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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 have an auto repair shop in NYC. For 25 years I was in Manhattan and then due to the ridiculous price of NYC real estate we were finally thrown out of our space. We moved over to Williamsburg, Brooklyn (a much nicer space) and we're quite happy. When we first arrived here I thought I'd run an oil change special through Yelp, even though I had never advertised, ever, but figured being in a new area I might as well see if it produces anything. It didn't.
Before I ran the ad we had about 15 good reviews on Yelp and 1 bad one (a nutcase). After I ran the ad and cancelled it after 1 month, my good reviews started to disappear, one by one. Then the phone calls started to happen trying to get me to advertise. When I questioned "why I would advertise on a site that only has 1 bad review and 19 filtered reviews (which is where it finally ended up and still is to this day), and questioned if I did would my good reviews return (not that I had any intention of advertising anyway) I was told that one thing had nothing to do with the other. The phone calls wouldn't stop either until I threatened to out them on TV (I do some "expert" gigs on auto repair). They stopped calling me but haven't returned any of my good reviews. Yes it's true YELP SUCKS!
Thankfully Google started doing reviews and have pushed Yelp down, so I tell all my customers to review me on Google.
I'm a remodeling contractor (European Renaissance Craftsman). I started out in ’06 and have been only a few years in business in San Francisco. I’m registered with the BBB and have received an A rating.
After 2008 I have my hard struggles but nevertheless, as I care much about my clientele the fruits of my labor show. Many of my clients are repeat customers. My entire reputation and most of my business is based on client "Word of mouth" referral.
A few years ago I realized that many people search on Yelp. Thus I asked my clientele if they would be so kind and write a review about their experience with me. A few did and I received 8 appreciative reviews. Some transcribed and posted the actual thank you letter they wrote to me. The clients are all verifiable real and true.
After an architect I work with posted a review about me around August last year (2011) suddenly all the 8 legitimate reviews, originally written and posted by my clients I have done work for, where filtered out by Yelp! To no avail, I no longer appear, if you can find me, on a Yelp listing with reviews. Contacting Yelp about this matter and documenting the above I get a brush off excuse "boiler plate" answer as reply. I offered Yelp all client data so they could verify it themselves. Of course I received no answer and upon several inquires a “bla bla no can do” answer.
Looking at my Yelp statistics provided by Yelp I can see the drop off after the reviews where all hidden. Indeed I experience the Yelp action of filtering and have substantially less business inquiries struggling now more than after the ’08 crash, “courtesy Yelp”.
In my opinion this Yelp action is unjust, discriminatory and a bad faith action bearing no justifiable reasoning whatsoever. The business model of Yelp compares more to a autocratic attitude operation than fair business review representation.
Someone make yelp is a scam tshirts. We will order 20 of them at $15 @a piece. Also has someone bought yelpisascam.com or yelpterrorism.com?
Your opportunity has come
http://www.yelplawsuit.com
Why doesn't Portland, Maine Yelp have an Events page and a Community Manager?
I have written twice. Once I was assured it was being looked in to. Nothing has changed. This is unacceptable.
I'll join any action lawsuit.
Please let me know if their is one.
I will join too
You people think you have problems? Look at my story!
My profile has a rating of one star!…..ONE STAR…..one star…..Can you imagine how much it hurts your buisness if you have one star?
So why does it have one star? Ill tell you!
I have a total of 7 reviews…………Out of 7, there 6 are positive reviews, , and one is negative……well guess which is the only one that got showed? THe negative one! Thats right! Out of 7 reviews, 6 are all positive, and they all got filtered!……all my positive reviews are filtered!…..all of them!!!
So now, my profile has one negative review, and it is for one star……..
So my profile has a rating of 1 star…….thank you yelp for hurting my business….what a great system……now i dont get to make any money! Maybe youll be happy if i go homeless……or have no food…….
