Tell Your Yelp Story
Everyone wants to be heard. That seems to be the #1 complaint on Yelp is the lack of transparency in the filter, the lack of response to real business issues, and the seeming lack of care that real businesses are being destroyed by fake reviews while real good reviews are filtered out.
It’s time to share your story… stories will be chosen from the comments below to be profiled on the site with the truth of how Yelp has done you wrong.
If you really want to help, read through the comments and thumbs up or down the stories to help the media select the best stories to profile. This is a community to support local businesses, so please help each other, comment, and lend an ear/shoulder when needed.
I owned a small business up until June of this year when I had to close my doors due to the economy. A couple of years ago my business had a high rating on yelp. I have been in business for three years prior to receiving a phone call from a yelp salesman. When I refused to purchase the membership the very next day I noticed that all my positive reviews have been filtered out and a review suggesting that I did illicit things at my therapeutic massage and bodywork practice was posted. The review mysteriously disappeared after several weeks of my emailing yelp back-and-forth to complain that the reviewer had never visited my business and that the review was trying to suggest that I did something illegal. I actually think I threatened to sue them and then the review mysteriously disappeared. About a year ago I got another negative review on yelp because all of my positive reviews were filtered out this review stayed up on my yelp profile. The review was from a Trubates coupon purchaser who had waited until after the deal had expired in order to try to book an appointment. She didn't like the fact that I did not have a opening that day so she'd tried calling Trubates to demand a refund. when they refused, she called me back demanding a refund. I refused and tried to get her to schedule an appointment for another day. Perhaps the woman was having a bad day but anyway she went ballistic and wrote a very nasty, negative and more importantly FALSE review of my business. To this day that false review is still there, giving my now closed business 1 star. Over the years I had received a lot of walkins and new clients based on online reviews (yelp reviews included) so it's unfortunate that the one false review of my business likely caused my walk in business to dry up. My old business is closed but I dream of opening a new one and one of my fears is that the same thing could happen because I refuse to be forced into purchasing memberships with companies like yelp – a parasite that preys on small businesses like mine.
The most recent controversy is the support of ALEC by Yelp.
In the last two weeks, Yelp approval rating by its own users had dropped to 2 1/2 stars. More than 2,000 negative reviews have been added to the Yelp website.
ALEC the reactionary right-wing group allied with the Koch brothers and the Tea Party, which writes most of the voter-suppression legislation (voter ID laws which keep 5 million people from voting), school privitization and NRA laws being rammed through in many States. This organization is responsible for the "Stand Your Ground" laws that have resulted in the deaths of innocent people.
You can see many negative reviews here. http://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-san-francisco
Of real note is that in the last week, Yelp filtered thousands of its own negative reviews and if you scroll to the bottom of the page and attempt to view them, you can not, you get a 403 error when going to the filtered review page.
In addition, having an alliance with Yelp is helpful. On August 22, there were 769 negative reviews of ALEC on its Yelp page and all were filtered. By August 25, only 390 of the filtered reviews remained. There are no public reviews of ALEC on its Washington, DC page and you can not see any of the filtered reviews. So much for the Yelp slogan, "Real Reviews by Real People."
http://www.yelp.com/biz/american-legislative-exch…
In both these cases, I doubt the filtering of reviews was to remove fake reviews as they all came from real Yelp users.
If you believe that the Yelp/ALEC alliance is not good, add this logo to your profile, facebook or website. http://stks.co/dfhd
Excellent example!
I think that the reason yelp only 'allows' certain posts is to force people to be active on Yelp to help their SEO. What. Hogwash that you are 'rewarded' by posting often, making friends etc. to get past their filter. They want many users and activity. This has nothing to do with real reviews by real people.
I have had many reviews removed all at once. There is no rime nor reason to why they remove them. 7 removed, 2 were "yelpers" with an active history, the rest were genuine but they did sign up just to leave me a review…but they left one fresh review from a newbie. Also, some of them were filtered over a year after they got posted…then, just like that , all my good reviews were gone (except one). I have been hounded to advertise for about 2 years, i haven't heard from them in about 5 months. I guess they gave up and "filtered" my reviews. Their filter process is deliberate and not coincidental, there is no defense for it. May Yelp get sued badly and lose, i hope i get to be apart of the next class action lawsuit against them….
A new low for Yelp, and perhaps their undoing was to post a fictional coupon for 15% off. This coupon was not approved and only discovered when people showed up to use it. The FTC has been contacted. Let Yelp talk their way out of this. Filter my ass!!!!!
I think due to their advertising publicly on the internet one can sue them from their own state. I also think it should be for fraud. It would be nice if a prosecutor somewhere gets involved anywhere in the country and goes after them criminally.
Check this out:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/david-d-ribeiro-law-corpo…
but then read the filters. All negative ones are gone, and if you notice…the first to review really wasn't, and is an employee of the company.
http://www.yelp.com/biz/david-ribeiro-da-law-corp… <– same review that is filtered by the person paying or arguing with them….still up…still there, and NOT filtered.
The man being reviewed is clearly a menace, but YELP, the now seemingly criminal enterprise that it is, for extortion is doing this…it's not only businesses that get screwed, it's people that spend time writing reviews and the innocent victims of bad small businesses!
