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Tell Your Yelp Story
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 had some reviews on Yelp for a few months but the key thing was they would call me 5-6 times a week trying to sell
me their stuff which I didn't want. When I finally starting yelling at them to take me off the caller list they did stop calling and then erased the the reviews I had gotten which is pure BS.
I left a nasty message stating this which also got filtered along with other ones that have now totaled 6.
If you want some reviews that will stick have friends do some Yelp comments that are nice and average about other businesses but the key thing when it comes to your in the future from them is to leave the comment as a first time using your business from different IP accounts of course.
The Yelp filter is a joke!
I am outraged by Yelp. I just wanted to have my very small business listed on Yelp and all I got was phone calls from them to sell me their advertisement. PLEASE if you can, avoid someone called Samantha who calls you and torment you until you agree to sign up for their advertisement. If you get a call from her or any other advertisement agent for Yelp hang up as soon as you can. I wasn't aware and I agreed to advertise. BIG BIG BIG MISTAKE.
After turning down Yelp's request to spend $300 per month, I too now have great reviews that have been removed to the "not recommended section". It's amazing to see relatively new people in the same business as me, who because they spend the $300 per month, have all their great reviews posted.
Who is ready to act and help me stop this bullying by Yelp..?
According to public Data Yelp has also lost a lot of huge law suits and a lot of customers who have taken the interpretation of a product review too far by online personally bullying, requested monies to remove reviews or have slandered individuals in full name basis on Yelp; have also been sued for hundreds of thousands of pounds. There is a moral right for business owners to protect them selves and their private lives against personal malicious posts that may have originated from a small issue but as in most cases their ego takes it to a whole new level with a hard working small business being their target to rant and potentially cause a public distrust destroying genuine, ethical hard working businesses/ SME.
Is Our personal names & private life public 'Yelp' property to allow and encourage users to slander if one of your products is not ideal in the customers view?
Is the 9 hidden great reviews in contrast to the one 1 star review the policy of an organisation that basis its USP on Transparent service?
I am willing to join a force as a small business person with brains with any business owners to start a legal and public and media supported campaign against yelp to regain our moral rights and the right to have some control over 'Our' personal and Business reputation ; In the hope we can achieve a transparent fair system against financial distortion and hegemony.
Miss B
I’m so ready to help you guys lets do this call me when your free 713-817-6625
I’m ready to help I’m going to start a YouTube channel about this kind of Fraud and Abuse by companies like this.
These Elite reviewers on Yelp rip apart businesses based on their opinion.. Have you ever seen their discussions on Yelp talk? They are the most disgusting example of humanity and They review businesses? It’s ridiculous AND Yelp throws parties and encourages them?These are the type of people that would review Walmart and complain about its lack of gift wrapping services. Why the public even reads their reviews is insulting and needs to be stopped. Yelp is nothing more than a bunch of anonymous hate filled individuals who enjoy bullying
I would love to do that
Hello, Yes, yes and yes! I have been in business for 40 years as a professional Medical Esthetician. I had no problems in my entire career until I signed up with Yelp 4 years ago. I had to sign up with Yelp in order to be able to do Groupon deals (that is another nightmare!) It opened the door to a bunch of cheap, narcissistic, crazies who have the total sense of entitlement and that the world revolves around them. I work so, so hard in order to bring a relaxing ambiance to a really cute SpaTique beauty and wellness center. The service is top notch, the place is decorated to the T, the products we use are the best, and we offer a whole lot of value to our service menu, and charge way under for what they are getting. Still in all, we get many 5 star reviews, but the few other crackpots that try and ruin our business is just so ridiculous. We try to bend over backwards but some of these crazies that hide behind a false name or some of them who have never even gotten in to have one of our treatments are ruining my 41 year reputation and we just can't find a way to get rid of this nightmare!! With all my education, background and experience in the industry I'm really considering quitting my beloved occupation all because of this crap. Yelp reviews are not regulated, or viewed by any responsible party, ANYONE, ANYWHERE , even if they don't know you, or even your competition can just write whatever they want…IT NEEDS TO STOP!! Even if you quit YELP…your YELP page never goes away… It's just horrible and don't know what to do. N.L.Jones
Yelp has been on a campaign to ruin my restaurants name by allowing 1 star posts and by not putting up 4 and 5 star posts from customers that say they wrote them.
I've been in business for 45 years. Always done business the way my father and grandfather did, one to one building relationships and friends for life. Then comes Yelp! Never witnessed anything like this. Some psycho (known) steroid rage guy left a review calling my company and employees "vermin" among other things and that we should all be "exterminated", etc. He had no other reviews and only one friend so his review was "algorithmed" down based on the worthlessness of the comment (I was actually ok with that). Next day I get a sales call from Yelp. I say no thanks to $300/mo because after 16 years at the same location I have no need for advertising of any kind. Then the following day the shit review magically moves to the top of my page and several long standing 5 star reviews go down. And this one star review stays at the top for over a year as other positive reviews come in below it. Meanwhile, I get an onslaught of phone calls from the most aggressive sales people imaginable. I tell these sales jerks, "why in the hell would ANYONE want to pay good money to have Yelp direct traffic to an extreme hate filled review." What kind of logic is that? I even wrote a letter to Stoppelman. Of course, no response. Not even a form letter. No one answers the phone, no customer service, no appeals, they robot decline everything you request. You can't even opt out of their silly service in an effort to get some relief from the constant harassment.
