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 
Thanks for letting me share with you my idea of telling the world that Yelp is the biggest scam on the Internet.
Yelp prides itself by having a review filter as explained on its web site.
https://www.yelpblog.com/2009/10/why-yelp-has-a-review-filter
Salient excerpt
Yelp has an automated Review Filter – the key word here is automated, which means non-discriminatory. I can prove that Yelp is actually very discriminatory from business to business.
Yelp can argue that the algorithm takes into account many elements such as the reviewer profile (number of friends, number of review, etc), the star rating and the review contents, etc. They hide behind this argument.
Let’s remove this bunker from Yelp by a simple acid test that anyone can do at home:
Step 1: Create an account on Yelp
Step 2: Write 10 identical reviews with identical star rating on 10 different accounts
Step 3, check all 10 accounts to see which account will show the review and which accounts filter the review. You will see that the outcome are inconsistent (caught them!)
Basically, filtering outcome variation is a result of the combined factors as follows:
1) Profile of the reviewer
2) Star rating
3) Review content
4) Account discrimination
5) Algorithm
In my acid test, item 1, 2, 3 and 5 are fixed, the inconsistent result has to come from item 4. Yelp claimed that the algorithm is automated and they can never say otherwise, which implies fraud. They are now stuck with item 4.
You see, Yelp pre-categorized each business so that the automated filtering process becomes discriminatory – this is where they can bully all the businesses and fool the consumers. The following is an example of Yelp scheme:
From a scale of 1 to 10, as an example:
10-every 10 positive reviews, block 1 and release 9; every 10 negative review, release 1 and block 9
9-every 10 positive reviews, block 2 and release 8; every 10 negative review, release 2 and block 8
8- every 10 positive reviews, block 3 and release 7; every 10 negative review, release 3 and block 7
—
—
1 – every 10 positive review, block 9 and release 1; every 10 negative review, release 9 and block 1
Again this is just an example. I can easily write millions of similar algorithm but they all serve similar purpose. Businesses that are with category 10, in this example, are the premium advertisers.
How can Yelp get around this acid test? Impossible just as long as they discriminate businesses based on their own financial interest. The only way they can pass this acid test is stop their predatory practices. Based on the results, they are distorting the truth – big time!
Unfortunately, absence of legislation allows Yelp to legally extort businesses and fool consumers but I believe if more people learn that they are cheating, it will trigger a new legislation. The politicians does not know how to argue for an improved legislations unless they are armed with good illustrative tools – I believe this could be a good tool.
I would like to rephrase that to say Yelp has the most sophisticated scheme on the Internet. They are very sophisticated if you really think of it.
Yelp is awful.. People can lie on it they only post negative reviews..!I have 14 5 star reviews yet not one of them listed. Old negative reviews show up before new positive reviews. A client can get away with any lies because of yelp. I have a client that said if I did not call her instead of email ( where I could have a record of conversations she would trash my business on the internet She did .Her husband’s review Yelp kept even though he had never been in my business. How can a person be allowed to write a review on place they have never used? Yelp is an awful site and should be exposed for all the bad they do . The client has made a fake profile and is writing negative reviews. Clients can do anything say anything and then bash you. I feel they certainly do need a LARGE class action against them
I would like to rephrase that to say Yelp has the most sophisticated scheme on the Internet. They are very sophisticated if you really think about it.
“Yelp is the biggest scam on the Internet”
For some reasons, the above sentence fail to show up at the previous two posts so I am trying a double quote to see if it works.
I would like to change it to say that Yelp has the most sophisticated scheme on the internet if you really think about it.
thank You for this information. I hope you get this. I am an HVAC contractor in Portland OR. After many repetitive calls from yelp sales people i have not joined or paid any money to them. i have 2 5 star reviews. Just recently a customer gave us a 5 star review, he spent alot of time doing it. the review appeared and than was taken off. I was confused and so was my customer. We work hard for good reviews and Yelp just throws them away. totally extortion and bulling is a good term, the sales person was rude to. if you want more information please feel free to call me 503-885-4866
Hi Kurt. I agree totally with you, you have been bullied and your business harmed my Extortion attempts from Yelp. I was also told about 4 years ago that they could be more fair and allow my 5-Star reviews to show up “…if I would join as a member business.” it seems to have been about $460 a month I think, but I felt pressured and said sorry but no. My 5-star ratings that were there disappeared overnight. I built a website http://www.Yelp-Not.com to help warn new businesses about their unethical extortion attempts. We are A+ rated with the BBB, but the courts have said they have the rights of the 1st Amendment. Seems to me it goes way beyond Free Speech rights when they purposely attempt to harm us in an attempt to extort real money from us. More like the mob and their protection racket, or Rico Act.
I am on your side Kurt.
YELP is a pay-to-play company. Our restaurant has refused to advertise on Yelp and now we don’t come up in the local search bar- despite having over 350 mostly positive reviews. Just this week, Yelp now has us listed as Closed, even though we’re not. They are suppose to verify any business changes, but obviously didn’t. We take responsibility for some negative reviews because our business isn’t always perfect. However, this is extortion.
I just love any business that whines about their bad reviews like it couldn’t possibly be true. If I could leave negative stars for the veterinarian that killed our cat I would. If she doesn’t like the negative reviews maybe she should clean up her negligent treatment of animals. The state veterinary board agreed with us not her. It’s a public service and a duty to warn everyone in our community about this butcher.
Gosh Eileen, curious as to why you went to this Vet if you saw the Yelp 1-star reviews? People whine because they get 25 5-Star reviews, but all are hidden but the few 1-star reviews that any business will get in time. Yelp is not a public service, in fact they have had over 1,200 BBB complaints. Maybe you haven’t seen http://www.Yelp-NOT.com yet?
Folks, what are your thoughts? I’ve read both on here and elsewhere that yelp has turned to a ‘pay per click’ method to calculate page views for businesses..either to try to sell them advertising by saying “you have xxx clicks per day!” or by saying “you owe us $$ for the month of May because you have XX clicks for the month of May!”.
Each yelp review left by a current yelper has the ability to be rated UFC (useful, funny or cool). In a perfect world, people would honestly rate a review if they thought it were useful, or funny, or cool. Maybe all three. BUT……On the yelp forum pages, yelpers regularly solicit clicks on each others’ reviews (U, F, C), usually all three buttons, to increase the number of pageviews (seemingly wanting to make the yelper appear popular). It’s common to go to a yelper’s personal page and randomly go up and down and mindlessly click U, F, C on each review, artificially inflating the UFC counts on each review.
Today I was browsing yelp and I came across this: http://www.yelp.com/topic/twin-cities-reviews-of-yelp-event-businesses-youve-revisited-fuc-em
This girl works for yelp as a community manager and is actively soliciting people to randomly click on each others’ reviews, and hit the U, F, C buttons on each review. I’m thinking this would generate ‘clicks’ on a review page (though each yelper is most likely not reading the review for content, just mindlessly clicking U, F, C”.