I have never been contacted by Yelp to advertise. My small restaurant, however, has been subject to their negative reviews. Any and all truly positive reviews have been removed by Yelp while negative reviews (some with bad information) have remained. I have tried to contact Yelp with my concerns and have received no answers. I would love to simply remove my restaurant listing from Yelp but there seems to be no way to do so. I find this website to be harmful and inaccurate. Someone needs to do something.
Recently I noticed not only more of my positive reviews being filtered, but also one of my competitors was now advertising on my page. When I clicked on the add, not only did I go to their page, but I noticed their most recent 1 star review was filtered! That was the final straw for me, and I am ready for war…
I've written many full-length, honest and involved reviews on Yelp. I did my best to be fair and honest. Some were very positive, some were very negative.
Today, I logged into my Yelp account to find that ALL my reviews have been filtered. NONE of my work counts. I wrote very specific reviews to help future customers avoid bad experiences, AND to help bad restaurants fix their poor food and service. NONE of that matters, because a computer algorithm on Yelp is penalizing all my work.
Yelp is useless, and I seriously doubt ANY of its ratings are accurate because of many SPAM reviews, and many legitimate posts that were filtered erroneously. Too bad so many sheelple blindly believe that Yelp is worthwhile, I'm sure that ignorance erroneously helps bad businesses while punishing good businesses.
I just want to say that I think YELP discriminates against businesses that do not pay YELP a monthly fee of $300 on YELP….. My company Mobile Mac Techs all together has 24 reviews. That of which only three reviews are showing. Two of them my worst reviews ever and only one of my better feedbacks leaving me with a rating of 2.5 stars. The other 21 reviews are filtered and they are from way more reliable resources and all/most of them are 5 stars!!!. All together I would have a 5 star rates business if it wasn't for YELP discriminating…
I say Discriminating because I have competitors that I know pay YELP and YELP makes their company look like angels. I am sorry I am not interested in paying YELP $300 a month of my hard earned money just to make my company look better. I get a call from time to time from YELP asking me to pay to be on YELP and they would highlight my business. I do not care to be highlighted but I do care that they discriminate on businesses that do not pay. It is flat out not right! I wonder if there are other businesses dealing with the same discrimination! So I left 1 star for YELP. If I could leave 0 stars I would. I also do not like the fact that when I try to contact them there I never get a return email back.
This company blows and they need to figure out there filtering system ASAP!
There is something to be said about a company that builds its platform around user reviews then basically blackmails the business owner. What I am talking about is the use of Yelp's "filter". Ever since I turned down paying Yelp to advertise all reviews I receive are filtered. When a client takes the time to give you a review of your service only to have yelp filter it is very upsetting. I do not recommend using Yelp for your business advertising needs
We have all of the same issues – large number of real reviews filtered…seemingly lower filter rate on bad reviews. When we get a legitimate complaint, we try hard to take care of the problem. We do advertise.
But, since we are a contractor and service most of the west coast, we have another problem. We get reviewers who are trying to use Yelp for extortion. We have one right now for example who claims we didn't pull a permit, the price was $x (when we have it documented that it was 2/3rds of $x), that he told us not to contact him via mail because he can't read/receive mail.
We have documentation and call recording that show the customer is not being truthful. This customer in particular also verbally harassed several employees and has left a 3 page diatribe that we can document is false (including publicly available filings from the city). The Yelper in question ratings were 100% one star for all the businesses he has posted about. All ratings were long rants. It appears he professionally tries to extract money using Yelp reviews. Contacted yelp…no response. Lawyers we speak with tell us it's really hard to go after the guy due to Anti-Slapp. But, we have documentation and phone recordings that show he is not being truthful. Yelp just basically ignores us. If you are NOT a restaurant and one transaction can be $1k or more…you get customers that simply use it as extortion.
I get so tired of businesses who act as if "that one angry customer" should not be heard. This is the information age. Now, more than ever, you must not forget that the customer is ALWAYS right. Don't let that customer leave dissatisfied and respond to EVERY yelp review with class and grace. Those who are just out to kill your business will never be happy. The rest of us who read the reviews know that such idiots are out there.