I recommend we start posting on their finance pages a warning to investors of the upcoming class action lawsuits and why. YELP is acting in such a way it will not be around much longer. Nobody will trust them, people will be sick of paying extortion money and hopefully some of them will end up in hand-cuffs.
I have information about their filter. A business paid them, and they "filtered" my negative review. Then another person's negative review. Then, finally the negative review of someone who pointed out the 5 star review was of someone who worked their, her name (Juana Guevara) which is true. So, now this person has a 5 star rating instead of 3 negative reviews to warn people. Because he paid YELP. So, this is a violation not so much of small business owners, but of people who wish to disclose about a business. I like a business and give it 5 stars I guess I get filtered.
This was done by a person. How do I know? Because I posted the exact same review but using a different business. It's still there. I posted a positive review for the person. It was immediately posted. I then edited it down to 2 stars…and it got filtered.
I have another idea about YELP.
It appears that some people see a business and get damaged because of their lying filter. But for that filter, they wouldn't be damaged by the fraudulent false advertising.
Sue YELP for damages whenever suing that business. Let it be well known, always add them as a defendant. Sue them solely. These reviews have become lies and people are getting hurt that do not need to get hurt. I would like to see new reviews from people damages (maybe end up in filter) look at previous ones and point it out to them. Enough people do this hopefully YELP can sink.
Thanks
they are ruining my business. there is definitley somethign fishy
my client wrote me an awesome review a bout 3 weeks back. for many days it was on the front page.
today i checked and suddenly it's been moved to the 'filtered' section.
I am having the same issues….let me know im in!
you cant even see your filtered one now they all disappeared from the page.
Yelp is not a good restaurant review site. When you have a option button "FUNNY" in a review site it automatically tells you something is wrong. Seems people want to be funny more than give a serious review. By the way where is the DISAGREE button option? I have seen the words and phrases, gross, retarded, I was drunk when I wrote this review, maybe I will change my mind tomorrow when I read it again, so on and so on and so on.
Yelp is not the place for a reliable review. __Yelper Timothy R. of Sublimity, Oregon. wrote this about a restaurant. __Ever crave a $1000 hamburger? Do you consider vomiting the perfect way to end your evening? Do you enjoy emergency room visits? If you answered yes to any of those questions, then pay a visit to RESTAURANT NAME__I close my case. That my friend is not a review. That is slander. _And that is only part of his self centered snide remark. _yes I said Remark. It certainly doesn't rate a s a review.__And I have ready many like that,
Yelp is the worst online restaurant reviews on the internet as a whole. Granted there are some reviewers that deserve to be heard, but most are trolls, competitors, teens (that place was retarded) and many others that have yet to find out KARMA is real. For those that may own a business in the future you too will be rated. __I do not recommend Yelp and I personally think it is the absolute worst ratings and review site out there.
Absolutely. I agree to what you say Drew. Not as a business owner but as reviewer too. If my reviews are filtered, why in the world I would waste my time in it? If I am knowing that my voice is not going to be heard, why waste energy? And when everyone feels that way, they will stop reviewing businesses over YELP, and that will begin the end of YELP's unfair practices- so called "ALGORITHM"
Can's wait for that day!
I have had a successful pet sitting/boarding service here in Phx, Az since 1998. And, until 2011, I had No reviews written on Yelp.com Until I was contacted by an extremely unstable woman who claimed she worked for the FBI; Without going into the long sorted details of what happened, I will just tell you the reviewer, whom I had never met before left a one star review about my service, which was completely Fabricated. I responded to the review, telling what Really happened. Within 1 or 2 days of that bad review going up, Yelp called me for the 1st time from their sales office to try & sell me advertising. When I told them I could not afford it, they said “We can make your rating increase & take away that one star review for you, if you advertise with us”. I’ve called Yelp asking them to please take down the one star review, as it was written by someone who was a threat to me and unstable. They said No, we will not take it down. I’ve also had many clients write a 5 star review for my business & Yelp insists on keeping them “Filtered” so that viewers can only see the 1 star review. I’m guessing as punishment of some sort for not advertising with them. Yesterday I received a call from the same woman who wrote the review in 2011, only she decided to disguise her name from Ceci to Cecilia. She started out asking me about a different service this time, which again followed with more threatening phone calls & texts for 5 hours straight and again writing a 2nd 1 star review. I filed a complaint with the phx police against her yesterday, indecent #20131488159. Now there are 2 1 star, fabricated reviews against my business by a unstable person who should be locked up and yelp continues to allow them to remain visible for all to see, as Yelp.com refused to take them down and refused to “Unfilter” all 8 of my 4-5 star reviews, because I refuse to pay them money!
The same thing happened to me. My good reviews got filtered and bad ones left, after I told them I would not advertise. The bad reviews were left by a person against me and not clients and even if it were clients – why are they filtering the good reviews ??? Then after I called crying…they asked me if I wanted to advertise.
I had a very similar experience. My business page only shows the fabricated very insulting one star poor review, while my five star reviews from my clients are hidden by yelp. Also, clients have tried to post additional five star reviews and those were not posted at all by yelp. I have been bombarded with sales calls and emails from yelp, telling me if I advertise with them at $300 to $800 per month that my yelp profile will look much better, and my business will improve. I have also received emails and letters from 'apparent' third party criminals who have 'businesses' who say that if I pay them $200 per month they can make the bad review go away. I will join a class action lawsuit. I am turning all of this information over to the attorney generals office, and I recommend other business owners do the same in their states. Record all evidence of the defamation, false light, extortion and coercion by yelp. They are criminal thugs who need to be sued and put in prison.