What do you think the reason for this is? I know I have my suspicions….a nefarious attempt to skew page views to increase the number of clicks on a page, by fraudulent means and hit up businesses later by yelp calling to say “hey, your page created by a yelper is really getting a lot of views lately (ha ha ha).
WHAT DO YOU THINK?
I also wanted to add that in no way do I believe this yelp community manager is making the rules or at fault. I believe she is simply following the orders from the higher-up people at Yelp who are telling her (and probably others) to put in a little thread in the talk forum section to drum up more page clicks.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/billion-dollar-bully#/
Please watch this – update on the movie coming out.
Please repost where needed online.
I am so tired of what Yelp has done to my business! I had about 35 positive reviews and 3 negative of which I felt were unfair. Yelp only allowed 11 of the positive reviews to post and all 3 negative reviews which bought my rating down to a three and a half star. I called and complaint and was told that I needed to advertise at $285 per month for me to get a better rating. I continued to get positive reviews and Yelp removed them and put them in the “Do not recommend” section. My business has suffer drastically behind this! last year I rexieved up to 90 hits to my website and now I might see 34 max. I feel hopeless as to what to do and I am devastated because my business has suffered tramendously. Also I gave in last year and paid the monthly fee to have advertisements of other salons removed from my page but realized the monthly fee ($75) was too much for me to handle so I cancelled and my rates went down even lower. This should be illegal!!!!
I leave in Las vegas and I am having the same experience they hide the good reviews and never take down or move them . I have won at court against connie Beers and she brought K heisler and the court through k out. Connie has really tried to hurt me getting people to write bad reviews that aren’t real.I have a letter from the court proving that it should be taken down.
So sorry to hear your frustration. We simply stop paying them and I am really focusing on Google’s own review system. Simply send an email to former clients requesting them to post to your Google review. It should help. Yelp will be out of business soon!
I have had the same experience in New York. They falsely claim that there are no reviews “be the first to review”. I have two 5 star reviews, which they assert are not recommended implying I am a cheat, they are just trying to extort hard working business owners. Also telling is there is no email address to contact them so it is much more difficult to confront them with the facts and record their illicit activities. Likewise the only number they provide for business owners is titled “Support Center” Call (877) 767-9357. But when you call it puts you through to their ad sales department. I am moving to Google reviews. Encourage others to do the same!
Seems that the new Yelp tactic is to increase the bounce rate of the website related to your business. After declining to even listen to the sales pitch, my website bounce rate went from a decent 45% to more than 90% on some days. Bounce rate is something that Google looks at when ranking the site – it is when someone goes to the site and visits one page only and has no interaction with it.
That is a very dirty tactic that yelp should be prosecuted for. I will repost your comment as the complaint of the month.
Yelp has been a disaster and even more of one since I declined to pay advertising rates to them. I’ve had 16 positive reviews from real customers – two of whom actually left their names and contact information – and all but one has been deleted. yet, I have a stalker who has 3 fake profiles and keeps posting false reviews. Yelp has refused to take these down, meanwhile refusing to leave up positive reviews. It is a scam.
I signed up for Yelp today but did not realize how sketchy they are. I have been trying to find information to see if I can cancel since the contract was only signed 6 hours ago but can’t find anything. Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a cooling down period for 1 year contracts, contracts done over the phone, etc. I did send him an email because I have a business partner and he did not sign it and told him that my partner was not buying into it. If anyone can help me to get out of this before I get to deep, PLEASE, PLEASE HELP.
Thanks,
Jamie
Hello Jamie, this is Don from http://www.Yelp-Not.com
I would contact your credit card company and request that they cancel your payment because you feel you were defrauded, or did not get the service you expected. Provide the vendor name, date, dollar amount, and the item purchased. Explain that you asked the merchant for a refund, but they declined. Ask your card company if they can withhold payment and investigate the matter. If the credit card company withholds the payment, ask them to email you documentation.
Write or email the issuer of your credit. In your letter make sure to state your name, the card number, the name of the seller as it appears on the credit card statement, the date of purchase, the amount paid, and an explanation of your reason for withholding the purchase. Act as promptly as possible. The Fair Credit Card Billing act states that you have 60 days to take action after you received the bill for the disputed amount. The quicker you act the better your odds of success.
You can only withhold payments for consumer transactions. That is to say, if you are using your card to make a personal, family, or household purchase. If the card is used for business purposes, these benefits may not apply, but I would still try because you did not get the service you expected or the salesperson mis-led you…. do not say that they lied unless they did because they have it all on recording.
Some people cancel their card if the credit card company does not help them, that will stop all future payments and then Yelp would have to pursue payment.
You do have an early termination fee with most all their contracts I have seen.
Pay it and be done with them if all other alternatives are not plausible to you.
I hope in some way that this helps.
Thank you so much for your advice. I contacted my Credit Card and they are disputing the charge. I totally feel that Yelp is clicking on my page to get money. It has been costing me a fortune!
I have also been advertising with YELP 2 months out of the 6-month contract and feel 110% bullied and victimized. They hide all our positive reviews and have yet delivered anything they verbally promised. I filed a BBB on 07/25 and a credit card dispute today 7/30/16, and I have kept every email I have with them. I am having a hard time understanding how they can be in business and get away with such distortion. – WOW!!!!
I am just hoping I am not sent to collections after winning my credit card dispute.
you MUST CANCEL YOUR CREDIT CARD ASAP. They are demons and will take all your money.
Please watch this video: business owner Louis gets fake negative review after declining advertising.. it’s 30 minutes but worth it.
Also, I believe he was interviewed for the upcoming movie Billion Dollar Bully, as in the comments section of this video he says “……the videos resulted in the salesperson being fired, the person who left the fake reviews having their elite account deleted, a filmer flying here to interview me for a documentary, and over 150,000 people realizing what happened with yelp. and it cost me nothing.”
This upcoming movie will be eye opening people!
Great!!! It’s not right that Yelp will only allow you to respond directly to the complaint of you have a business listing. As a business owner I too was harassed by a former client who owed me money, using a fictitious name. Also, I was not able to respond publically. Yelp still calls me for advertising and I will FOREVER SAY NO!!! BULLIES!!!
Recently had a Yelp salesperson try to “help” us get to the top of the list for delis. He said there were considerable amounts of “hits” on our site. Asked him if we would have to pay, he wouldn’t give us a straight answer. Mind you we are a local deli that has been in business since 1977, have been chosen the #1 deli locally for our sandwich 7 times in the last nine years ( since the contest started), and 5 of the last nine years for catering (we have not always catered). My husband told the guy, you shouldn’t have to pay for a good review or placement. We have always been #1 or 2, NOW, we are not even on their list! What few reviews we have, are mostly negative. We have lines out the door daily. Why isn’t this widely known? Thankfully, we have plenty of local loyal customers, but what about the customers traveling through who go online to search out a great place to eat?