So true! Nut jobs have a way of showing their true colors and after reading a number of reviews you can usually spot them. One bad review will not hurt, even several, IF you have the rest to balance it out. The killer is when Yelp filters out all but that one bad one and leaves the business owner helpless. THAT is what sucks.
I honestly do not believe that to be true. "we all know the nuts are out there."
There are two problems with this idea: a) the nuts rarely, if ever, realize that THEY are the nut, and b) if I, as a business owner, were to post a review of every person who came into my establishment or collected their information withthe intention of posting their names to the Internet as my repeat customers: my customers would be up in arms.
I have zero issues with yelp's reviews or it's idiotic filtering system.
I do have a problem with the fact that the reviewers are anonymous as many of the comments on yelp run afoul of basic laws concerning libel, slander, and defamation and in New York State in particular, many of the comments run afoul of laws concerning harassment and interference with a business' legal right to conduct business.
I don't want to go after yelp: I want to sue and prosecute every idiot who is dumb enough I get on a review site and bash my club when he was tossed out of the audience for pinching my waitress' backside or I would like to sue the young lady who came into my comedy club and have me a 1 star rating because the comedy was "vulgar and used bad language"…as if she should have been expecting to see Pat Roberts on my stage as opposed to Chris Rock.
The lack of transparency and accountability in the yelp web site is bad business.
I went on vacation recently and used a company called airbnb to book it. Did you know that you must verify on that site with your own personal information including a scanned copy of your driver's license? Also, my bed and breakfast was just as free to review me as a guest as I was to review the bed and breakfast.
This is what a review site SHOULD be….then and only then are people accountable for their words, actions, and deeds.
In my opinion, yelp is just an idiotic exercise in pleasing hipsters an people who feel like the only five star experience in the world is one in which they receive their entire bill for free because they are an "elite yelpster".
I think it is time for "yelpsters" to get a tighter grip on their horses.
Kindest Regards,
Daniel Tamayo
508 9th Avenue, Apt 3RN
New York, NY 10018
I totally agree that you should be able to review the reviewers. I'm actually thinking seriously about doing it on my blog. I do know who the person is–I'm a photographer, he & fiance wanted custom quote, I gave it. They then refused to pay the standard retainer to reserve the date, I said I don't work without the retainer & that they were free to go elsewhere, since that is my business practice(which I thought was allowed) and wished them well. After this, they told me they would still like to book me if I would change my mind.
Flash forward, I get a call from an old client asking what's up with the review. At that point, I knew nothing about it. I looked it up–figured out who it was. It's full of libelous, personally insulting(which is supposed to be against yelp's terms of service), and insinuations about me and my unfriendly non-customer oriented way of doing business because he asked for a "small change" in my contract. He doesn't say that he doesn't want to pay. I've since looked him up on the Clerk of Court's website(public information) & he has several judgements for non-payment against him. They also did not get married on the date or at the location that he was requesting to reserve. I still have the full e-mail correspondence start to finish as proof–but yelp doesn't care. I've tried contacting them several times, and gotten no response, but I do get advertising e-mails from them all the time.
I work from my home & want my information(private residence) & the review removed from their site & will pursue whatever avenues are available to make it happen.
I'm sorry but while I feel a few bad apples spoils the bunch doesn't it work both ways? There are some businesses that are in fact bad and deserving of a bad review. That doesn't mean that the business should complain that the reviews aren't fair. It means the business should strive to do better. I have to agree with this reviewer. While I see a lot of people complaining that yelp highlights bad reviews I've post 1 bad review of a business that was deserving of a bad review I didn't use negative language or cuss words. It was a fair review based on years of bad experience with the company and a final last straw that prompted me to write the bad review in the 1st place. I don't go around writing bad reviews. I'm a forgiving person and the reason why I had to kept dealing with this company was simply because our HOA had contracted them and we were forced to continue using this company.