THEY NEED TO BE STOPPED DEAD IN THEIR TRACKS.NOW! THEY ARE PUTTING FINE BUSINESSES OUT OF BUSINESS.I decided NOT to advertise with them, and all good reviews got filtered, but the one VERY negative review is first.
Where do I sign?
My recent post Home
YELP gave our business a big fat negative! I just recently noticed that most of my reviews from customers are bad reviews and I asked myself how could this be possible? Well perhaps, we do have a lot of local hater customers, but it's impossible for our business to not have at least some positive reviews. After carefully reviewing the site, I noticed that there is a "filtered reviews" link. Of course, as soon as I open up that link, there goes all the positive reviews! While my business rating could be at least 3.5+ stars, it's now 2 stars! I tried to contact YELP, well that is no help at all because supposedly the site itself has a "filter" to scan for any fake reviews! that is bullshit! who in the world can you scan such thing!!! Anyway, I really wish that one day YELP will file bankrupt because this site is definitely a SCAM. Perhaps, if I advertise through YELP, YELP might be able to transfer my positive reviews away from the filtered section….. this really sucks and how much it has ruin my restaurant image!!!
If you advertise, don't expect your filtered reviews to come out of the filter. Unless the sales person was the one who hired the writers of the reviews then they'll be able to get rid of them.
this same exact thing has happened to me. I was contact by someone at yelp to advertise, coincidentally
two days later SEVEN reviews were filtered. all of them five stars. My rating went down from 4 start to 2.5 ? how is this legal? seven legitimate review all positive taken down?????
Yelp has completely ruined my business. We were a kitchen remodeling/ refinishing company and because there are no other businesses like us, we had no competition and business was extremely good. We had at least ten new customers coming in every single day, and at least 3 signing the contract every day with the average project being around $7000. It was absolutely amazing. Then, like any other businesses in the world, there was that one bitter customer who wanted $10000 worth of work done for $4000, and when we denied, she put up a nasty review exaggerating and making up stuff that has never happened. My other clients started writing 5 star reviews to protect the business because 99% of my clients were beyond satisfied, but Yelp filtered out all of them, leaving just two. We ended up with 3.5 stars with a nasty review, and our business went down hill in a couple of weeks. Then you know, we are a small business- we had to close down. The 8 families who were working with us were all laid off.
When we were advertising on yelp, they never told us that we were going to be in a 1 year contract.
so when we figured that yelp advertising wasn't helping at all, we contacted them and asked to stop.
Then they say well then you need to pay a termination fee worth two months of advertising.
So we said ok fine then we don't want to spend more than $300 a month.
They said ok and what do you know? they charge us $350 every month.
They never answer their phones, nor respond to emails.
My business ad help person says she answers the phone by an appointment basis. WTF?
then when we finally had enough and said we will pay the termination fee, they took $750 (isn't it supposed to be $600?) then still took $350 every month.
We disputed the fees through the bank of course, but Yelp is just…. they should really get sued and pay back all the small businesses for the harm they've done.
Absolutely frustrating.
Our business has been alive since1975.
thanks Yelp for closing us down finally.
I have a small child care center, one parent wrote a nasty review on yelp, I asked them to remove it because she named all the workers and what she said was false but they said no. I told some other clients about it and they went on and wrote good reviews that are filtered! When I went on the today there was an advertisement from another daycare on it! I emailed yelp and asked to post the positive 4 reviews but haven't heard from them. This is hurting my company, its one of the first things that shows up when you google daycares in my town! They are going to make me lose potential customers and don't care!
Dear Kimma,
The same thing happened to me in my city. The parent was really upset that she could not get in and took her rage out on me on yelp. I let yelp know that the parent was never a part of my daycare and the 10 positive reviews were all filtered after I declined advertising. I have 1 child in my care and no one wants to sign up because they think I'm going to harm their child. I wish there was more that I could do other than rant. I feel quite helpless
What everyone needs to understand about Yelp:
1. They don't just remove positive or negative reviews because you do not subscribe to their monthly subscription as many think, they often run a software program that moves positive and negative reviews to a filtered link from non – active users, if the person who wrote a positive review for you never writes another review, that review will stay in the filtered link, any time another review is written, your review will move out of of the filtered link, it goes back in if the person does not stay active.
2. If you subscribe to their monthly service, a competitors business who is on yelp will NOT be displayed near your business, If you do not subscribe, there will always be a competitor near your listing.
3. Also, if you subscribe Yelp will also re-arrange your reviews, positives are now first and at the top, and negatives are obviously at the bottom. This only makes sense for those businesses that have have a mix of positive and negative reviews.
The key to winning with Yelp is to have as many positive reviews, that way you can afford to have a few bad reviews as most people disregard a few if you have allot of positive reviews.
Claim your business on Yelp and customize the content with the stuff you would have on a website, hours, cities served, specialties, low cost, delivery, etc…. as this will be searched on by the search engines like Google.
On some parts of the country especially California, being on Yelp with positive reviews is the difference maker, those who ignore this will never do as well as if they managed this with priority.
1 review (the wost one) and 43 filtered reviews thanks Yelp for taking away my happiness!