Yes!! Please help small businesses who have been extorted, defrauded & slandered.
YELP is continually calling/harassing me to advertise with them…and when I ask why our good reviews are being removed and negative reviews are being left on the site they tell me they don’t discriminate and that only those reviews by reviewers who do not review on a regular basis are removed. That is not the case and there is no validity by our most recent negative review as we’re being bullied by that person after stocking us for almost 5 years. Most of our 5 star rated reviews have been taken down by Yelp. Feeling helpless and Frustrated
What they mean is that reviews done by Elite members are not filtered. They claim the filter is automated but I’ve seen otherwise. The only way it’s automated is that they have it set to Elite = review will show, positive or negative.
I’ve read elsewhere that sometimes a reviewer will appear with no friends and only 1 – 2 reviews, posing as a ‘customer’ when in reality they are a yelp employee, paid to plant a negative review. Once that negative review is shown, yelp comes calling with offers to ‘help you manage your yelp page’.
I’d recommend this:
*block their calls or let them go to voicemail. Do not interact with them.
*Do not use the page that yelp has on you, even the parts that are free. Do not “claim your free business account”
*Simply ignore yelp entirely.
Here’s the deal. I believe yelp is on the way out as more and more companies refuse to advertise with them. Ad dollars are their bread and butter and once that’s pulled out from under them, the company will fold. Smart consumers are slowly learning about yelp and the smarter ones put no faith in yelp at all.
Best of luck to you.
Please consider my business, created as an alternative to Yelp and visit my FB page. Thank you for your support. http://www.restaurantraves.com. I am also seeking a national sales representative. 100% commission. 20% on all subscriptions for as long as the client remains a customer. Paid monthly.
I would like to find an attorney willing to represent business owners in a class action lawsuit against yelp.
I doubt you will have any luck as Yelp has lots of $$ to fight off any case and you will likely end up with a lot less money and frustrated. Word of mouth is your best tool – educate others about Yelp and tell them about the Billion Dollar Bully movie coming out. Good luck.
See: Google search
Levitt v. Yelp Inc.
Or write your own case ( called Pro Se )
by referring to documents for –
Kimzey v. Yelp Inc.
( see documents on Google search )
I WOULD LIKE TO BE ON BOARD WITH THIS!! WE NEED THE FBI IC3 UNIT TO GET INVOLVED AS THEY ARE A UNIT TO HELP PEOPLE FROM COMPANIES LIKE YELP ON THE INTERNET. YELP HAS BEAT OR RATHER PAID OFF PEOPLE TO WIN THE CASES WITH THE MONEY THEY BULLIED PEOPLE OUT OF AND THIS COMPANY NEEDS TO BE STOPPED! AND THE FBI AND CIA NEEDS TO WATCH THEM AS I HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE THEY MESSED WITH THE WRONG PERSON AND ARE JUST WATCHING AND WAITING AS OF NOW…… RIGHT NOW… IF I WERE THEM,,, I WOULD CLOSE DOWN,, THATS ALL I CAN SAY…. LETS PAY NICE YELP! YOU HAVE ONE MORE BAD MOVE TO MAKE ON ANYONE,,,,,,
agree
I hate yelp!
They did the same to me! Two times I know of and who knows how many more times before. I am also very frustrated. We got 1 bed review, I know its fake. I thought it was done by a competitor. Now I believe it was done by yelp. It happened right after I said no to paid advertising.
Hi Eva, this has never happened to me personally but I have heard this over and over again:
When a business declines to advertise and a suspicious negative review pops up, it’s a fake review, planted in retaliation. Some say it’s a paid yelp employee, others have said it’s a separate company (maybe paid by yelp?) who employs people to write these retaliatory reviews.
Please watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C67Lh4LE5LY#t=15
This guy owns a business and was contacted by yelp. when he declined to advertise, the salesgirl for yelp got angry and had her friend write a negative review (her friend is a yelper too). Once yelp found out about it, this Erica person was fired but it may be only because this business owner went public with it. Both yelp accounts have been deleted, probably by themselves when they were caught.
Same thing is happening to me Eva! I’d rather throw the money in the river and NOT advertise with yelp!
They’re crocks and hopefully they’re out of business in the near future.
YES! YES! YES! someone who knows what a PAIN IN THE A”” Yelp really is. My bis. went through the same pain. My GREAT reviews placed in grayed “14 Not Recommended Reviews” I had no bad ones, this is how they listed the “Unapproved” reviews their “Algorithm” denied as legitimate. If someone read that the assumption was “WOW” A lot of bad Not approved reviews. I had only One approved review left on my page. I had an Add budget of $2000.00 a month and this is what they did to me! After three weeks and a TON of excuses ALL documented by e-mail I called and canceled my one year add contract. They threatened legal action and I told them I paid for all of this on my credit card and would let it fight the matter out. I told them take the actually cost per clicks I had for the three weeks (about $500.00) and drop it, Or risk losing it all if I filled the complaint to my card. They dropped it and I got out.
hi John,
I just called yelp finances and told them that I will dispute all charges for clicks, which are $216.84 out $308.86 for the month of March. they did not even blink, and said dispute it.
I quit contract in 21 day for bad customer service.
What should I do?
Can they legally pressure me to put my card on delinquency to pay them?
You can file your complaint with your credit card company who will consider both sides. YOU must be very detailed to make your case. The card company will favor you, however IF its clear to the that you owe what has been billed then you will have to pay. The card company may try to offer a compromise at a reduced bill. It does not cost you anything to try this.
The exact same thing happened to my business. I had about 10 listed reviews with almost all of them 5 stars than Yelp called me each week for three weeks but I never returned their calls and guess what? They did not tried to call me back but they removed many 5 stars reviews and kept the low reviews so my average went down!!!!
THIS COMPANY SUCKS NOTHING BUT NERDS BULLYING INNOCENT FOLKS AND WHEN YOU DON’T BUY THEIR PACKAGES LOOK OUT NEVER DO BUSINESS WITH THEM YOU’LL REGRET IT
I currently have two 5 star reviews that cannot be seen and when I asked Yelp why, I was told that it was because the people had only posted one review, and could not be trusted. When I told them I could not afford to pay for advertising right now, I immediately had a 1 star review posted, by someone who only signed up to write this review. So yeah, cant trust anyone who just has a few/one posts, unless it is a negative…. then its allowed. Again, only after telling them you cannot advertise with them at the present time.
I have heard this over and over again and suspect it may be a paid yelp employee posting as a true yelp user with a fake name.
My advise is to completely ignore your yelp page and do not answer calls from Yelp. Block their number and/or hang up when they call. They will soon be a memory.
I am so afraid reading this.