So what happened? I got an email from yelp saying that they removed one of my reviews and the corresponding pictures to back up my story so that I didn't look like just some "yelpper" or "competitor" trying to make the company look bad but that I was a real reviewer who had, had enough. Our HOA had fired them long before I posted the review so they didn't lose their contract because of my yelp review. They lost their contract because 8 units were affected by their incompetence and our HOA felt that they were ripping them off. After the property management informed the HOA that they were having similar issues with the company on other properties the HOA decided to terminate their contract. I'm not on the board I don't go to the meetings, I was told by the board members as they hired another company get the job done and contractors to repair the damage left by the company that termination of the contract was the result.
this was the email yelp sent me I blocked out the name of the company, yelp is suppose to be the place for my review of that company and that's where it should stay. I should say the company is a type of business that does a service to your house so if my condo isn't "a particular location" then they shouldn't allow the company on yelp in the 1st place.
SEP 11, 2012 | 11:56AM PDT
Hi there,
We wanted to let you know that we have removed several of your photos of *company*. We encourage users to post business photos that are broadly representative of the business on a good day, while sharing their personal experience with that business in a review. In this case we thought that your photos looked more like they captured your personal experience.
In addition, we're writing to let you know that we've removed one of your reviews of *company*. Our Support team has determined that it falls outside our Content Guidelines (http://www.yelp.com/guidelines). Reviews should reflect a unique experience at a particular location.
We hope you will continue to participate on Yelp while keeping our Content Guidelines in mind.
Regards,
Clarence
Yelp User Support
San Francisco, California
Yelp Official Blog | http://officialblog.yelp.com
Yelp Frequently Asked Questions | http://www.yelp.com/faq
Yelp for Business Owners | https://biz.yelp.com
The following is an email I sent to Yelp:
Subject: Yelp, What are you trying to pull?
Yelp,
Not sure what your intent is. Perhaps it's trying to sell us advertising but whatever it is your intent is certainly questionable???
We have four (4) reviews on your site of which three (3) are excellent and originate from Yelp members that have a history with Yelp. We have one (1) review which is from a disgruntled customer that damaged a room and got charged and her only retribution is writing a bad review. It also seems that her review is her first experience with Yelp.
YET you chose to leave her review visible and cause us to have a 1 star rating and the good reviews are filtered and hidden. Does this have anything to do with your sales representative from Yelp calling us to solicit a business membership??
I expect some action on this immediately.
Thank You,
Paul Ruffino
Managing Director, Hotel BPM
"Hotel BPM, Where Music Meets Hospitality"
Phone: 718-305-4182 Fax: 718-305-4184
Stay On Beat With Us:
Facebook | Twitter | Blog | Hotel BPM
It's seriously become evident that Yelp is not acting as a legitimate company. They are restricting good, honest reviews with the intent of holding businesses hostage.
I am in the process of preparing a class-action lawsuit against Yelp by merchants. If anyone is intersted in getting involved you may contact me.
William Cirimele
[email protected]
I formed a group on LinkedIn called Yelp Plays Dirty and invite anyone to join. I am not an arm-chair complainer I intend to start legal actions against Yelp. I find there actions to be nothng shy of crooked.
Also, if you are an American Express cardholder (I have a Black Card) you will notice that Amex is a large advertiser on the Yelp site. This morning I have canceled my account with American Express citing their affiliation with Yelp as my reason. I suggest other card holdrrs follow suit.
Yelp is the worst place on the web!!!
I have received 4 reviews from real people and stupid yelp has decided to spam them.
I am willing to do anything to stop this company!!! I think they are unfair and stupid and I'm never going to use them again.
I'm currently trying to delete my account without success – will see about that !
That's funny. The business I just posted for had *all* positive reviews? And I checked a couple other of my favorites, can't seem to find all the "negative" reviews for my favorite hot spots. hmmm maybe the negative reviews are for real?