I had only been to Yelp once as a consumer before I went searching for the reason why my phone stopped ringing and my potential clients abruptly cut-off contact before the first consultation could be scheduled. After 20 years as a small construction company it was obvious something was wrong. Sure enough, I found my listing on Yelp and it had one review on it, a negative review. I had never "claimed" that listing and immediately asked Yelp to remove it. I did not want to be reviewed. Yelp refused, they said that I did, infact sign up for that account. In an apparent deft move they transferred my email and password from my consumer account to my business account. It was officially "claimed" now.
Upon excepting the reality of lost business I worked hard and gathered 8 positive reviews over the next 2 years. Business actually got pretty good once I had a robust listing. But that didn't last long. Recently all 7 good reviews have been removed and now I am back to a single negative review and a single positive review (soon to be filtered no doubt). And now more than ever I am feeling the affect. Yelps attitude is that they simply don't care. I am in a bad situation as I know that getting more reviews is pointless, meanwhile I cannot escape the slandering review being promoted by Yelp. How is it legal for Yelp to use my name for profit against my will? Actually, they are profiting from the review of my company name, which IMO makes it illegal.
I have the same issue. YELP tried to make me sign up at least $350/month for a year. I declined and all the reviews went in filtered section in a week of that. I have only one review with 1 star on the main page and rest 19 in filtered one. And the one that appears on main page does not even know what an authentic Indian food is probably. And he is the only one whose review is on main page contributing solely to overall rating of our restaurant. Upon contacting YELP I got below reply for solution… a funny one- read it.
AUG 15, 2013 | 04:51PM PDT
Hi there,
It's a bit of a Catch-22, but the more we describe how the system works, the easier it is for people to game the system and write fake reviews. This proves frustrating for some, but the most we can say is that businesses should continue providing a world class customer experience and let the reviews take care of themselves over the long term.
You can learn more here: http://www.yelp.com/faq#what_is_the_filter
Finally, I wanted to assure you with 100% certainty that Yelp treats advertisers and non-advertisers exactly alike with respect to reviews. We hope you will take the time to read about some common misconceptions about our practices here: http://www.yelp.com/myths.
Regards,
Sierra
Yelp User Support
San Francisco, California
Your response from Yelp is insulting at best. They need to go.
Not true. If you don't advertise with them they put competing ads on your business display so potential customers will see your competitor who pays to advertise with them. It is a scam
I have 2 stores, different locations. EXACT same product, service people, management. Yelp has allowed 15 positive reviews to be posted at one location (where I do pay for Yelp top dog), while filtering 15 positive reviews at my second location, where I do NOT pay for this service. Try explaining that to me please.
Yelp is not a company. Yelp is your local mafia collecting protection money after they allow others to ruin your reputation. Yelp has no customer service. Their "sales representatives" are rude, nasty and desperate. We need to bring them to court. Everything else was posted, tried and written about. Let's start legal actions.
You people are nuts. We declined to advertise with Yelp and low and behold we STILL have 5 stars. Maybe you should concentrate less on Yelp and more on your customers.
I would love to see your company on yelp whats the name of it and state it's in
I agree!
Well.. Amber!! You must either be perfect, or lying!! Or maybe you are a business that is so new that you just haven't got the negative reviews yet. Trust me… Stay in business long enough, and you will see what Yelp is really like! Btw…. What type of business do you have? This could also make a difference!!
Just because it did not affect you, it doesn't mean it could not affect others. Wait a little until some psycho comes and puts nonsense stuff on yelp. It's just a matter of time. Or someone calls, starts yelling on you on your own businesses and you refuse service. Or competitor comes and fabricates review to win business since all calls are coming to your way. Then see what happens. Yelp is an evil organization, almost everyone is talking bad stuff about this company. The owner looks like satan, look at expression of his eyes, good people don't have that look, can clearly see he is a SOB. Why you blame others?
And you are rude and small minded. Just because something hasn't happened to you (yet) , doesn't mean it didn't happen to someone else.
I'm collecting data and found something. All of you should check your "rating details" chart. I have print screens of reviews I had captured previously, and of the ones I have now. I was aware they (yelp sales) were going to start calling in the early summer because all of my reviews were unhidden. It's almost like migration of geese. Now, even with the mediocre reviews exposed and the majority of my reviews hidden, I don't look bad…..BUT if you look at the chart, it appears that something is actively going wrong with my business. The average star rating dropped after I explained that I could not afford to sign a contract for the amount they require. There are no new negative reviews received or dated during the time the drop happened (am logging all data). The only thing that changed is that reviews that are over a year old were re-exposed. Also, those reviews are 1 time reviewers with no activity (print screens from last year to prove this) so there is nothing that would make the "algorithm" suddenly find them more valid than the current reviews. Other than my inability to pay, that is. The chart is deceptive, if not dishonest, at best and is absolutely something that can be argued against in a court of law. There is data. There are facts and I would be that there are more than one business that can show the fallacy in this particular tidbit of information. I believe that this might be of benefit to whomever is working that class action suit.
Send me over your data! I am contacted weekly by major media looking for a business that has collected the data from before, during and after getting "the call". If you're willing to go public with the data, I'm sure they'd love to have you on!