Hi Jack, I created Restaurant Raves for the purpose of creating an alternative to Yelp. I have been unable to give it the proper time up until now to advertise nationally and get it off the ground but now I am starting to. Any subscription will allow to help advertise nationally and to further my goal to eventually take a bite out of Yelp. More importantly, give restaurant owners a less expensive advertising alternative. Please check it out. Thank you. Regards, Ms. Terry Gadoury, http://www.restaurantraves.com. Please also like my FB page. Thank you. I have to do it this way because no angel would find this unique. It’s not meant to be, it’s meant to be an alternative. If you could spread this to any restaurant owner you know I would appreciate it. Thanks.
Please consider my business, created as an alternative to Yelp and visit my FB page. Thank you for your support. http://www.restaurantraves.com. I am also seeking a national sales representative. 100% commission. 20% on all subscriptions for as long as the client remains a customer. Paid monthly.
They did the same to me! Two times I know of and who knows how many more times before. I am also very frustrated. We got 1 bed review, I know its fake. I thought it was done by a competitor. Now I believe it was done by yelp. It happened right after I said no to paid advertising.
Yelp approved a positive review from a shady organisation, reviewing itself. The reviewer is even wearing the company t-shirt at the time. Yelp has refused to remove it, despite teh companys growth hacker leaving positive reviews being against their rules. I reached out to Geoff Donaker the CEO or maybe COO, he has ignored me and failed to reply. What a sham.
I once was an elite yelper with many reviews under my belt. I wrote a review for a local business, a 5-star review. I went in a few months later and mentioned this to the owner. He told me he never saw it. I looked it up on my phone and my review was gone. I wasn’t even in the filtered section, just gone.
Reviews written by elite members are never, ever filtered so what happened? Coincidentally he just happened to get a call from yelp right around that same time. he had so few reviews because he had just opened and mine had been at the top of his site. He turned down the yelp advertising package, my review left and he was left with two reviews, one was a negative review.
I cannot be certain but I suspect that as yelp cannot filter elite reviews, they decided to outright remove my review, to punish him. Yelp states on their website this isn’t the case, (as their community managers parrot this same response on Yelp Talk section) and even point to a study by a prof at Harvard Business School that debunks the pay to play. HBS IS WHERE THE YELP FOUNDER WENT TO SCHOOL. DUH..CONFLICT OF INTEREST??
I have since deleted all my reviews, closed my yelp account and will not patronize businesses who advertise with yelp. DO NOT ADVERTISE WITH YELP, DELETE YOUR PERSONAL REVIEWS AND CLOSE YOUR YELP ACCOUNT. Just don’t click on their site.
We had a review that was less than supportive to our business and it was from a customer who was angry because he had to spend more money than what he felt he should have. Of course, we had bumped him up to the front line of repairs, went and got the parts needed since BMW didn’t do drop ships to repair shops and even sold the parts to the point where we barely made any money. Then the guy was expecting us to do several hours of labor on the car but pretty much expected us not to charge for it based on how much he was claiming ‘he could have gotten the parts for from a friend’s shop’. Well, the friend would have had to order the parts and ship them overnight to us. We replied and Yelp after displaying his full complaint on our page, barely displayed our reply which fully laid out the case. He had even filed something with the state and after our we submitted our defense, the state said, ‘you have not a thing to worry about’. Other customers had tried to place reviews for us and they are not displayed because they are not ‘reliable’. In trying to get this review cleared up on the Yelp pages, we inevitably got the sales pitch from them. We were assured that the other review would not be taking such a prominent role, particularly with our full response to it. After not paying what we consider to be extortion or blackmail money, We have found that no favorable reviews placed on our page are easily seen. If they are going to hide behind the first amendment on this, they better display ALL the reviews, not just the ones that the yelp thinks will encourage the business to buy their phony advertising.
Hi JH – I could use your help: I just found out what a bad decision signing up with yelp was but I’m only in for two months out of the six-month package I signed up for. I don’t know how to delete my account and would like to know if you can tell me how to do that. I’m prepared to pay the kill fee but don’t know much more than that. I’ve been reading all these bad reviews, including yours, and thought I would reach out. You can reach me at the number below. Thanks – Karen
How do you close your yelp account? My understanding was you can claim your business but you can never pull out of yelp.
A sales person from Yelp calls me and offers me a $300 worth of ads for free. What’s the catch? I asked: ‘we are so confident that after you use our service and see the return on your investment, you would want to buy ads from us’ the reply came.
I asked him whether I will be automatically charged after the free deal is over. And a solid ‘NO’ answer came in. ‘Are you sure?’ I said. ‘Yes we are so confident that when you see the kind of return on investment you will get, you will decide to enroll’ came his reply.
‘Can I sign without putting my financial info on line? ‘ I asked. ‘No, for the deal to go on, you have to enter your credit card info’ he said. Again, me:’ are you 100% positive that my cc won’t be charged automatically once the deal is over’ him: ‘I can reassure you Mr.****that your card will not be tapped’.
I happen to have two small businesses, after six months, I find out my account was MILKED out of $4200.00.
I called and complained, but you are complaining to the same people who stole your money, there is a conflict of interest here, they work as a group team, so whoever you speak with tries to convince you that his/her colleague did the right thing.
I will consult with a lawyer soon and see if I could get my money back.
I hope those who did this to me, get their recompenses soon here on earth.
Record your conversation.
Please consider my business, created as an alternative to Yelp and visit my FB page. Thank you for your support. http://www.restaurantraves.com. I am also seeking a national sales representative. 100% commission. 20% on all subscriptions for as long as the client remains a customer. Paid monthly. I am a startup and need support. Thanks.
Yelp sales representative called me to sign up yelp business for my transportation company. After few conversation, the salesman told me to give them credit card information & sign digitally the agreement to advertise in yelp.
Few day later, I’ve changed my mind and told them to discontinue service but the salesman refused to cancel and says that I have to pay $700 cancellation fee. I suppose to undergo their orientation before we finally launch it but I wrote them back to discontinue service. They then started to charge me for about 2 months but I’ve disputed and got my full refund.
Without solving problems knowing facts and my consent, yelp now referred to debt collector “Szabo”who sends letter and calls frequently threatening I should pay $111.40 because I have signed an agreement.
Can someone best advise how to deal with this situation?
http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/legal_guides/k-6.shtml
“Telephone Sales (when order has not been filled) — 30 day cancellation period (B&P 17538(a), 16 CFR Part 435).”
Please consider my business, created as an alternative to Yelp and visit my FB page. Thank you for your support. http://www.restaurantraves.com. I am also seeking a national sales representative. 100% commission. 20% on all subscriptions for as long as the client remains a customer. Paid monthly.