This company, Yelp, needs to go broke. If for no other reason than to teach the world that cyber-bullying from the public and extortion as company policy is not acceptable anywhere anytime. — Tony R. San Rafael, CA
My company had 1 scathing review, and that is the only one Yelp would show. I had many great reviews from clients who were willing to speak to someone from Yelp to verify they were real, Yelp didn't care. I got those calls too, pay us money to promote your business even though it has a negative rating on our site. No help at all with removing it or allowing the positive ones to go to the top. Can't delete your company from their piece of crap internet site. But you can fight back. Go to your on line profile on Yelp as the business owner and edit your company information so it no longer reflects your company at all. Change the name of the company (Yelp Sucks is what I used) put in a fake phone number using your current area code (813-555-5555) fake web address (yelp.com) delete any information you can about your business, including description, pictures, etc. You have to include hours of operation, but you can put those as 1pm to 2pm. Internet searches will no longer find your company on Yelp. People looking on yelp for your business or type of business won't see the negative reviews. They won't find you on Yelp at all.
I too hate these F@%%$#$K A&%%Holes at Yelp. I have an online business that's been given good sevice to thousands. I have 10,00's of good reviews on our website and on Etsy and Ebay.Then you get an idiot customers
who is so stupid that they run and give you a bad review on this horrible site because they are too stupid to read. And like the other people on here have stated. Their review sits right up front. But the good reviews are hidden by these AssHoles!!
I always respond to reviews good or bad. I received a 2 star review from a yelp eliter who faulted me for giving her a 2 week notice that I needed to cancel your job with us when we had 2 people quit our small company the same week, both without notice. Mind you when I cancelled her I provided to her the names and numbers of 3 other local businesses such as mine who I had already spoken to who were all willing to do the work on the same day as we were scheduled for and for the same price! Sooooo, my mistake it seems is that I sent an email to the "elite" area supervisor and suggested that they speak to their elite reviewers and suggest that they remember that the businesses that they are reviewing are also potential customer of yelp (for advertising). Fast forward, today I wake up and check my yelp profile and I see that ALL of my responses to negative reviews have been removed from my profile (not 1 but all as in 6 or 7) What may I ask is the likelyhood of that?!? I called Yelp and made a report and I re-responded to all the negative reviews that I could but I found a couple that I couldn't. Shame on you Yelp!!! once again you prove that you are vindictive
Why isn't yelp screening the reviews before hand? It's another way to bully someone. I'm a server and someone reviewed the restaurant I work at. I'm all for constructive criticism, however I felt this woman was way out of line saying I was only good for refilling water and bringing checks. We live in a time where people are able to express their opinions while hiding behind their computers, cells, tablets, etc. I often check yelp reviews and I've noticed a few go missing. It's weird how it was the 5 star reviews. Yelp is like a place where people can complain. Sometimes people come in already in a bad mood, so why do businesses have to suffer?
I, too, have been harassed by a yelp employee named Peter. I have told him that I hate yelp because of some bogus negative reviews of my business. He will not stop calling and when I tell him NO he becomes rude. Now why would I ever want to be involved with a company that hires idiots like Peter. Yelp is a sight for cowards. No full name needed. I have a 5 STARS on facebook but not on yelp. I agree that this sight only harms hardworking business owners.
Here's a solution for you all who despise Yelp. Since they won't let you take down the page – Go to your business page and edit the company information like I did. My company information is no longer part of the listing on Yelp in any way at all, so potential customers aren't going to find my company on Yelp and see the negative review that is the only one showing. Google searches aren't going to pull up the Yelp page when customers search for my services, nor will it come up when they search my company name or phone number. https://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-sucks-tampa Then when a rep calls you about advertising, you can tell them your company isn't listed and you don't want it to be.
Lisa – thank you for your solution. That sounds appealing. Did you change your address too? Well I guess I should ask what do I need to change?
Lisa
What exactly did you do ? Please help?
Login to your business account. Minimal information is a business name, city, state, zip code and then you need to pick at least 1 category. If you do it correctly it will come back with a green bar across the top telling you your business information has been updated. If you don't the bar across the top will stay red. Good Luck!!!
We did the same thing – posted this yelp-sucks.com/tell-your-story link instead of our company website link and posted pictures telling people that "Looks like people hate us on yelp – is this because we refuse to pay for "advertising" ? and "scroll down to view the "currently not recommended reviews".
Yelp is removing the pictures every day and also changes the business contact info back to our business website. So we just update our business page daily – sometimes twice a day.
When Yelp called trying to sell advertising I told them as a wholesale company that we do not advertise.
Then the phony bad reviews started showing up and phone offers to take them down for $350.00
This all started when a customer that thought they were doing a good thing by giving us a positive review alerted Yelp to our existence.
My company has been in business for over 35 years with an impeccable reputation before this nonsense started last year.
We have never given Yelp permission to use our business image, name or logo.
The one positive review mysteriously disappeared.
Thanks, Lisa, this was a super great idea! I have changed my business name on Yelp only and now it is gone from the Yelp site FOREVER! Thank GOD!! Free at last!!