Andrea I just posted a comment here in response to Dana P. about how I received an email from yelp saying the deleted my negative review.
Yelp is a very sleazy, VERY illegally founded-principle-based, extortionist company run by a rat called Jeremy Stoppelman. All this dude does from seeing all the posts here is trying to break even and make some profit some day. I am surprised. Why such a rat continues to be allowed to run such a sleazy company!!
Can you really ask any company to remove the listing?? I don't think it can be done! Business existence is public domain. I don't think if any of the business owners ask Yelp to remove their listing it would work! For example you can not remove listing of a business from Google. I don't know why would Yelp or yahoo be different. Has anyone done it in this forum, they can probably share it will help others. I agree with you, you don't need to rely on yelp
I called FTC and filed a complaint and they told me not a single person ever filed and I was the first!!!!! Pls everyone call the FTC.
I called FTC and filed a complaint and they told me not a single person ever filed and I was the first!!!!! Pls everyone call the FTC. The damage has been done so you need to report it.
We believe that Yelp is rigging their system to filter out great reviews on businesses that do not advertise through them. The salsesperson calls us everyday to advertise but since we did not advertise with Yelp, we noticed all of our 5 stars reviews were filtered out. We wrote to them to inquire about the only negative review and ask that they remove it since it was an attempt from a questionable legitimate client. We expressed our concerns about the truthfulness of this review since we never had such a client.
We have flagged this questionable review and asked that Yelp investigate and after a week we got no response. We e-mailed the company again to inquire about removing this fraudulent negative review. We got no response from them, however we got 5 calls from their advertisement department asking us to advertise with them and we can get our company to top spot.
We logged into Yelp and now found that all our 5 Stars were filtered out. Since we can't get a hold of the people at Yelp, we expressed our concerns with the advertising person from Yelp. She told us it's not her department but she believed that Yelp has any algorithm that filters out certain reviews. We believe that Yelp is using their service to force businesses to advertise with them and filter out 5 Star reviews on businesses that don't advertise with Yelp.
Lets get together and make yelp change. My story and idea is here. Click this link http://www.indiegogo.com/mybusinesshasbeenhurtbyy…. Looking forward to your support for OUR cause.
Richard
We are a dog walking company near Boston MA and yup we are in the same boat!! Beyond frustrated at this point. We had just started out in 2010 and one of our new customers told us she loved our service so much she was going to put a review on Yelp. So we were very excited to get this great attention.
Shortly after the phone calls started coming in. Did we want to sign up for Yelp Advertising? We were not making enough money at that point to do much in the way of advertising so declined each and every time they called. I remember one time they called and we were told "what your business doesn't need advertising?".
Then a few months later as we were still trying to get our business off the ground and only still had a handful of clients a "bad" review showed up on Yelp for us. The woman identified herself as "Kitty" (pun intended?) and said basically that she used our service and we did not do the work performed but cashed her check and ran for it.
SOOOOO….we shot back immediately as we had never even heard of "Kitty" and had not even had one customer in the town she said she lived in! Needless to say "Kitty" never responded. We have repeatedly tried to get this illegitimate review removed from our Yelp Profile but have not had any response from them.
Our business is growing due to our great service and reliability. We have many testimonials on our website and now have customers wanting to post reviews on Yelp and now they are being filtered!! We currently have two 5-star reviews that are hidden unless you enter a captcha.
As we are a "baby" business this is so so so unfair!! How can they damn us without cause!
My business has received several 5 stars reviews on multiple websites over the years. I have 1 negative review on the yelp website and 6 5 STAR REVIEWS that have been filtered…. WTF?? YELP is destroying all my hard work as a FAMILY OWNED business for the last 5 years by filtering out the 6 five star reviews we have received!! So unfair and, and SO part of the reason small business's are disappearing in our economy….thanks YELP for being part of BIG BUSINESS ie the 1% and screwing the small business owners trying to survive in this economy!!
thats amazing same EXACT THING here. I guess we dont have deep enough pockets for yelp.
https://yelp-sucks.com/
Agree with all the postings. I had a couple of negative reviews, and eight positives. After declining to advertise, the only reviews that appear are the negative. This is a scam, and there does not seem to be any recourse, even after contacting Yelp. (I bet they would get back to me immediately if I told them I wanted to advertise!)