Oh shit,. this one seems like have a case. if you can prove that they brought up one star reviews while generally they don't they this seems can interest some lawyers if yelp keeps claiming they don't give preferrantial treatment.
yelp are liars the made statments which are untrue. i have tried to call and a messager comes on we are a internet compant and we do noy take calls we have been denied asscess t o responed our alledged statments
our account manager has never calledback yelp should be sued personally and destroy them as the are in fact doing to others for profit
[…] http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/226832 http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/24/yelp-class-action-lawsuit/ https://yelp-sucks.com/tell-your-yelp-story […]
The by now famous Yelp.com despotic and autocratic "review" filtering on businesses does apparently not stop or hesitate to produce and create deliberate false statements, in bad faith, acting, causing and supporting defamation, libel and slander, willful acts of social cyber terrorism, with deliberate mal-intent to cause harm and damage by falsification of facts, sabotaging persons and businesses well being and the interest security of the United States and it’s citizens and those who do legitimate business.
1. “Reviewers” with blatant fabrications, derogatory falsifications and lies can be and are falsely listed as "First to review". Despite that other [positive and hidden] reviews where written by other verifiable individual clients up to years before.
2. Reviewers who write a deliberate false statement as a review are not held libel by the publisher [Yelp] or accountable in any way or are verified for accuracy and truthfulness of their statements and intent. This is equal as if one would call for the assassination of the President of the Untied States and the CIA/FBI would not be bothered and concerned the least by it.
3. Provable legit new positive reviews of a business are hidden again no less than 72 hours after being publicized for no apparent reason other than to evidently cause harm and damage to a small business.
This and other Yelp actions are again another repeated deliberate extortionist attempt by Yelp to distorting and obstruct truth and facts, passively cyber terrorizing a business, causing willfully harm, damage and suffering.
Yelp's actions and subsequent denial about having influence on all these Yelp controlled actions is equal to the statement that “the holocaust never happened”. Review Elite[arian] (Nazis) evidently support such culture and modus operandi.
Yelp is with such actions and denial willing and actively supporting causes that undermine the interests, security and safety of businesses in, and the United States, it’s allies and citizens.
YELP filtered out 17 four and five star reviews. They didn’t have enough negative reviews for our business and fabricated one. The kicker was it was from someone in Battle Creek MI. We only do business in S. Florida. I suggest everyone flag YELP on Google for violation of Google’s terms and Use agreement.
I am a Doctor, and we have had several bad reviews from people who never were patients ? could these be scams?? and 7 positive reviews taken down.
I was watching CNN a couple of days ago, this guy from reputation.com was on talking about how to build your on line reputation! What's interesting is that the interviewer disclosed that Yelp and reputation.com share a few board members!! Did you guys know about that? How strange and even creepy is that? How they are allowed to do that. On one site they post phony fake reviews and then on other site charge you to remove them! Where is the government?
The other thing that came up was that the Attorney General is after those business owners posting or buying reviews for themselves which is great. I believe they should go after those posting false bad reviews too.
As a matter of fact if there is no proof of any transaction, why should be any reviews! I think senates should do something about these and we have to do something that they hear us. Also, what about freedom of speech of those posting the positive reviews that Yelp filters them right away?
Very interesting! I had no idea Yelp shared board members with Reputation.com. I find that super interesting given what I know about some of the tactics that Reputation.com uses to remove legitimate bad reviews (revealed to me by one of their clients)… yes, very, VERY interesting…
Wow, thank you for this information. I will watch out for this. T
Thanks for the post. The other thing that came up was that the Attorney General is after those business owners posting or buying reviews for themselves which is great. I believe they should go after those posting false bad reviews too. Keep up[ the good work and keep posting.
I have read all of these complaints and now I can see that what has happened to us is happening all over. We had a 5 star rating with our clients posting their honest reviews. We had one person put a bad one star review and not even about our service on our account. The new client called our salon and couldn't get through (our phone was out of order). She then ranted about how bad our business was for not taking her call DUH!. So now Yelp decides to "filter our all of our 4 and 5 star comments and leave the one. When I finally got an advertising person from Yelp she suggest that I advertise with Yelp to get my rating back. Yes this is extortion and they should be stopped. I have written to the Attorney General. This will hurt my business. A great reputation of 27 years destroyed by Yelp. You can't even get them on the phone to talk to someone. I cancelled my account and they left the one bad review on. So now all I have is the one bad review. Sick company.
I have a hair transplant center. The business is not like a restaurant that everyone want to go on and write review. People do not want to link their name to a hair restoration procedure. That is why we have over 20 good reviews that are filtered (from clients that created a new yelp account to give us review) and out of 3 review that shows 2 are 1 star. The bad reviews do not match any of our patients in the system and we are sure they are from our competitors.
Any idea how we can fix this?
Thanks,
Seriously, I'm in the same boat.
Firebomb the Yelp offices, that will send a message and the media will pick up upon it!
Seriously!
The censuring action of Yelp are a freedom of speech violation!
I don't condone violence of any kind. There are many legal ways to show and prove how Yelp is misbehaving and manipulating reviews. I do however, condone getting creative. Like when fans started sending peanuts to the studio when they cancelled Jericho. Now that was creative, got a ton of media coverage and got the desired effect, that the show was brought back (if only for a 6 episode arc).
I appreciate your feedback.
Will plan to be creative, but we are losing business every day because of them.