Yelp advertising a complete rip off! $52 PER CLICK!!!!!!!!!!!!! DON'T ADVERTISE WITH YELP. Signed up for $725 per month in advertising with Yelp First month $5 per click. Every month per click cost went up. After 3 months they were charging over $40 per click. I called and they suggested making changes to my profile so I did as instructed by Yelp rep. Next month $52 per click charge. I pulled the plug after three weeks of run around with yelp agents finally saying it might go up again next month!! No Way!!! Now they want $700 cancellation fee. Not a chance! DON'T ADVERTISE WITH YELP. YOU'LL BE SORRY!
Went through the same thing, dont fall into their trap!
"EXTORTING" small business is what Yelp does best! I have been a victim of their extortion tactics as well. I had no problems with the free listing that I had running with Yelp. After many, many sales calls from the Yelp telemarketers, I was eventually convinced that since the free listing was driving a few customers to my business, the paid advertising would drive considerable more customers to my business by removing my competitors from the top of my listing and moving me up to the top of the search results. Initially, Yelp wanted a year commitment but I told them I was not willing to sign up for a year not knowing if it would be a good investment. I eventually received a call from Yelp with an offer to sign up for a 90 day term to try their service. I agreed to try it for 90 days although they said they required a bank card to be on file automatic withdrawal. I advised them that I did not want automatic withdrawal and requested that they bill me. They said there was no other option and refused to bill me so I reluctantly gave them my banking card information. After trying the paid Yelp service, I can honestly say I did not see any increase in traffic so I chose not to continue the service beyond the agreed upon 90 days. Well, they continued to take money from my business account for an additional 60 days beyond the 90 day period. I was required to cancel my card to keep them from taking money from my account.
I have since moved my business location and as business owner, I logged into Yelp and edited my business address with no problem although the changes would go back to my old address the following day. I attempted to make the address change 6 times but Yelp would change it back to my old address until I called Yelp and complained. Rather than simply changing my address, these corrupt idiots started a new listing without any of my photos, all my reviews were not transferred to the new listing and of course my competitors are back at the top of my listing and my listing is certainly nowhere near the top of the search results. To top it off, I have found that I have new reviews and Yelp has most of these reviews hidden and labeled as "Not recommended reviews". I have a feeling that these reviews would likely not be hidden if they were bad reviews! What Yelp is guilty of is "EXTORTION" – they extort money from small businesses much like the Italian mafia was known for. Yelp has had class action lawsuits filed against them in the past and I think it is time for them to have a real fat lawsuit filed against them real soon to teach them a lesson! I'm in, are you??? Let's do this!!! I know an attorney who might be willing to take on this case.
How can we be in on this with no contact info? Not even sure where you're located but as you can see, we've all been pretty well screwed by Yelp without the benefit of lube…..
I am all in for suing Yelp together. They are allowing all the dumb asses that have no life to post review and yes, majority of them had some ax to grin, including those that have no life and not even customers, to just use yelp to vent. Raj was calling for class action as well and his contact is as following: [email protected] I can be reached at [email protected] as well.
Looking forward to hear back from you!
Lucy
My recent post The World’s Most Famous Eyewear
I am a small business owner in Texas, business is great and all my reviews are great on Facebook, I have had several 5 star reviews and one one star review from a competitor, yelp took them all off except the 1 star review when I refused to advertise with them. This should be illegal but word of mouth is my best advertisements and will always be, I sleep great at night, run a “honest business”. Wish consumers knew the truth about yelp and the mafia style antics they rely on. Like I said, word of mouth is your best, or worst advertisement, and I tell everyone I know how they are.
I’m appalled and disgusted by Yelp and their shady behavior. THIS HAS TO BE A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT IN THE MAKING. If so, count me in.
We magically had 14 reviews removed and placed in the “not recommended” section. 12 of which were five star reviews. Every time we get a customer who leaves a five star review, we have another one removed. I feel like their goal is to keep us under 4 stars at any cost. We would be at 4.5 stars if they didn’t remove any of them since we currently only have 32 total reviews not including the ones they removed.
The jacked up thing is that they leave one star reviews from customers who have not left any other reviews before or after the one they left for us and it was their one and only post but any five star that is similar is being removed. I’ve seen posts from businesses who have had hundreds or thousands removed and not recommended which I believe is bogus. This completely shady and crooked.
We worked so hard to start and increase our average stars and have busted our butts trying to impress the heck out of our guests so that they would actually take the time to leave us reviews and after all that effort, they just get removed. However, any one star review remains. Even one star reviews which seam like they are from competitors and ones with foul language remain but genuin five star reviews from impressed guests are being removed. I’m disgusted with Yelp and I hope someone would sue the heck out of them and put them out of business.
This is so deflating and demoralizing.
We are suffering same problem an I’m ready to get involved for any lawsuit against this mafia
This is happening to my business reviews as well and they basically said their software does it and there isn't anything they can do about it. Its unreal! I'm really irritated and the support for advertising guy who I was speaking to about it was rude to me as well. I don't understand the point of doing all of the work to get a review only for YELP to take it and put it in a not recommended section! I only have a total of 5 reviews and YELP removed 3 of my 5 star ratings!!
I have had the same thing as well. It's appalling. I had all good reviews and then they added this "software" that screens reviews and now I have horrible reviews and they just keep getting worse. yet not the case on other site. very fishy to me. I heard that they want you to pay money to put your 5 star reviews on top. not sure if it's true or not, but wouldn't be surprised.
