = hostiles? Like to know if anyone else has had the same experience. I could feel bad for them if they were not trying ruin my business. here is an idea: A site that rates people? Call it RateYou?
Yelp is a crooked company look at there 2000 complaints on their BBB report reviews . They tried to extort money from me for a bogus service and when I told them to cancel they pulled 15 5 star reviews and only let me keep 1 5 star and made up 3 1star reviews and the complaints were in Ca. I never did any work in Ca. If you want proof ,Google YelpComplaints
Below is the proof
https://yelpcomplaints.wordpress.com/
I had a stalker who stole some pictures off my husbands social media and keeps posting them on yelp. They are hunting pictures but needless to say has nothing to do with my business. Yelp has taken these down 3 times but he keeps posting them. He says horrible things about my character and calls me Aweful names. I have to pay an attorney to get yelp to track his IP to be able to locate this guy and prosecute because he is under a fake account. At what point is yelp responsible for allowing these things to be published before their “review department” takes 24 to 48 hours before they are taken down. I’m so pissed it’s just not right. Not right for the stalker to do that and not right for Yelp to give them a platform in order to do so. I understand it’s my husbands fault also for making pictures accessible, and trust me they are not now but it’s just crazy to me
I knew I couldn’t be the only company that Yelp is trying to extort. I own a plumbing business in a small town in rural Montana. None of my competitors have verified their yelp listing, only me. I have never paid for Yelp’s advertising. Because we service towns in 60 mile radius, our listing shows all those towns. I keep getting calls to “improve” our listing from Yelp so I went to look at how we are presenting. We weren’t showing up at all in our town. When I went to look at my listing they had our town as one of the others in the 60 mile radius. I had suspected that they were doing something on the back-end that was not allowing my listing to be shown until I paid the advertising. This confirms that their MO is to get companies to get their information listed, then they hound the company until they advertise with them. Since I live in an area where my competitors do not list on yelp, I have no need to “beat them to the top listing.”
I’m pretty sure I will delete my profile from Yelp. I told the Yelp sales rep that was contacting me this information and have yet to hear back. Being fair, I told her I do not want to hear from Yelp until they change their business practices.
I’ve done a lot of research about bringing this Advertising Giant down. And all I’ve seen is the that the Courts Side with Yelp.
Like a lot of other Small Businesses, we went on Yelp to kick off our amazing Business. Everything was going great till we got a Bad Review. But, unlike other Businesses, we take the Good, with the Bad and learn from our Mistakes.
But, we really did not understand why Yelp took all our 2018 Positive Reviews, from legit Clients.
But, unlike many Businesses, we are exposing them for exactly what they are. We’ve even dedicated a whole Page on our Website, explaining Yelp’s Side Vs Our Side. We leave it up to the public, to make their own Judgement, instead of a Court Of Law.
Maybe there should be an onslaught of complaint on Twitter… not rude complaints, but honest… and direct them to our president, (he hates fake news, and yelp qualifies) direct the tweets to the bbb and whomever else, consumer advocates
I am in the exact process of doing the same thing. They have done some things I honestly would not believe unless I experienced myself. I finally decided to hire a lawyer and have also signed many petitions for business owners like us
Who actually goes to yelp anyway? I have a small repair shop that has 23 5 star reviews on google with zero less-than 5 star reviews. All are authentic. There are other (all-five star) reviews of my service on other sites also, including manta, thumbtack, and some other sites. Yelp also has 4 5-star reviews for me but hide them even though they are authentic. Nothing about me is fraudulent. However yelp appears to be holding the reviews of me hostage, I also notice that there’s no way to really contact this entity to question as to why the reviews are held hostage. One can’t help but to notice the manner in which yelp almost forces a visitor to “join” and “invest” in yelp. I for one do not condone or finance extortion, manipulation, and dishonest practices. When a customer tells me they are so happy about the work I’ve done for them, I literally have to request that they not bother to leave a review on yelp. Yelp is racketeering in my opinion. What has yelp offered to the internet community anyway? Good riddance when they go under. amen.