Thanks,
No it's not, it's their site and can keep whatever content they want and can remove whatever content they don't like. There is no law prohibiting it. Even more, if you advertise it might not me illegal for them to take some good reviews from the filer or from the bottom and move them up. They don't create these reviews, someone else wrote, right? So, like BBB where those who pay they list on the top, here they can do it too. They won't do because then yelp will lose its credibility, not because they will get sued.
Very well said. I am a celebrity Hairstylist and have clients that visit me at my exclusive salon space who mave had some work done and do not want to be exploited by yelp, they basically would like to write a review for my business vs become a "yelper." When I signed up for yelp it was a way to generate average customers to fill in my schedule amongst my VIPs, for my business, not manufacture "yelpers.
Well, I'm in a very small town and the Yelp brigade has finally reached my little part of the universe. I didn't sign myself up and I had no intention of ever being part of Yelp; didn't jump on that wagon. But then that choice was taken away from me by either Yelp or a Yelper putting me on the site. The problem that Yelp didn't think through, was with establishments that actually keep RECORDS of their clientele (unlike restaurants). I see a crack in you plan greedy Yelp. Greed, always bring them down. When the reviewer didn't match anyone on my books, I responded to the neg. reviwer as such. I don't know how quickly the neg review came off, but 2 days later when I checked, to see if the reviewer responded to my response, the neg. review was GONE. If I knew Yelp was going to remove the neg. review I would have saved it for the class action lawsuit I'm sure I'm going to be a part of one day.
I hope you succeed.
I spoke to a business owner friend of mine that is spending $2,200 PER MONTH with Yelp.. He told me that according to Yelp, any review with less than 1 post will become deleted That trying to combat the negative with positive does not help..
Wow, that's terrible. I hope the CEO of YELP! goes to prison for all this scamming.
Yelp post review from a close down business with 1 start rating on my business. with different business name and all. and this really hurting my business. i contacted yelp but they refuse to take it off. also trying to sue them but no lawyers want to take the case. I don't see how is this legal
When Yelp was Qype, my business had 17 genuine positive reviews and a 5star rating. Yelp "Filtered" these reviews believing them to be untrue and fake. Now the only review visible on their website is a negative one. As the business owner I can't even comment on it and inform readers of the facts! I'm fuming about the whole situation and am determined to take action to re-post all the lovely reviews that people have taken the time to write.
We on the same boat. My business on Yelp rating are bad because only 2 negative review and Yelp bring it up instead of the good one, and they filtered when i not pay them for advertising even that is the true review. Other thing when i leave the negative feed back to the big company who paid a lot of $ for Yelp and my review was filtered too. What is wrong with this picture when Yelp have no right to do that
YELP indeed sucks!
I bought a Kindle Fire HD at Fry's in Fountain Valley, Ca. They were all out of the model I wanted, and they said they had a returned unit, so I bought it, when I got it home it did not work and ,I discovered missing cables so I called Fry's , they were NO help. I then called Amazon, they had me try a few things, and guess what, A BAD UNIT.
What a great company Amazon is, they are sending a new one tomorrow, with a pre-paid return box.
LESSON LEARNED, DO NOT BUY ANYTHING FROM FRY'S THAT HAS BEEN OPENED.
I am a small business owner, running a dog walking service for the past twelve years. I also happen to be disabled, I am blind. Several months ago a scathing review was posted on Yelp from someone I have never even met, let alone worked for. A few days after this posting Yelp advertising called me and pressured me to advertise. I asked for their help, as I had been unable to contact anyone at Yelp about this false review, telling the advertising person that I was disabled and could use some help. My pleas for help were ignored, just more pressure to advertise. I declined to advertise , since the advertising salesman would not help me . Within a few hours of my refusal to advertise, all my positive reviews were filtered. Due to this bad review, I have seen a decline in new customers. My loyal customers have written truthful reviews on Google, Yahoo, City Search, Kudzu and Yelp. These positive reviews are up on every site, except for Yelp where they have been filtered. Can anybody help?
Why a multi million dollar company can get a way with blackmail!!!!!!!
We are a popular New York City Day Spa and Laser Center, with pretty good percentage of positive reviews overall for over 12 years now.
Our Day Spa Le Cachet Skin Care and Laser Center had really great reviews on Yelp, from many of our loyal clients. After receiving a few salesmen calls from Yelp to advertise with them, since at the time we did not agree to advertise, all of our positives reviews were removed (so called FILTERED) and bad really ugly fabricated lies in a form of reviews appeared.
If you visit us on Yelp you will see 8 reviews out of which 6 or 7 very bad, fabricated lies. If you click on the so called FILTERED reviews its a nice way to say removed reviews by Yelp, you will see about 21 reviews out of which 20 all positive….why would yelp remove positive reviews while promotes negative reviews…its simple – IF YOU REFUSE TO ADVERTISE WITH THEM, THEY WILL PUNISH YOU!!!! -Yelp should be prosecuted in full extend of the LAW-
This is a Copy what I have posted on yelp in reference to a fraudulent review by YELP:
The above Review is a FRAUDULENT LIE, these people never visited our day spa. These lies girlfriends and boyfriend team, where they describe the same situation twice, totally different ways… NO one is stupid to see and recognize that these ugly negative provocative reviews either of an angry competition, or YELP campaign to punish businesses, who refused to advertise with YELP. We launched a complaint against YELP with the Attorney General of the State of New York , and Yelp is under investigation for fraudulent practices, with thousands of small businesses who refused to advertise with Yelp….. YELP promoting NEGATIVE reviews while .. removes POSITIVE reviews, so called FILTERING IT !!!!! PLEASE SEE BELOW FILTERED- you will see the real reviews that yelp doesn't want you to see!!!! if you refused to advertise with YELP they will remove all positive reviews!!!!!