I have small carpet business ,I join Yelp in oct 2015 .My budget was $475 month ,first my bill was $215 they show me 24 clicks, second month was 29clicks for $253 but my third was 19 clicks for &500 when i ask whay my bill is double they Yelp told me it was so busy month and lot of competicion in my industry this the reason of my bill is $500.I told them i will cancel service so my last bill i have 16clicks $560 and same reason no any support statments or documets no any math explanation noting ,there is no sense to any monthly bill.Be very careful with this people YELP they will send you any bill with they favorite number so you have to pay ,they will SCAME you without any explanation
I have read that there are paid yelp employees who are clicking. Not future customers, but paid people to “UP” your bill.
As a business owner who has been victimized by YELP I was told by my state’s Attorney General’s office to file a complaint at: http://www.IC3.gov I encourage every one of you to PLEASE do the same.
Yelp is Anti-Business!!!!!! After selling me an advertising package and leading me to believe they were partnering with me to promote my business, they allowed an unstable person to personally attack me with name calling and character assassination. In one day, My revenue has cut in half and I may be forced to lay off 2 technicians. In order to salvage what is left, I may be forced change my company name and reopen. Because, YELP refuses to remove my company name from their database. I feel I have been betrayed. I payed my adversary!!! Yelp admitted, in writing, they are pro-consumer. As we business people know, there are plenty of unstable people out there looking for a fight. And, there is no way you’re going to make them happy. Good and honorable people and companies are being harmed by Yelp. Yelp’s business model is morally flawed.
Mr. White,
I know exactly where you are coming from. I however chose not to advertise with YELP a few years ago when a representative from the site called me several times. At that time I had never really heard of YELP and we’ve been using the same means of advertising for many years so I thought why change? Now I know why!! I feel my company has been targeted by them because we don’t advertise. If you looked up my company on YELP and just saw the top few reviews you would think we’re the worst company in the world but if you searched their “not recommended reviews” you would find many new, positive reviews. The majority of the bad reviews shown are a few years old and I’m not even sure they were real customers. We recently lost a client and he was kind enough to text our salesperson that it was due to our YELP reviews. I can’t imagine anyone choosing to judge a business by YELP review rather than the BBB (where I have an A rating and I’m not a member there either!!) Since then we’ve reached out to many past and present clients asking them to go on YELP and write their experience and they have but the next day the positive review is buried in the “not recommended reviews”. When we recently spoke with a rep from YELP (after the latest job loss) they told my husband that “they” have no control over what pictures or posts pop up yet when I log on as the business owner there are advertising offers of “purchasing a slide show” to basically “bury” any bad pictures that are posted.
I spoke to an attorney today who suggested I file a complaint with the AG in my state and they suggested I go to http://www.IC3.gov and file a complaint. I know we are not alone in this ~ can’t all of us business owners get together and do something?
I’m with you!! I own a business and had
two good reviews and two bad from
husband and wife who I successfully
sued in small claims. One good review
disappeared, but bad ones still remain?
Please consider my business, created as an alternative to Yelp and visit my FB page. Thank you for your support. http://www.restaurantraves.com. I am also seeking a national sales representative. 100% commission. 20% on all subscriptions for as long as the client remains a customer. Paid monthly.
I have also had a very negative experience with yelp. There is time share company in my area that had questionable business practices. I had delt with them, their terrible properties, and agressive staff for years. I had posted a warning about my personal experience over a ten year period to yelp and they removed it. I tried to reason with yelp but they still denied to post it- no reason given. If they aren’t on the take, then I’m the Queen of England.
Why bother being on yelp anyway? Simply remove your reviews first, then close your account: http://www.yelp.com/support/contact/account_closure
We did not “open” an account with Yelp, but someone wrote a false review (seriously, outright false statements that can be publicly searched and verified as false), the one and only review. We wrote a polite response to the review, but Yelp removed it. How can we have the company name removed from Yelp when we did not open an account in the first place?
Hi Roxanne, sorry for the confusion. I was referring to a personal yelp account, where one posts about experiences.
A business page like you refer to (and a yelper can start on their own), unfortunately cannot be closed by you or by yelp (so they say). My best advise is to ignore the yelp page they have opened for you and do not engage in yelp in any way, shape or form. Do not respond to reviews left by yelpers. Just let your page be and the less activity on it the better and hopefully it will fade away and be less searchable.
Thank you! Appreciate you taking the time to respond.
Yelp has good things. They definitely help customers express concerns or praise regarding businesses and services. However, I had a strange experience with Yelp. I complained about a solar company in Lake Elsinore, CA that was making illegal telemarketing phone calls to me, in violation of the Do Not Call List. I posted a complaint on Yelp. A couple of months later, the post was inexplicably removed. I called as well as emailed Yelp several times to ask why they took down my post. It appears that Yelp refused to respond to me so I took my complaint to Better Business Bureau around late Jan or early Feb, and I still (at this time in late Feb 2016) have not heard back. I just want to know, did Yelp receive any kind of compensation to remove my post? Why did Yelp refuse to answer my communications to them? When I posted a negative review of Yelp on Yelp about the same situation as presented above, Yelp also removed the post, without explanation. I am having a difficult time trusting Yelp at this time because of my experiences. Is there anyone out there who can enlighten me? What ethical standards is Yelp held to? Are there any? I still have some favorable views to a certain degree concerning Yelp, but my negative experience as elucidated above is starting me on a journey to question the organization as well as its credibility in certain cases.
Art,
I don’t rely on Yelp any longer. I have posted non-malicous (just the facts, and can back them up with documentation) complaints about 2 separate businesses in the past that I had a negative experience with. Both have been removed. No explanation. Nothing! I later found out that Yelp will remove negative complaints against companies that advertise with them. So, in my opinion, Yelp is a worthless site. I have also heard the same issues from many people including friends of mine. Just stating the facts!
Why bother being on yelp anyway? It’s one big scam.
Remove your reviews then close your account: http://www.yelp.com/support/contact/account_closure
Please consider my business, created as an alternative to Yelp and visit my FB page. Thank you for your support. http://www.restaurantraves.com. I am also seeking a national sales representative. 100% commission. 20% on all subscriptions for as long as the client remains a customer. Paid monthly.
Yelp is dishonest
Posts what they want if you advertise with them
Awful company
I bought a Motorola X play two months ago.I put a 64gb sd card in it worked great for a month then got a error message sd card corrupted . The repair center said water damage and card reader damage.I told them how could that happen when I used there custom case and the phone neve seen water.
For years we ran one of the most reputable photography studios in Silicon Valley. We were recommended by most of the top vendors in the wedding business and had a stellar rating with the Better Business Bureau. All most every major hotel and event venue had us on their “Preferred Vendor” list. We maintained that standing for over 15 years. Then came what I call business assassins….YELP.
We have over 300 “Thank You” letters and letters of reference. However when YELP started adding reviews to their system about us they were selective about which ones they would post. We had an absolutely stellar review from the San Jose Chamber of Commerce which they tossed out. Their reply was that they maintained the right to selectively choose those reviews that gave a balanced assessment of the business. In effect hey were manipulating the quality of our business, not by reputation, but by picking reviews without any knowledge of our business. We approached them numerous times and requested a fair assessment that included the many excellent reviews that they had received and tossed out. They refused to work with us in any way.