There is a class action suit against Yelp in court now. Just search yelp class action suit and you can join the the lawsuit. There are quite a few small businesses here in Maryland that Yelp extorted money from or removed all their 5 star reviews when they declined to pay ridiculous ad fees. Yes they have recordings of numerous sales reps, screenshots of reviews being removed right after refusing to advertise. There are over 25 businesses just in maryland gathering info and proof against Yelps fraudulent practices. Anybody that deals with Yelp hasnt looked at 1000s of negative reviews on Yelp/
yes do not agree to it and did not sign with them
EXACT SAME issue here. we are locked at 2.5 stars for two years. i took screen shots for the past year , every time we get a 5 star a 1 star comes out of the filter the very next day, no matter what it says or the reviewers history. Therefore there is no magic filter its being controlled by a rigged algorithm. We are almost out of 1 star reviews prob 5 left so im so curious what will happen at that point.. Will they start to bury the elite reviews?
You would never imagine a company of this magnitude have a scam operation running targeting hard working small business owners.
Yelp advertising is an absolute scam, their technology is very simple yet they continue to reply with same answers and keep you going. There is no transparency on why the ad was displayed to a particular user, they put you in a "category" and if if a user searches anything related to that category of keywords you ads pops up, the scam part is that user might be searching for something completely unrelated and if they do click on your ad, see your profile, move on, you pay and they pocket.
They are not able to show the business owner on why,who they displayed the ad to and where the clicks are coming from, there was such a great inconsistency between other PPC platforms that I have used I was fortunate enough to figure out their scam early enough.
Salesperson was extremely dishonest, promised free $200/month that never came, they keep feeding you the same story about adjusting the profile, pulling out the tool box etc…professional scammers don't know how a person can work in an organization like this and how they are able to get away with it.
Is there any way to get out of the ridiculous cancelation fee of $700?
I don't think so they just debited my account the full cancellation fee before the last day my service was to end. Good Luck
Best way is to call them and be nice….hard to do. Politely drop down to their minimum which is $325. Imediately after you sign to change it send them an email to cancel. You will have to pay another month @ $325 and a cancelation of $325. That is the best way I can guess. Hope that helps. Going thru the same thing myself atm.
we told our bank about them and they are aware of the movie on their extoriton practices and numerous lawsuits and they blocked any more withdrawls from Yelp. When a bank knows they are fraudulent thats bad. They told us they have done this for numerous small businesses.
Yelp has been posting 3 stars and under for years. I know for a fact that customers rant and rave about how good our Chinese Buffet is . They post 5 stars and there removed or never posted. They have 1 star ratings dating 3 and 4 years ago from competitors and reviewd not even pertaining to our food. Yelp even posted a racist comment and after i complained took it iff…I still have a scan of the post. Yelp is so baised its unbelievable!!!
Yelp is destroying my business and my family. We have the best food I will bet for but we had 6 reviews that were all 5 stars in the past 2 weeks but they all got removed to not recommended. Me and my family got so happy and excited for these comments bc we considered it as a credit for our hard work and our customer service but it was shocking when they all got removed and we have 3 stars on yelp and all the 1 or 2 stars reviews are still there in the beginning which really hurts our business an my family financially as we have many customers who get in and then we see them opening yelp bc it’s their first time to try us but they leave after they see the 2 or 3 reviews in the begning and this is ruining our business, our family , our future
I hate yeeeeelllllllpppppp I hate u u r a life ruiner
Yelp removed ALL of my good reviews.
David Selig
Selig & Associates
★★★★★
WARNING: NEVER CLAIM YOUR BUSINESS ON YELP its a death certificate. Even though you enter your business info under they guise that you are freely advertising – you will never be able to take it down! Yelp is a complete scam – since 2008 7 years my small business attained positive reviews but Yelp only posts negative ones claiming that its some sort of software that does the work – If you call the staff they have the education level of 4 year olds and will hang up on you within minutes of the call – they have been sued for dismal business practices and BBB gives them the worst rating on the internet. This business is a bubble waiting to pop as their law suits pile up recommend shorting this company that won't be here much longer.
Why does it have to be so hard to contact yelp? I have tried multiple times to have my password reset and it wont send me the email and now there is now way to contact them but if they want me to buy advertisement from them they won't stop contacting me….
Here is my email to YELP, after I found out with a loss for my business, that reviews dont get posted and that all that was understood from my side about yelp, didnt really happen:
I just spoke to one of your very nice colleagues, and I gotta say, every one that I spoke to on help is always very nice.
As a business owner I was looking forward to be on yelp and even though I felt kind of pushed into signing up with Yelp Ad – yes I know, I made the decision to do so, but everyone I spoke to was always very promising to what could happen – I decided to move forward and try it out. If I got one tour with Yelp it would have paid for a month and if for the time being I had only one tour through you it would have paid for the campaign.
As I said, every one is happy, but I am a not happy customer at all.
Nothing happened that the representatives told me and it wasn’t even close.
On the other hand I was looking forward to have Yelp as kind of a HELP for the reviews to be out there online about my business.
That was why I sent an email, because i have about 7 reviews not showing up and that is not understandable to me – well, it was not understandable. The very nice lady I spoke to explained everything to me and now I am even more sure that I do not want to be on the Yelp ad anymore.
A big loss to my business, but as you know, you do learn through mistakes.
Yes I am upset and No there is nothing really that you can do for me. I was hoping that at least the reviews could be visible, but that is something your computer system does not allow!