We refused to advertise with them so you can see the result!!!!!!SHAME on you YELP!!!!!! PLEASE REMOVE OUR SITE COMPLETELY FROM YELP, WE ARE DEMANDING IT!!!!!!!!!!
It's their site and they can post whatever they want as long as it does not violate any laws. They are information providing company or even if they are not, you cannot ban people to post in their website or other place the address and name of your business. Actually when you incorporate or file DBA it's public info, and you cannot opt not to be informed, it's even a requirement to be informed about your address, phone. name.
Yelp actually says at their German website that they indeed favor their advertising clients. Not directly but very clearly indirectly.
Here is the original quote:
"Ermöglicht es Yelp Anzeigenkunden, Beiträge mit negativer Bewertung zu entfernen oder zu verstecken?
Keinesfalls. Klipp und klar: Man kann uns nicht dafür bezahlen, dass wir schlechte Bewertungen entfernen oder neu anordnen. Auch möchten wir an dieser Stelle erwähnen, dass wir über bestimmte Einstellungen in unserem Betriebssystem verfügen. So trennen wir beispielsweise die Einnahmenseite unseres Unternehmens von der Beitragsseite, so wie auch Zeitungen ihre Werbe- und Nachrichtenfunktion trennen."
OMG! It's German. Well, it is from the German site, what do you expect? But with a little bit of help from google and my rusty English skills, you get a translation:
"Does Yelp allow its advertisers to remove or hide posts with a negative rating?
Not at all. Bluntly said: You can not pay us that we remove bad reviews or rearrange. At this point we would also like to mention that we have certain settings in our operating system. So we separate, for example, the revenue of our company from the posting department, just like newspapers separate their advertising and article department."
Note they say they act just like the newspapers do. Well, there is this well-known fact that if you are good newspaper client, i.e. you buy advertisements, that they will return the favor and probably write an article about you sooner or later. So they are actually saying that of course they favor their advertisement clients in some way but not so krass that they will let them edit reviews themselves. Yelp will probably do that for them.
…and newspapers can be held libel for what they publish….
I am a very small business owner in south jersey. I was recently informed by a customer of mine that she posted a review on Yelp and it was not listed. She tried again, still not able to see it. She brought this to my attention about a month ago. At that point I took a look at my reviews on the Yelp site. Turns out that I actually have nine reviews. One one star review from someone that decided to not do business with and returned his deposit, a Three star from someone and SEVEN five star reviews from actual customers that are filtered out. When I inquired about the filter through the side I received a stock email from them about their computer filter. I have since been locked out of accessing my business listing. Yelp is not a place for a reliable review. I will continue to post about this until this BULLY of a business is gone.
We are a small restaurant with 5 stars on yelp due to 8 positive reviews. They bugged us to advertise for a while, we said no, now our account is suddenly closed. No notification and no response to inquiries. Our reviews are still there, maybe because most are from heavy users. The irony is I found this out because I was considering trying the advertising, tried to log in to get info and got a message our account was closed.
i just know YELP is sucks because i do have 95%good review and all together 73 and 65 in filters and 8 is out there and my stars use to be 4 and half now 2 and half because of YELP !!!!!when i talk to sale person he wants to me to pay $350 per month to advertise with them sorry Yelp is sucks if i say something i will say really bad so please dont give review on YELP
Thank You Adryenn Ashley for creating this site! I could post my story here about how I realized Yelp Sucks and how EVIL I believe they are for hurting small businesses but you don't need another story to convince you. Instead I would like to share with you my idea to get the word out. The only way to stop Yelp is to make sure everyone knows the truth. Once you knew the truth, you stopped trusting them, RIGHT? You stopped recommending them and you stopped using them. The people using Yelp now don't know this is going on. Most small business owners are aware but most customers are NOT. Adryenn Ashley has done her part in getting the word out so now let’s do our part. (part 2 is next)
(Part 2) Every small business owner with a website should make it their goal to reach everyone in their community with this news. Add a page to your website with your own personal story about what Yelp is doing to you and add links on that page to sites like this one. You just have to show up on the first page of Google for your area, not the whole country. If you understand SEO, you'll know what keywords and Meta tags to use and if you don't, your web guy should. You could also get together with other small businesses in your area and start a blog site like "Yelp Reviews Hurting Small Businesses in (your city)" where people can comment. All you need is a good website/SEO person to create this. I have already started my page on my website and after that I'm starting a blog site (WordPress) for my area. Then, I'm going to e-mail everyone I can with links to these sites to get the ball rolling. Any other ideas? Who’s with me?
We are a preschool. A couple years ago we had someone write a poor review that was from a former family from a couple years prior (the statements were untrue). We then had several parents who were very upset about our poor review and went and wrote positive ones. Those were all filtered. I guess I understand that, they were all written within a couple days of each other (word travels fast in a small school). However, 2 months ago a family wrote a glowing review about our school. We hadn't had a review in some time and this review was filtered out as well. For no reason.