Our only option was to close the account and hope that the yelp experience would fade into a long lost memory. Upon closing the account we requested that our listing be removed from their system. “NO” was their reply and they further informed us that our account would be frozen and the reviews will remain just as they were posted. So, reviews that were horribly negative and damaging five years ago are still up and continue to demean our reputation.
I called one of the individuals, (a young attorney) who felt she had a bad experience with us and asked if she would reconsider her review. After all I had made a number of concessions to her because she was unhappy, but her main objective was to punish us for her bad experience. Now, five years later she is still using that same excellent portrait of herself, she gladly accepted the concessions I gave her and in return her punitive review continues to chip away at our credibility.
I can’t begin to assess the damage and loss of revenue caused by YELP’s irresponsibility and cavalier attitude towards how reviews are handled. Because they maintain total control over what they display I’ve always felt that they are the perfect example of the old adage; “Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” If anyone has suggestions on how we can be removed from their system, please contact us by leaving a post here. Thank You.
Simple answer, you cannot remove your listing from yelp, even if you didn’t put it on yelp in the first place. See here: http://www.yelp-support.com/article/Can-I-remove-my-business-page-from-Yelp?l=en_US
I recommend you do the following, simply ask customers coming in how they found you. If they say YELP educate them and urge them NOT to leave you a review. Simply ignore your yelp page. Do not open an account to manage your basic page (which is free). Pretend it doesn’t exist. Yelp will be a memory soon anyway.
Thank you, I wish I had seen this before, sadly several customers wasted their time to write reviews that Yelp’s so-called review software has determined them to be “not -recommended” yet I discovered on several competitors sites where reviews falling under the same categories were marked as recommended. I believe they lied to us saying they cannot control reviews for paid advertisers! Then why suppress reviews they even went so far as to tell me now – today not to advise my customers to write reviews on Yelp!
Can’t even get a password reset to flag 2 profiles that left negative reviews, both I never did business with and one of the profiles is obviously fake.
Yelp is a anti-business!!!!! I have a customer who has used Yelp many times reviewing other businesses and they put him down on the “not recommended” . No one there to talk to ever. I have asked them to call me many times!! Yelp never talks to you. I guess they are not human. They leave 2 negative reviews on top that are full of lies and false accusations and will not take it down or put them in “not recommended” . Yelp is just way more interested in posting made up negative stuff that comes from people out there that have nothing better to do than lie and exaggerate and try and put you out of business! So many sick consumers out there. I think they just can’t stand someone that maybe makes a better income than themselves! And Yelp is sick too. Maybe someday all of us small business owners can put them out of business like they are trying to do to many many businesses around the United States. Shame on Yelp. I hope you lose all your lawsuits!!!!!
Kimzey v. Yelp Inc. – Opening Brief
( see Google search )
Extortion – Libel – False Reviews
2015 Pending
Federal 9th Circuit / San Francisco
So I get this sales call from Yelp. Having been in the Advertising business I know when to be short with people in some situations. First the YELP girl tells me that I have a YELP page – No I do Not. I reply. I did not authorize any use of my company name on your site.
WHY? She asks. I don’t like YELP WHY? She asks again. Because I just don’t!.
Now I am starting to get pissed. WHY DON’T YOU LIKE YELP she asks again….
I respond… Who the F are you that I need to explain myself to you !!! Then hang up.
I find this is the best way to handle the pushy YELP sales calls.
A yelp user can create a page in your business name (which I think is a bad idea). The business doesn’t need to give an okay for this. And once up, yelp claims the business cannot take it down even if they want to opt out of yelp. Besides the fact that a yelper could potentially spell the business name wrong or put in wrong info, I believe that having a page on yelp is a waste of time and a business should be able to opt out if they want to.
That’s why I continually say, ignore your page, do not claim it at all – even the free part of it, ignore calls from yelp and do not ask customers to review you on yelp. Pretend yelp does not exist and don’t think about your business page on yelp.
During the same interval, Diego Garcia turned a multi-billion-greenback Navy and Air Pressure base and a central
node in U.S. army efforts to manage the Higher Center East and its oil and pure fuel provides.
Santa will get his trim on for the Holiday season by his barber elf.
I wrote two articles on Yelp. You can read them here:
http://www.examiner.com/article/ms-geek-speaks-elite-yelper-writes-some-creative-soft-porn-on-yelp
http://www.examiner.com/article/ms-geek-speaks-social-media-lynch-mobs-on-yelp-facebook-and-twitter
I am writing a follow up on these. I did get them to take something down, but despite clear violations of the Yelp guidelines, the Elite involved in both articles were not thrown out of the Elite squad.
Jana,
Can you please explain how you were able to get Yelp to take down something that is false? The writer has made false statements that can easily be proven as such. The company is too small to take on Yelp by itself, and the person who wrote the piece in the first place is a prolific Yelp writer and was venting over her own mistakes. We have only one review, because when we politely responded to the negative piece, Yelp took down our response.
You got something taken down? Seems as though the only way that can happen is of you pay the blackmail advertising fees. I’ll be the point person if a group wants to start up a lawsuit against these assholes.
Instead of everybody talking about all of their complaints about yelp all of us saying the same thing over and over we need to all get together and do something about it Sarty small organization and file a class-action suit or another type of lawsuit to prevent us from defamation of character
Corinne, unfortunately yelp hires the big lawyers and has lobbyists on their side so a lawsuit likely wouldn’t go far.
The way to go at it is to go after their bread and butter = advertising dollars and clicks. Simply stop giving them page views and continue to refuse to advertise. If enough people do this they will fold. Their stock has tanked and I believe more and more people are learning about their business practices.
I have a business in New York that’s 15 years old. From day 1 of Yelp they have harassed us with aggressive sales calls trying to get us to purchase advertising on their site. They will not be told. Every time they have called it’s been slap bang in the middle of a busy working day when I’m really pushed – I’m supposed to be fielding calls from clients and employees and these scumbags call me up with the hard sell. Straight away I tell them, very politely, “Listen. I know why you’re calling so let me just clear things up straight away. I am not interested, and will never be interested in advertising with Yelp. I know, you have a promotion on. I know, you’re going to offer me $100 in free advertising. But let me tell you that I am absolutely not interested in any of it – I really don’t want to waste your time.”
But that doesn’t deter them in the slightest. It’s always some hyper-motivated young female with a memorized list of snappy comebacks to my objections. I say snappy, but really they have a horribly outdated sales pitch which reminds me of the kind of sales training I had back in the 80’s before everyone was sick of it. It’s now 2015 and Yelp employees are still using lines like “So you’re saying you DON’T want to create new leads and double your revenue? Is that what you’re tell me?” — YAWN ladies, YAWN.