David, don’t get me wrong you all do properly do a great job and for some businesses it really makes a difference, but not for me.
And I do feel kind of ripped off! If someone asked me about yelp I will share this of course, also that some businesses that I as a tour guide tried to take guests to ad they do not exist anymore but still show up. How does that look for me!
Never mind, I felt I had to tell you all this, because if I have an unhappy customer I would like to know, what I can do to improve and I would appreciate a honest answer!
Thanks for taking the time to read the email from an unhappy customer!
Have a great day!
Ha! You're really asking for 'honesty' from 'yelp'?!? All I can say is Don't hold your breath because you could die in 5 minutes. If you go to the dictionary, you could look up the words DIShonest, Extorsion, Vindictiveness, MAFIA, and Yelp should be the first word in ALL those definitions! However, try looking up algorithm and there should be a big fat clown staring back at you. Or maybe a picture of the devil. They are tiny little hate-based assholes that work for a gigantic crap infested farce called "Yelp" and you will NEVER get away!!!!! First new rule of your business: ALWAYS GOOGLE other businesses before doing business with any other company that can stick their filthy wretched paw into your affairs! Yelp is like that nightmare you have where everything that was ever good in your life withers away and dies before your very eyes, all at the slimy hands of one self-smug slimy evil worshipping delusional scab known as a disgruntled client. Don't you DARE RESERVE THE RIGHT TO LET THEM GO! They Will come back and regurgitate their slimy selves into your world for life!
I have been having some serious trouble with Yelp since I posted a negative review on Yelp's Yelp page on 8/23/2014. Since that day that I posted a unfavorable review about Yelp my business page has been getting negative reviews that I cannot identify as my customers or clients. Also Yelp has made sure to keep my business page at only 3 stars even though my reviews coming in would surely make the page a 4 to 5 star page. Another issue I'm having some trouble with is my personal Yelp account is also being censored. When I post a review on my personal Yelp account the review will show up on my personal account page but will not show up on any business page. I'm completely silenced on Yelp. Yelp has also censored me from responding to my reviews. There can be horrible reviews that state that my business is dirty and that my staff is rude but I cannot respond or add my own feedback. My business name is Odekirk's Estate Sales. We are one of the top businesses in the Riverside, CA and the surrounding area for the last 55 years. But Yelp has been destroying our reputation.
I hope you take screen shots before and after every single change is made to your account and to your business. Document absolutely everything, you will need it for a lawsuit. Join the class action, you sound like a classic victim of their tactics. I am so sorry they are doing this to you.
YELP THE "MODERN MAFIA"
I Invite you to see my terrible situation with yelp..
Although Yelp wasnotified that my competitors leaving bogus reviews on sites, they still allow it to continue as of 6/4/16?
I even called out my competitor on a 1 to 1 private message, where threatened my life and my family? He in turn posted on my site that I threatened him… Yelp would not take action even though they had access to our private 1-1’s messages and posts about he left about my business… I am 4.5 Stars reviewed where he is 1.5, with good reason!
Yelp allows subterfuge, terrorist & criminal threats to be posted as well as emailed thru their system… They have zero etiquette or protocol standards:-(
The best thing that can happened to Yelp is that they are purchased by someone like Facebook that has a moral compass….
5 Thumbs Down!
YELP THE "MODERN MAFIA"
WHEN YOU DON'T ADVERTISE WITH THEM..
They hid the good reviews from the page, left nothing but the bad reviews.. this isn't right they need to do things as they advertise…
i had 34 costumers that wrote good reviews for my restaurant..
but these comments were not posted on the restaurants page…
I'm going to have to take yelp to small claims court… get this situated… this is not a fair…
Did you take them to small claims? If so, how did it turn out? I ask because I plan to use small claims myself.
Yelp is a fraudulent extortionist mafia that needs to be shut down ! And the yelp eliters are people with no valid skills in life who delude themselves into self importance by writing lengthy reviews all day thinking that their whining on yelp all day is what gives their life meaning. Like most small businesses, I bust my ass for my clients but the few times I have the misfortune of interacting with an insanely demanding, entitled, delusional client, that person rants on yelp and their defamatory 1 star review goes straight to the top. Meanwhile, up to half of my positive 5 star reviews from legitimate customers who are not mentally ill go to the 'not reccomended' hidden area. Yelp is so horrible. I hate them. They don't care about legitimacy of the reviews or honesty at all. They actively encourage people to be flamboyant and flat out lie by protecting anyone to say literaly anything "we don't engage in fact checking" they say…..wow no sh*t. They encourage people to make a mockery of their reviews with upvotes like "funny" and "cool" so this encourages the delusional yelpers to exaggerate, lie and make up stories to get more votes from fellow yelpers. Yelp is a joke that destroys businesses and laughs about it all day.
The Mafia used to have the corner on extortion, but Yelp has apparently figured out a way to hone in on the cash cow of intimidating businesses into spending large sums of money "protecting their online reputation." What a scam!
Here's my story: I built a website for my husband who is a music teacher. About six months later he gets a call from a Yelp salesperson saying he's got a Yelp listing and one nice review – Would he like to pay several thousand dollars to advertise? My husband says No, thank you.
Curious, we go online and read the review of his business. Guess what? It isn't from anyone he has ever heard of and certainly not one of his students.