We don't get reviewed a ton, it's not the place people go looking for reviews of preschools, but it still hurt us and continues to do so. Yelp doesn't seem to care. If you are a first time reviewer, you can almost guarantee that review will be "filtered."
We have not been approached about advertising so I can't say that we are a victim of not advertising, but then again, who really knows.
I just don't understand how they can say that reviews are filtered without doing at least a little checking!
Disgusting. It really is. I'm disgusted with the bottom-line thinking with complete lack of integrity. It seems like when a great idea (like Yelp) takes off and people trust it, that's when the greed and corruption comes in. I hate businesses without integrity. You are polluting us with your poison.
We are Fighting to remove businesses from Yelp that do not want to be there. See the Facebook page and let us know if you want to be part of it.
Julian McMillan
Thats a great idea and i would like to support that. I am speaking at a Stock event in January. I was invited and cant wait to expose my experience with yelp to current and potential Yelp stock holders. We are going to outline the major problems with Yelps system. Its unfortunate Yelp doesnt work on making improvements on the way they deal with small businesses. My tree service is Estabrook Tree Care and you can see the false review there by a person named Brandi L. My story is the same as many . We need more speakers if your interested. We are supporting another company as they have a great system thst doesnt decimate small business people in such a unfair and uncaring manner. We are hardworking people who want to just be treated fair on line. I have a 100 percent fake review . Email me as i have a list of stock holding events and clubs that meet all over the US that i need people to tell there stories and expose Yelps uncertain future. Estabrooktreeservice@yahoo
I'm always interested in speaking about the pitfalls of Yelp's current system! I'll send you a note and you can let me know where these talks are. Thanks!
I have also asked for my business to be remove from the Yelp listing as I think Yelp is crap. I am also a victimized business owner and am being subjected to stalking harassment and derogatory comments from a woman that is sending me abusive emails in addition to all of this. Please post how you make out.
i am not on facebook and don't plan to be soon. i do however want to be a part of your fight to remove businesses from yelp that don't want to be there!!! i've had a problem with them for several years and just don't know where to turn.
I need something to be done with yelp. They make my hard worked busiinesses look like garbage. 30 beautiful reviews stay inside the filter
I am interested in helping you any way I can, Yelp is a fascist organization that needs to answer for its sins.
I would like to join your fight.
[email protected]
I would like in on this, I have been screwed by yelp also. Please let me know what help or what we can do to take this site down. email [email protected]
thanks
Horrible is all I can say.Just horrible in every way. Bullies and theives.Get me off this nasty site!
I have a clown business in NYC – Crazy Daisy Clowns. I had one customer who back in July gave me a bad review (she never bothered to tell me that she was unhappy – I found out about it by googling Crazy Daisy Clowns. It was highlighted briefly and then filtered. I contacted Yelp asking if my business listing could be removed. I got a call from Yelp and they asked me if I wanted to advertise with them. I said no.
Maybe about a week later I see the negative review highlighted. Not only that the Yelp review is on the top of the page if you google my business or reviews about my business. Since then I have asked for positive reviews from people who have seen my show. I have gotten the positive reviews but within a day or two they are filtered and buried by Yelp. I have been in business for many years so customers who have seen me perform aren't going to check out my reviews, but the ones who have never seen me perform will. One woman cancelled on me citing the bad reviews, and two others cancelled without cause. And there are people who don't know me and who never call me at all or never call me back this is the hardest to measure in terms of lost business.
All I know is that business has dropped off tremendously in the past 3 or 4 weeks when the negative Yelp review became highlighted and on the top of a front page of a Google search.
Help anyone please??
they are doing the same exact thing to me. just ask any of my customers about me and they will tell you why they have been with me for as long as they have (some 30 years!). but for the people who know nothing about me or my shop and believe everything that's on the internet (yelp) they would probably not even give me chance. but after several years of ignoring the bad false yelp review my business still flourishes and the quality of work is still some of the best around. those who choose not to use me because of the yelp review i guess its just good for me to think to myself, "its their loss". hopefully soon we businesses who want no part of yelp can get their business removed from yelp's site. i know i don't want to be there!!!!
A new lawsuit will be decided in Seattle by Feb. 24 2014,
that addresses the Phony one star reviews that Yelp puts on Google.
A win for this case would mean Yelp would remove there libelous content from Google,
which is where Yelp gets more than 50% of the traffic to the Yelp website.
Doug
Looks like its gone now! Congrats
We've had all positive ratings for our store. Then one day Yelp called to see if we are interested in advertising. We said 'no'. In the following few days all of our ratings and positive comments were filtered. Now at the bottom it says, "15 other reviews that are not currently recommended ". Total BS. Yelp sucks!
I notice all of my good reviews get buried but negative reviews show up right away, no matter what they are – for small businesses I love!
We have eye care patients that tell us how we have changed their life through cataract surgery, LASIK, etc. When they go on Yelp to tell their 5-star story, their reviews ALWAYS get filtered. It appears that Yelp automatically filters all 5 star reviews that we receive. We only have 4 non-filtered reviews on the site and 21 that have been filtered. Our overall score thanks to the incorrect filtering is 3-stars when it should be closer to 4.5 stars. The other review sites out there have us listed as an A grade, but unfortunately, there are patients that will see the 3 stars on Yelp and not call us because it shows up the highest in Google. It's so frustrating and incorrect.