The bad thing is that I always end up having to hang up on them which I hate doing because I wasn’t raised to hang up on people. But what choice do I have? They are a horrible, disgusting, loathsome company with zero respect for anyone. I would love to see them put out of business by a competitor.
Thieves! Iiers, fraud, over charging! I told them No!! And they are still charging me! Over 2300.00 dollars they say I owe them!! I never got a single call! They did not put me on any of my services!! I cannot believe they are in business!! I have been for 36 years! Never got screwed this bad!!!
For a weeks now a man from Yelp has been calling my families’ business POKEY’S of West Decatur, PA, telling us they have a website set up with them and all we have to do is log-on to claim it. It’s the same man who calls. He’s relentless!! He calls at peak business hours, heck even on the days we’re closed. Keeps telling me that all I have to do is go online and claim his pre-made yelp page. People have commented, claim it today. I repeatedly ask him to remove our name from his computers and that we are not interested! But still he pushes. We don’t have a business website or wifi here and there are no other setup Internet uses for our business. He keeps asking for my email and phone information that is none of his business. We only sell food & 6-packs. I want him to stop bothering our business it’s getting me very upset. I don’t normally like to be rude to telemarketers because I know they are people just trying to make a living too but he is seriously beginning to damage my calm! One more call and I’m liable to release one of those boat fog horns into his eardrum! Not really, but you get my frustration, right?!
I am sorry for your pain, I know how you feel and I have felt the same way myself with Yelp on several occasions when they tried to sell me. I refused and they blacklisted me with their internal algorithms. To be fair, in an unfair world, it could be someone claiming to be with Yelp because I do not think Yelp sells websites. There are some unscrupulous people out there.., just say No or ask for someone to track this guy if you want to. It can be done but may not be worth the time and cost. I am at http://www.Yelp-not.com / Regards.
-Don Sr.
Complain to the Do Not Call List,or to the Federal Trade Commission
Yiu cannot remove your listing from yelp, even if you didn’t put it on yelp in the first place. 😦
See here: http://www.yelp-support.com/article/Can-I-remove-my-business-page-from-Yelp?l=en_US
I recommend you do the following, simply ask customers coming in how they found you. If they say YELP educate them and urge them NOT to leave you a review. Simply ignore your yelp page. Do not open an account to manage your basic page (which is free). Pretend it doesn’t exist. Yelp will be a memory soon anyway.
Yelp SUCKS!!! They removed my profile after trying to sell me advertising and posting 4 positive reviews on #SANFRANCISCO #NOEVALLEY companys. BTW You can create many hotmail accounts and sign up to #YELP and post many negative reviews – I chose the bright side on businesses you’ve never been too. So is that fair trade??? HELL NO! YELP IS BULLSHIT AND ADVOCATES EXTORTIONISM – not only by it’s own sales staff, but even clients of friends have tried it. Add to the StupydCity #SanFrancisco #MayorEdLee wanted them to handle #SF Health Department Ratings of Restaurants in #SF http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/SF-restaurant-health-data-to-be-on-Yelp-4200799.php TALK ABOUT THE FOX GUARDING THE HEN HOUSE! #yelp #SUCKS
Pay it Forward: Ban Yelp from Google and all Search Engines until they stop filtering legitimate positive reviews and stop allowing false reviews to appear on business listings.. Yelp is overpowering and putting many small business out of business.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/pay-it-forward-ban-yelp?source=s.em.mt&r_by=4700891
[IMG]http://i57.tinypic.com/qyygyg.jpg[/IMG] look at this lolol
People are catching on about Yelp fraud. Stock started to tank and last week Amazon announced that they will pull in reviews from Yelp (which are fake) and the stock went way back up. Why is Amazon so stupid. Jeff Bezos need to read these posts!!!
Wow, great news. Thanks for the post.
Yelp stock currently stands around $20. Very low!!
Please, lets get this way up on the search engines. Just offer to pay more than they do for there own words. Basically the running theme for these crooks are, post negative stuff, force small business to pay money to monitor, only post negative reviews, or just enough, and never allow the client to have good or positive reviews until some of the “yelp” reviewers start paying money too. Wicked vile fecal matter! We need to grow this. I would love nothing better than to see Yelp start to suffer financially.
I also have had bad dealings with Yelp. My small plumbing business has 11 reviews total. 10 of them are 5 star. One of them (whom we did not even do work for in the past 3 years) is a 1 star and it is the ONLY review listed as “recommended”. I had one 5 star review listed as “recommended” for exactly 2 days before they removed it.
I have filed complaints with the Better Business Bureau and their responses are the same generic information you find on their website. I filed a complaint with the FTC-their website states they have an Ongoing Class Action Suit.
I have told them I will only be satisfied if they list ALL of my reviews or remove my business completely.
Yelp is a SCAM!
Same exact issue my business had.
An upholstery company I’ve used in Berkeley had also been a victim of Yelp’s supposed “unbiased algorithm” – had many bad reviews and nearly 25 positive ones were “hidden,” or “unrecommended” – really impacted their business. The upholstery company, like many of us with small businesses, do not want to pay for Yelp’s advertising. They’re aggressive about it and it looks like after you say no enough times, they penalize. Yelp has fooled a lot of people thinking it’s a neutral platform, when it is truly a biased, extortion based behemoth. I was interviewed about it in local papers and after doing so, Yelp put a nasty note next to my positive review. Took down all reviews, positive and negative I’d ever left. They’re not honest, not objective, and people need to know.
I have been truley, mistreated by yelp and basically they decided iall of my good reviews are not ligetimate because some of my reviews came from first time yelp reviewers. They have filtered out every good review and after filtering out 1 bad review brought it back and filtered out all my good reviews from clients I worked so hard to make happy! So I only have one review and they got rid of all my others. They said it’s because my good reviews came from people who never used yelp before! This is horrible! I’m going to seek counsel because I have been in business for 22 years and now that I have yelp it makes me look horrible! I am a honest person with a very honrst business. I have never ask anybody to review me I have only ask them if they have anything nice to say about me, I’m on the internet face book ect… I have had clients tell me after I’m at their residence one hour they are going to yelp me because I am so professional! I’ve never given discount extra coupons or anything! I have just been very professional and deserved my every yelp! This is just horrible these people can decide if one of my reviews is for real or a lie! Perhaps they should ask all of us who have good reviews to do a job for them do they can decide! This is so embarrassing for me especially because the one bad review I have, was a review of lies from a very sick and unhealthy person, who was not completely truthful. A confused elderly person, who never really communicated with me, or my team. I guarantee my work regardless, and I wasn’t given the opportunity. When thst review was put on yelp they removed it! Then several weeks later reposted it and took away my good ones! Please everyone speak up about this horrible , service! They gain but we Lose! I feel like I have done so many wonderful and proffesional services for so many but yelp has showed thousands I’m a horrible service. It has caused me emotional pain, and I fear everyday, they are ruining my profession! It’s just not fair!