The real problem is that even though it is positive, it says things about his teaching which are not true and, for anyone who knows instrumental music, would be very bad pedagogy! Thus, if anyone else reads the review they may decide that my husband is not a very good teacher after all and not call him!
The review was posted just weeks before the Yelp salesperson called. Coincidence? I don't think so!
I have no hope that we could prove that the review is bogus, but it's enough that we know it is not from any of his legitimate clients. The question is: Who put it there?
There should be a law against the forced listing of someone's business. Even in the "old days" when phone books were paper, you could pay not be listed anywhere. And you always had the ability to control your copy. This sleazy new way of smearing folks across cyberspace needs to have some checks and balances. The law needs to be on the lookout for coercive tactics that hurt the little guy – and this is one clear case where that is happening. Entrepreneurs – Unite!
I was "reviewed" by an internet troll who hasn't done 1 cent of business with me…story made up of whole cloth…classic libel. The location listed isn't even our location. …yet Yelp won't delete the review.
Yelp = $h!t
Wrote about this Dr.named Lawton Tang a plastic clinic in City of Pasadena. One of the patient went in there for general medical advice, staff was unprofessional it is only cash basis. Received a e-mail from Yelp stating a removal of my comments was out of bound…very desperate to get 5 stars on Yelp.
I just started my own lash business about 8 months and added it on yelp. At first I a few reviews and I was getting traffic and business call from people who found me on yelp. Then I got more reviews and more clients. About 3 months ago I saw yelp took 17!!!! Yes 17!!! 5 starts review!!! All at once not a few at a time. I’ve call and they give me stupid reasons that do not make sense. Now my business is slow and that sucks.
Yelp extorts money from small businesses. If you don't pay them $1000s a year they will filter all your 5 star reviews but leave negative ones. A group of small businesses in md are testing their filtering system and so far out of 80 5 star reviews placed every single one placed with paying advertisers were not filtered but all reviews placed for businesses refusing to pay extortion fees were filtered. I guess this is a coincidence. They are filing a class action suit this summer with 32 businesses already . They have screenshots. pics, other proof, and tapes of Yelp reps offering to remove bad reviews and replace 5 star reviews if they agree to a ad contract costing from $3600 to $9000.
None of the review from my long-time clients & customers are recommended by Yelp. Yelp informed me they have a "filter" that decides what is recommended & what is not. I was told by Yelp that if it is the reviewers first review that that is a red flag & that the review cannot be recommended by Yelp. The problem is, these good 5 star reviews were left by mostly long-time Yelp members & the two bogus reviews were left by those joining Yelp solely to deisparage the business. In fact, I responded to one of the bogus negative reviews with the reviewers own email supporting the fact she was lying. After I posted her email (redacting her personal information), she edited her bad review, made it a good one and changed the bad review to a good one with four stars. Only after she did that did Yelp no longer recommend her review. I wish I never listed my business on Yelp, Tread lightly if you decide to be listed there.
Whatever dude. I'm a real reviewer and leave honest reviews, and Yelp doesn't recommend any of mine now after 6 months, so honest reviewers get screwed as well.
How did you read and locate her email?
Yelp won’t let me post a review anymore. I never receive the confirmation email. I guess they don’t care that their advertising businesses don’t treat customers well. I mean factual stuff like preventing them from using a valid Scoutmob coupon.
I have a business that was established nearly 100 years ago (1919) that has provided service to hundreds of thousands of people over the years yet we have the worst possible rating on Yelp based on 2 reviews by people who never used our service. We had a client post a positive review on Yelp a week after the aforementioned reviews, but it was removed soon after that because it did not fit Yelp's criteria for rating (the only difference was it was positive and from an actual client). I am empathetic to all of the business owners who have posted on this site. We will all rejoice when extortionist companies like Yelp are properly vetted themselves and as a result find themselves in a challenging financial position like we have experienced. There is a legitimate reason why their stock has gone from $45 to less than $30 in this past year. I look forward to a stock price below $25 by year end.
anyone interested please email me at [email protected] or text me at 4073415150. I am ready to file class action lawsuit against this company. we cannot let them destroy our businesses.
We don't get a lot of reviews, because the nature of our business is that we deal primarily with larger companies who just don't take the time to post reviews. However, we do some local work with smaller businesses and startups as well, and those tend to be, for the most part, the trouble-makers. We have had two such customers post not only negative reviews but negative reviews with flat-out lies in them. I contacted Yelp about it, telling them so; letting them know that we have documented every dealing with the customers and that we would be happy to provide that documentation as proof that the reviewers were flat out lying. Of course, Yelp responded by saying that they have no reason to question the nature of the reviews. I didn't expect much, but the fact is that they have every reason to question the nature of the reviews. Add to that the fact that we have had two 5-star reviews and both have simply disappeared. On our website, we have a "testimonials" page which shows several glowing letters of reference, in their entirety. And I'm certain that if I asked some of these people to go on Yelp and write an honest review, they would do so, but it is at best very embarrassing to have to have them read the lies posted there. We are a small business trying to break into a competitive market, and this sort of thing really does hurt!
I had over 31 true and real and authentic reviews written since joining.They were all accurate and well thought out.I as well posted multiple photos and clicked some of their "helpful" buttons on reviews of other people.I also engaged in conversations in the "talk" section.But they STILL after all this continually hid my reviews with their stupid and inaccurate filter.I still have no idea why they wouldn't publish the,They weren't even 1 or 5 star reviews.