They did the same to me and even told me that they could hide the bad reviews and show my 5 star reviews, if I would pay them several hundred a month for a “Membership”. So I created a website: http://yelp-not.com/ in response. If even one company does not advertise with Yelp, then it was worth the cost. #yelp-not.com
I also had the same experience, the problem is that Yelp in association with DexMedia, had been promising to get you on top of the listing, bring more reviews for you business as long as you sign their two year contracts. Once you sign them and nobody comes, you are trap with their conditions. The first time I was with them I tried to talk to the manager of my account for two solid months I was never able to conect with him. Left messages and still no response. then finally I got to talk to them trying to cancel my contract and I was still penalize to pay for three more months!! No customers, no money to invest in other advertising (they are not cheap) no customer service with Yelp/DexMedia advertising company and on top of it becasue I refused to go back to them they took all my customers (honest reviews every single one of them) and said that they are not real????
LEGAL HELP? Individuals have use small claims court to bring stick it to large corp.s, in most states you can suit for $25,000 max. The idea is if you get 100, 1,000, 10,000 to sue for $25K each that would represent a potential cost to a the company of $250,000 (*plus attorney fees that would be much more) to $500,000,000*. I read about this guy that got a parking ticket, he was pissed so he got the idea after going to court to make it easier to do so, ck. it out, maybe be as easy as down loading the app. Google it: Josh Browder, CEO of DoNotPay, who hopes his revamped app will be a one-stop shop for consumer protection issues. I have documented the extortion on Yelp, we had dozens of 4 and 5 stars reviews, when we did not pay for the ad they were removed (Yelp hides them and with link at the bottom of page and they do not count of your total) then after a year I experimented by buying the lowest level of advertising for the shortest period and low and behold, our rating improved by a star or so. Just a thought.
1 STAR REVIEWERS DON’T HAVE ANY FRIENDS?! I wanted to know if anyone else noticed this but our site has 6 reviews, 3 are 1 star and of the 3 there is only 1 friend total between them… is there a correlation? The other 3 reviews are all 5 stars and have 175 Friends… something to think about. Does 1 star = hostiles? Like to know if anyone else has had the same experience. I could feel bad for them if they were not trying ruin my business. here is an idea: A site that rates people? Call it RateYou?
Don, if you do not have legal written permission to use Simon Crowe’s photo, you will be in serious legal trouble for using his image without his express permission.
If you think about it, the core of Yelp’s business is providing information. That is where everyone should focus. You can hire an attorney to ask a Supreme Court in the state where your business is located for an order to remove your business page from Yelp and to where they will need the written permission of your business to make or display a page for your business. This is a no contest situation because you have a right to your business and where it is displayed. You can also ask the court to do this yourself. If Yelp cannot display your business page, they can no longer adversely affect your business. This is the key to stopping Yelp.
What if you don’t have a budget for attorney
Hello,
I’ve come up with a way to help combat yelp extortionist. If we spread the word we can make a difference to expose them for what they are doing to hard working business owners. Please see our website and spread the word. The more involved, the more likely we can make a difference.
WeAgainstYelp.org
I am very interested in doing this. How do I start
Visit weagainstyelp.org
They also remove honest 1 star reviews and photos of paying companies.
Also there is a movie Billion Dollar Bully about Yelp. Check it out.
John, may I suggest that you break that wall of text into 3-4 line paragraphs, and use darker fonts? I went to your website to read, but when I saw the light italicized fonts, with no breaks in the HUGE paragraph, I just came back here. I am not trying to be mean, John. It’s just hard to read. Thanks.
We need to come together and take them down
Fake website! No such website , godaddy will sell you this name!🤬
Sign my petition
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/yelp-stealing-money-small-businesses-saying-they-can-try-advertising-their-website-free
Anyone who used microsoft’s Edge Browser will see Yelp reviews by default when they search for a service.
I totally agree with youon this 1I have 48 5 star review’s on me and only 9 or 10 review’s that 2 of them are fake review’s ? On top of that 1 Client didn’t know how to leave the right kinda review and gave me a 1 Star review but it was still a Fantasic review they play way to many Games for me to even consider even addvertsing with them!!
Sign my petition
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/yelp-stealing-money-small-businesses-saying-they-can-try-advertising-their-website-free