Reading these reviews makes my blood boil even more! I thought I was crazy when clients were writing positive reviews on Yelp and they were being rejected. How does a website like this have permission to even have my company name listed? I'm just a small business and negative reviews can really do damage. I was so insulted when they had the balls to call me and ask if I wanted to advertise with them! I made the mistake of running a coupon with one of those lovely coupon companies out there… little did I know it would bring it some pretty rotten clients (I am a boutique business and have fantastic clientele that I've built over the last 6 years) those oh so lovely coupon clients are damaging my 6 years of hard hard work!! What can I do???? What really sucks is the Yelp review comes up first for my company on Google! Now I'm having to learn all about SEO. I really want to be part of a group that gets Yelp shut down.
same stuff i am just sitting leaving it all on god and working hard to make my restaurant better what is yelp nothing if you creguler knows your sevice and love you food or whatever service you offer they will keep coming back to you it botherd me at begening but now I see new customers daily they leave happy and they bring their friends and family to us i never knew about yelp before i started my reataurant so there are many people who dont read yelp so dont worry just focus on your buseness and work hard no one can stop us from getting succes
BUT I AM ALSO IN THE LIST
.Yelp is detrimental to any consumer due to false ratings and filtering of bad reviews . Business owners say that if you pay them you can do no wrong, but when you stop paying $300 a month then they let all the public reports show without getting filtered. ETHICAL??? no way….
I went to a Jeweler that Yelp rated 5 star. Should not even be a one star….they had only good reports about this business, or so I thought…Only after finding out myself that the Jeweler is indeed a stone thief, did I learn about filtering… Then I went back to Yelp and yes the Jeweler had as many bad reviews and warning as he had good reviews, but I had already been harmed. Had I seen any bad reviews I would have never gone there.
YELP has a FILTER that you must go to on the bottom and IF YOU DO NOT KNOW about it you get only good reviews and that is a scam. Only if you give Yelp a bad time will they EVENTUALLY post a negative review.
DO NOT TRUST YELP REVIEWS AT ALL. ….To know the truth about a business you should be able to see what peoples real experiences are. Yelp claim it is filtered by their computer…When you write a complaint on their site about their ethics they have a bunch of diverters trying to discredit you and divert the topic…..they do not want the public to see anything about how they really work….HOW honest is that???? They are deceptive.
The consumer has a right to know about, Unethical business owners, YOU will not get that from Yelp because they are not ethical either and this should not be legal.
Go to Google and type in Yelp unethical… you will see many stories that YELP cannot be trusted. some business owners will tell you that if they pay $300 a month and get good ratings…if they stop paying their rating goes down, down, down….beware beware, and beware of Yelp..
They do harm the consumer. By the time you learn about their filter it is too late, you have been harmed. That is deception on high alert.
Yelp is detrimental to any consumer. Business owners say that if you pay them you can do no wrong, but when you stop paying $300 a month then they let all the public reports show without getting filtered. ETHICAL??? no way….
Business owner stay away from yelp! you can sign in but u cannot sign out :)) they try to be like mafia! but i think it's illegal beacuse it makes their stock be higher! more people they have with yelp more expensive their stock will be (FRAUD got to contact FBI !!) i'm there on free listing they called me from yelp , i told them yelp is a bul#### and next day they put a bad review on my page , and any of my customers put a review they delete them not ever filter them!! I DON'T WANT TO BE LISTED ON YELP!! name of my company One Way Appliance Repair Van Nuys // and they killing my reputation that way!! anybody can go on YELP website and make an account for you and write bull shit complain about you!! they way they have to do it just like google places / send a post card to the address / and than we have to verify / let's all get together and sue yelp!! we are the real people they are the bots !