If they do not want my reviews I will go to TripAdvisor, which doesn't have so many pretentious people anyway.
And TripAdvisor doesn't have any silly "Elite" people either.
STOP YELP, SOON YOU CAN'T EVEN DEFEND YOURSELF IN COURT OF LAW : Yelp has begun to mark businesses that make legal threats against customers that post reviews on the site using this courupt paid yelp's shill Congress Representative Leonard Lance who introduced this bill H.R.5111 – Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016 https://www.congress.gov/member/leonard-lance/L00… flood him with email.
link to the Bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/hous…
Our company helps customers get approved for apartments. A man named Kam Foo tried to use our service but he used somenes elses credit card. We then stopped the process and found out that Kam Foo is a convicted felon and is ripping people off through a fake comapany called Sienna Entertainment Las Vegas. We then noticied that he has is company posted on yelp and some of the negative reviews were pushed down which talked about being scammed. We then posted what had happened with us and showed all the emails where customer after customer had been ripped off by Kam Foo. Yelp blocked our account and right after that this guy got ripped off:
Juan carlos G.
Juan carlos G.
San Leandro, CA
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6 reviews
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1.0 star rating 7/14/2016
Hey Kam F. Scamming people again?? Any chance I can get my $4400 you scammed me for. Still waiting for you to respond to my texts/calls/emails. Thanks!!!
Sienna Entertainment – Las Vegas, NV, United States. Scammer
Scammer
Scammer
Sienna Entertainment – Las Vegas, NV, United States. Scammer!! Fraud!!
Scammer!! Fraud!!
Scammer!! Fraud!!
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When does a company that reviews businesses allow customers to write about getting scammed or ripped off before they put an alert on the business. Getting ripped off and getting scammed is not the same as my soup was cold. Why would a business allow a company to use their site to rip people off?
Yelp did not post my comments on Rex Salon’s excellent services. I am a medical professional and have numerous certificates/licenses. My comments are accurate.
And I find it unfair to see other comments listed but not mine. Does Yelp market services for an extortion price?
Here are my comments:
I have been going to Ann’s salon entitled Rex Salon for 8 years from 2004-2010 and 2014-July 2016. I relocated out of state from 2010-2014 to take my first Nurse Practitioner position and I missed going to this salon while out of AZ for those 4 years. No other salon that I have visited cared about the integrity of my nails nor about potential fungal growth from repeated gel color applications that I would frequently receive.
In 2006 I referred Joe, a boyfriend, to Ann’s Rex salon as he had a toe nail fungal infection. My boyfriend’s repeated sweaty feet, toe nail breakdown from friction caused by athletic activities like running/handball and prior poor nail care left his feet looking horrible. Ann treated his nails with an herbal and OTC topical therapy as well as taking before and after pictures of his nails. The results were fantastic and he had normal feet again!
I see clients every day with nail fungus and remind them to remove nail polish every three weeks to avoid fungal growth, something the owner of Rex Salon taught me before I became a medical provider.
I am pleased with the massage, facial, wax services, hair color/styling/conditioning services as well as nail services I receive at Rex salon. I would refer anyone to Rex Salon for these services and the people I have referred have said they are pleased with Ann’s salon.
In addition to hair/nail care there I have on occasion tried her herbal teas and natural products, my favorite is her cholesterol lowering herbal tea and feminine support herbs.
I have never felt overcharged for any service and with my knowledge of sanitary practices I was pleased to see Rex Salon used clippers taken from sealed sterilized pouches on my nails. I witnessed employees working there cleaning foot baths after other clients use.
Again I would recommend others to frequent Rex Salon for Salon services.
I had someone leave 3 reviews over the same experience. Two 2 stars and one 1 star, really bringing my average down. I report it to Yelp and I received a message that they removed 2 but left the original one because it didn't violate policy. I was cool with that. But I checked it and they were still there. So I report it again with a copy of the email they sent me and I get a response back that they do not agree and would not remove them. So you tell me you removed the 2 review, not that you are GOING to remove them, but that you already did. Then you say you're not going to? What kind of customer service is that?! You should have seen the emails exchanged between me and someone selling advertising. Her responses were quite humorous. Her response to them telling me one thing than doing another was "don't take it personally". Can you imagine how bad of a Yelp review your business would get if you told an unsatisfied customer "don't take it personally". My chicken is raw, "don't take it personally". Now that's good customer service!
Two times now yelp has removed my true negative reviews of doctors who have butchered me and done other horrible things to me. The first time, yelp said that this would be better for law enforcement to handle. So I rewrote them, removing all references to the illegal things the doctors did. They removed them again, saying when something is outside of the normal experience they remove it. And both times yelp said the removals were in response to the "yelp community", but these were two doctors in totally different cities – one in San Francisco, the other in Los Angeles, but the reviews were removed simultaneously both times. This is bullshit. I think yelp is being paid off by some doctor's group to remove posts about the worst of the worst.
Yes, it seems that business owners think they only have a right to complain, but the fact is that they screw over reviewers as well. I wrote 41 reviews, most were below 3 stars, well because I had honestly shitty experiences at these places, yet I had very good responses of over 590 cool, useful, helpful compliments from other reviewers. Now all of my reviews are in the not recommended section, which is complete bullshit. It's a joke. Places that are honestly horrible have glowing reviews showing all of their 5 star first like it is a good place. That's just wrong, and defeats the whole purpose in trying to give the consumer honest feedback. Yelp is a joke.