I went through same thing as you. Unless you pay yelpscam they will filter out honest reviews and even put fake ones up to hurt your business. If you want good honest posts from clients to show up and don’t want them filter out, ask clients to give you 1 star and then their honest good opinions and it will show up.
Do NOT give yelp a dime. Ever! I’d also recommend NOT asking people to write reviews period. Ignore Yelp, ignore your yelp page entirely. Ask customers when they come in where they heard of you and if they say yelp, educate them. good luck.
A customer has made up my business page on yelp first of all, he then posted ugly remarks, he has taken pictures off of Facebook without permission. He’s made several accounts under fake names and made negative reviews. He’s also have recruited his friends to write negative reviews. They have pulled random pictures off the internet stating that it was my work which it isn’t. Not to mention they have slandered not just my name but have said horrible things about my family. This has become harassment.
That is how yelpscam operates!
Modern day gangsters..My business has all 5 stars from legit clients Yelps has 3 stars over 4 reviews advertising a near by competitor ranting with 1 star with profile of clients that never stepped a foot inside my store,they have told me to make a cleaner profile i must pay an outrageous monthly fee to make all 5 star reviews from daily clients..
They have to be regulated i field a complaint with BBB hoping that helps..
Yelp cancelled my account because I answer my critics. Two sides to every story. People actually find it funny. There are about 7 who have never been in the store. They base it on their friend, or just feel like piling on for a friend.
I didn’t advertise and the next day 3 5 star reviews disappeared! Some customers in return tried to post 5 star reviews and yelp wouldn’t post them
Heads up. Jim Scott, Sherry Workman Metro-traffic-school. Broward County are both grave robbers. NO good for anyone. PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM METRO TRAFFIC SCHOOL
I closed my Yelp account. I tried 3 times to give a bad review of a place in Manhattan. Each time, the review never showed. The company I was reviewing advertises with Yelp. My reviews were easily within the guidelines (nothing terrible at all). Yelp’s business model, apparently, is to spare the advertiser of bad reviews and spare the non-advertiser of good reviews. If this is what is happening, this in my opinion amounts to extortion and should be criminal. Of course Yelp will reply that that is not what is happening but we will only know when the public sees the programming code. I know that my experience was extremely suspect. My bad reviews were solid, informative and nothing terrible to warrant censorship.
I’m in on that! We should file a class-action suit against them for false advertising without having TruFax they know nothing about the people that make the comments quite upsetting to me actually my situation with my one bad reply I will never be able to get out from underneath they refused to remove it even though I’ve had several new replies that are all good !they told me something ridiculous like people that yelp all the time don’t get reviews post at the top like people that post for the first time. My situation is that the person that gave me a bad review was going through a very bad time in her life and took it out on me !anyone that knows me the last 24 years I’ve done my business who has read it I can’t believe that I can’t get it removed. Can we do a class action suit against them because I know 1 million people that would like to do that !
They don’t even allow good reviews to posted for businesses that advertise with them. We unfortunately bought into Yelp advertising & when a customer wrote a good review it never showed up. When I asked why they told me because the client was not a frequent Yelp user their algorithm determined it to be s false review. We are a very small HVAC business. We don’t cater to only “frequent Yelp users” who apparently are the only ones trustworthy enough to write reviews. And there also is no rhyme or reason for the cost per click when u do advertise with them. It’s not my business number that is listed, it’s an 800 number so they can monitor how many calls we actually get from our ad. What a joke – I can monitor that part myself which would be better because in the last 2 weeks, their so-called monitoring has said we received multiple calls that never happened. No one has called our business in the last 2 weeks except clients who we’ve done business with in the past. And last week, not a single client call because my husband was in the hospital, yet Yelp said we had 3 calls. What do I do about this?
This Yelp is a ruthless horrible company
i tried to report to texas atty general
They wont help :o/
I agree. It’s a slanderouse outlet that is killing small business.
Once they do that the consumer will pay the price in the end as the big company’s will raise the prices to all consumers.
Many people are unjust and careless to get what they want.
I like to see where they work and treat them the same
How come you move reviews that are good about a company to not recommend. That is wrong. I had a good experience with a company but only the bad reviews show. That is not right at all. Very upsrt
exactly
Thats what they do to me
All the time
I usually am 4-5 star & when yelp does that crap hiding my good reviews i show up as 2 – 2 1/2 star rating
I sent in a negative comment on a garage door company who ripped me off. I was simply trying to warn others. This company advertises on yelp, my review of them got filed under poor reviews on yelps site where people can’t find my review. WTF how can this happen?
Based on waht hey told me
If i wouldve paid them my bad reviews moved to the bottom of the barrell where no one sees them
I dont pay them so my good reviews disappear
I’m planning to print up some stickers that say: “If you love us, come in. If you want to complain, go to Yelp and stay away.” If every business owner does this, then Yelp will no longer be recognized as a reviews website, but a complaints website which is what it really is.
lol
I actually answer the complaints n put links to bad yelp reviews
People say im rude
But
I think theyre rude for complaining when we are trying provide them a service
Help has caused me so much headache also
I continuously get negative reviews & the peoplw who do come to my business ways comment – why do you have negative reviews? This is one of the best massages i have ever had
& many dont try my business at all because they read negativity on yelp
Yelp is horrible
Yes it is all true, what you say about Yelp. They have unfairly ruined many lives by hiding the truth of our 5 star reviews. See; http://www.Yelp-not.com for my effort to fight back.
Compassionate Care Dental is not what you think it is. As a matter of fact, they are a liar and they will take all your money without calling your dental insurance first before any work starts. They will tell you or show you the paper work that supposedly your dental insurance will cover but be aware they do not call and lead you to believe that your dental insurance will cover the costs. I have been their patient for over 7 years and believe them and trusted them for everything they worked on my teeth. Unfortunately last year I was getting implants put in and I was told that my insurance will cover the costs. After the fact my procedure started and they try to bill my dental insurance and it turned out my dental insurance is NOT cover. And now they will not finish my implants unless I pay the rest of the costs. You see, I have already paid 4,000.00 dollars into it and now if I want to continue, it will cost me another 4,000.00. Who has that much of money first of all to spend on something like this? I am sure NO ONE! And you know one sad thing is that this Dr. Muhaimin blamed me as his patient for not calling my insurance first. He said ” it is your responsibility to call your insurance, not us”. Is that wrong or what! What kind of a Doctor is that to tell his patient like that, apparently NOT a good one. As you can see, I am not longer his patient. I told Dr Muhaimin and his employees many times that I DO NOT WANT TO GET THIS DONE IF MY INSURANCE DO NOT COVER. Apparently they don’t care about you or your concern, all they care about is YOUR money. Now I am left with unfinished partial implants and the costs. I filed a complaint with the BBB and wrote couple pages to the Dental Board of California. Just BE AWARE PEOPLE…Compassionate Care Dental does not have any compassion for their patients.