To Yelp
From One Way Appliance Repair INC
Extortion Fraud
Yelp has been removing One Way Appliance REpair. and American business positive reviews from respectful citizen in their community . Yelp has been thriving on the negative reviews to extort American business owners to pay Yelp to get good reviews.
If Yelp does not remove all the negative reviews and restore all the positive,One Way Apppliance Inc has no choice. and all of the business owners victims, to file a law suit. Yelp is the worst type of terrorist destroying America’s freedom and free enterprise. Yelp is attacking American citizens and forcing American business to lay off workers because of your “Mafia” tactics.
One Way Appliance Repair
13836 Runnymede st
Van nuys 91405
818-298-8165
[…] instance, at https://yelp-sucks.com/tell-your-yelp-story/ you’ll […]
Our organization is faith based but it has never been involved in activism. We do not operate in that way with our clients as we respect their beliefs and values and treat them with professionalism.
There was an attack on us brought about by activists and so Yelp activists took the opportunity to use Yelp to damage our reputation by making claims of things they don't know from personal experience, by allowing postings that are not from real clients and by filtering real client reviews.
We approached Yelp and made them aware of this organized attack on us. See here:
http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-francisco-first-res…
They ignored it and this same people are the only ones that are up on our site and many of the real clients are filtered. We provide compassionate non biased care, but now our clients are being scared from coming to us and receive the free help they got from us.
Yelp has damaged our reputation and can't be trusted.
Under "About this business" I put:
"(Be sure to click on the above "filtered" reviews and decide for yourself.)"
Has anyone else done this and will it get me on the sh#t list?
They removed that when I tried to insert it into the address. The About this Business portion is hidden when people first arrive!
SAME EXACT THING HERE…..BUY NOT PAYING THEM OFF OUR SMALL BUSINESS'S TAKE THE HIT IT IS BS
I TOTALLY AGREE IT IS A CROCK
I WILL BE CALLING THEM FIRST THING MONDAY MORNING I HAVE HAD IT WITH YELP. AND THEY EVEN HAVE THE NERVE TO ADVERTISE FOR OTHER CLEANING COMPNIES ON MY PAGE
Yelp really sucks, the filtered review below is true, but thay decided to folter it:
http://www.yelp.com/filtered_reviews/OBEWK-phM7gg…
I mean, are you kidding me? The clerk violated civil rights there…
I would like to know how to be removed from there also
I had a phone call from yelp the other day to advertise in yelp site, I said no and I do not like that site then I removed all the reviews but the bad once and and now in my business page all bad reviews with one stars, now they hiding behind this site as good guys. please someone let mw know what I can do about this
I agree with all of you. But all of this endless complaining will get you no place. It is time for legal action. that is the only way they are going to learn. Big corporations like this will push it to the limit until they are hit in the deep pockets either by exposure to the media or tremendous fines. I think Netflix got in BIG trouble for their poor business practices and they ended in a class action law suite. The law is there to protect us.
Please top Yelping and start Lawyering!
My best to you all!
One tactic I am employing at http://www.toyotaoflewisville.com is to engage those customers of ours who are leaving good reviews and asking them to review their favorite restaurants or other businesses while they review us. Will see if that works.
I too am extremely disappointed and frustrated with Yelp and their seemingly arcane, inconsistent and practically fascist policies! For me, I've had two reviews from personal injury clients filtered for no apparent reason! On top of that, I cannot even correct my address to reflect our new and current location. That feature is "Locked," because someone at Yelp " reviewed my profile." That's it! No explanation, nothing and no one to contact, email or call. It's like being taken out and shot and no one tells you why or what for. Shame on Yelp for making our live so miserable . . this company should not have so much power without responsibility. Maybe you have to buy an expensive Yelp ad before anyone listens to you or helps you with a Yelp problem. Wouldn't' that be the ultimate hypocrisy and rip off, Yelp, the self-proclaimed champion of the honest review only let's' those "honest reviews" be seen if you buy an ad from them. It would be ironic if it weren't so wrong.