Can you copy-paste to post the reviews here please?
An Internet Troll Nirvana. Commonsense is one thing, but honesty is another. People can post anything they wish, but if you don’t pay hundreds a month in advertising, business not allowed to even tell their side. But you can go in as a review and tell the business side. They will dump it in the “not recommended to to read” file, but it will still be posted. Yelp does suck…but a business that is good is known and recognized as such. The reputation of Yelp is actually crap, so people trust it for what it is…the National Enquirer of business sites.
We will never beat them at their level they are powerful geeks. If we go ground and Pickett and boycott they won’t be in their element.
We are just a small family run business in Chandler, AZ, and we pride ourselves on providing excellent customer service and treating our customers like family. We have has 16 reviews now on Yelp, and our first 1 star was recently given to us by someone who got mad because our brand new sales lady wasn't able to give her a quote as quickly as she wanted it. We apologized to her in a reply to her Yelp review, but since then Yelp has taken away all our other reviews and left just the 1 star!! I don't understand why this is happening all of a sudden, and why they are "not recommended". We had 13 five star reviews, and 1 four star review up until that point, but now all of them are not recommended. Our customers are equally unhappy with yelp because their reviews that they took the time to write and thank us are now "not recommended". One even tried resubmitting hers, but it went straight to being not recommended. Our customers are writing second reviews now because their firsts got taken away by yelp, so we will see if they keep these new ones. We are only a small business and rely heavily on word of mouth to get new customers to walk in, but now it seems like Yelp is trying to ruin us! It absolutely disgusts me that they are trying to take down the little guys like us, for no reason that I can think of.
I do local Search Marketing and I always cringe when I add their business to Yelp because I have to tell them to prepare to get a barrage of phone calls every week at all hours of the day trying to get you to buy their advertising. They get especially aggressive after you cancel your advertising with them. Most of my customers still get calls despite repeatedly requesting to "Please remove me from your call list and do not call me again about advertising. I will never buy advertising from you."
If you scour their website (and Google) you will find Yelp has absolutely no way to contact them by e-mail (or website contact form) to request that you no longer get sales calls (or any other subject for that matter). They require you to call them. This I believe is by design because anything they put in an email response would create a permanent record of a communication they had with you. If they responded in an email that they would stop calling you and they still did, you'd have some good evidence for legal recourse.
Has anyone figured out a reliable way to get them to stop calling? It is a form of harassment in my opinion. I'm sure they consider that if you have claimed a business listing, you now have a business relationship with you so they would say these calls are regarding your business relationship with them. It's just plain wrong. I've never seen a company in all my years be this harassing with the sales calls despite repeated requests to be removed from the call list.
If they don't leave a paper trail of emails, you can still record their calls: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/call-recorder-fre…
Well, the truth is that Yelp is like the mafia, you’re either with them or against them. I own a large medical center in
Chicago and after getting literally harassed to advertise, I agreed to spend approximately $1800 a month, after several months I called and cancelled (I used to have a 5 star rating), then LO and BEHOLD, they literally Harassed me to continue advertising, and after I was very firm with my NO WAY, miraculously the ratings started to drop, they would mostly post the negative reviews and the 5 star reviews they burry them somewhere? even when I complained that some reviews carry competition names in their review, nothing happened. The funny part (actually not funny at all) some of the 5 star reviews that they wouldn’t post had many activities and they were frequent patients, and some of the negative reviews had almost no rating, but they still got posted. Like Donald Trump says “BELIEVE ME” YELP REVIEWS ARE NOT ACCURATELY DESCRIBING ANYTHING. PERIOD. YELP SIMPLY SUCKS.. YELP NEEDS TO STOP SAYING OUR ALGORITHM AND EXPLAIN TRANSPARENTLY AND ACCURATELY HOW THE HELL THEY PICK WHO TO POST AND WHO NOT. Of course if they were speaking the truth, they would have to admit that it only has to do with who pays more and who pays NOT.
Texas Matrix says:
I am sorry for the troubles of every business owner here, however I would like to point out the obvious. YELP Community Managers, which are local residents in your cities, are responsible for manipulating your individual reviews. There is no algorithm as Yelp claims. Yelp is a business built on advertising revenue. They are not in the business of providing accurate information such as a search engine. The sooner you realize this the better.
There has already been a class-action lawsuit finalized against Yelp a few years ago in California. They were even investigated by a US Attorney General for extortion.
As mentioned by another user, the best course of action is to modify the Title of your business, address, and telephone of your Yelp listing so your business disappears from YELP. Then if you wish, you can re-list under a new entry and get a fresh start. NEVER advertise with them!
YELP it seems, is an extortion scam that is moderated by Millennial aged idiots…nothing more…nothing less.
Our clinic has been harassed by Yelp on numerous occasions to pay up. Our manager is strictly against Yelp and never advertises with them. Interestingly, our clinic has been doing well recently and getting 5-Star reviews consistently. Out of the blue, a random 1 star review was posted – with no details of his bad experience with the office visit with just negative slander.
So I complained to Yelp and said that the negative review was not warranted and had no substance. And lo and behold Yelp replies asking me to "advertise" on their site if I was the business owner. An internal investigation revealed that the initials from the commentator did not exist in our patient database – i.e. not our patient.