OK Folks, here's my two cents . . . As an attorney, I am intrigued by the possibility that Yelp can and should be sued for defamation by libel when it publishes demonstrably false reviews on the internet that harm small business owners. Its one thing for Yelp to be a site where consumers can review businesses, but its another matter entirely when business owners cannot remove their business listing from Yelp's website. It is no different than say, Mr Jones takes out an ad in the NY Times, the LA Times and the Washington Post claiming that Mr. Business Owner, a jeweler, stole his gold watch and replaced it with fake. If you could prove that the ad is demonstrably false, you could sue the person who purchased the ad and as far as I know, the publisher! So why can't Yelp be sued in the same way? Yelp is not a newspaper so there really are no first amendment issues. Yelp is for profit business that charges money to business owners who purchase paid advertising. If Yelp would make participation in its online system of business reviews voluntary, then business owners who feel they are being defamed can simply withdraw. But that's not what Yelp does, once you are a part of the Yelp system, they will not let you go, that is, they will continue to publish bad, possibly demonstrably false reviews that can cripple your business if not destroy it. Yelp must make participation in its system completely voluntary or suffer the defamation lawsuits that should result whenever it publishes a negative, demonstrably false review that hurts a small business owner. I am going to begin researching and consulting with my colleagues to see what kind civil lawsuit can be made here and will post a follow up shortly.
Yelp sucks. I mean, it sucks. There is only two of us who run our small business and I build the websites and do the SEO. Yelp is destroying our online business. We started with 6 five star reviews, 2 of which disappeared(not even filtered) and 2 of the remaining 4 got filtered. So we were stuck with 2 good reviews and 2 bad reviews leaving us at 2.5 stars. All of the sudden one bad review and one good on gets magically filtered again, making our decade old business looking like a brand new terrible one online. Next thing we get 4 brand new awesome reviews AND THEY UNFILTER THE BAD REVIEW! WHY ONLY THE BAD REVIEW GETS UNFILTERED AND THE 2 FIVE STAR REVIEWS REMAIN "FILTERED". This is EXTORTION! A small business can't afford $500 a month for their stupid service.
Yelp is a bad company, from top to bottom.
Dana (and all you other people who have no clue what is involved and at stake when running your own small buisness),
It's absolutely fine by me as a restaurant owner that four negative YELP reviews of my biz remain out there. If customers refuse to allow me to know about their less-than-perfect exprerience while they are at my establishment, but then go and take the time to post a negative review, they deprive me of the grace and opportunity to "do the right thing" and attempt to rectify the situation which caused their dissatisfaction. I will bend over backwards to satisfy a customer. But I can do little after they leave and do their bashing on line, which BTW, affects not just the livelihood the owners, but also the 30 people whom I employ. Why are the 15 positive reviews of my biz filtered out? I actually have customers complaining to me that they are being censored in their praise of my establishment. Customers need to be way more responsible with the way in which they communicate their dissatisfaction with buisnesses, and YELP needs to get fair, or go to HELL.
I have a flooring company. I started my business ad on yelp about 2 months ago. I received about 3 reviews from the customers that I worked for. All were filtered. I sent email to asked why. They did not even bothered to answer. I find out the owners are from India and not even US citizens. I'm mad that some foreigners are pocketing our money, destroying our businesses, and maybe have a good laugh too. STOP ANY RELATION WITH YELP. TALK TO EVERYBODY ABOUT THIS SHAM.
Yelp absolutely sucks……I've been in business since 1989 and have had to change with the times. An online presence is important in todays world. It's people like Yelp that take it to the next level. They're extortionistic ways are beyond me. SOMEONE NEEDS TO TAKE THEM DOWN……ALL THE WAY DOWN!!!!!