Tell Your Yelp Story
Everyone wants to be heard. That seems to be the #1 complaint on Yelp is the lack of transparency in the filter, the lack of response to real business issues, and the seeming lack of care that real businesses are being destroyed by fake reviews while real good reviews are filtered out.
It’s time to share your story… stories will be chosen from the comments below to be profiled on the site with the truth of how Yelp has done you wrong.
If you really want to help, read through the comments and thumbs up or down the stories to help the media select the best stories to profile. This is a community to support local businesses, so please help each other, comment, and lend an ear/shoulder when needed.
Yelp Sucks….. Google is way better
just do not know why yelp do this to me for the service which i did not offer post a false review and now do not allowing to remove that review "Good Reviews boost sales but one bad review effect all the hard earning "
🙁
My comment is unrelated to the above post, but I am looking for some help with a Yelp issue.
I am a photographer, and I moved from the West Coast to the East Coast nine months ago, and I just cannot seem to change the location on my Yelp business listing (my location is "locked.") This is very frustrating, since I am still getting calls for my services from people in California, whereas I would like people to be able to search for me in the Boston area. After endless tries, I cannot get any assistance form Yelp. Has anyone had this experience? Do you need to start a new listing on the East Coast, and will this mean I lose years of good reviews from California?
I have 9 reviews on Yelp . They not only remove 5 star and 4 star reviews to a filter but move the ridiculous bad reviews to the top. People who , by reading their assessments of my business are really not totally together mentally . The articulate, intelligent and best well read responses are filtered out. After asking me for A $4200 advertising commitment they filtered 1 more 5star review out and placed a negative review up top after I refused this advertising campaign. Isn't this blackmail? Can they not be held accountable? All reviews to be logical must be deployed in their entirety to gain a rounded perspective of the general public's view. The sane people know who is real and who is problematic just by reading their comments. How can this be pursued that all reviews must be published in a time logic order or else be removed from the public eye. The whole web site should be removed
I think the filter is completely bs. My lash lady Tanya has 3 stars and old reviews showing she has people ranting and raving about her and u filter these out?? I finally start giving my opinion about services and u filter me out…doesnt make any sense. My word of my mouth is of better quality then this set up. Its sad. Obviously its an issue or you wouldnt have a big Q&A about it. You should listen more yelp!
This happened to me. It was a chef we had to get rid of after only two weeks. After we let him go he went to work at another restaurant (small town) and was fired after 4 days. This man was a fraud and a liar with false credentials he had no idea how to cook in a restaurant although he claimed to have turned around 16 places (we later found out he had never worked in a restaurant but liked to cook.
He then stalked the other lady and she had to call the RCMP (Canadian police)
He went on the food review sights and slandered my place and this other lady's restaurant she told me about the bad reviews and I checked them out. This idiot used his middle name with first initial of his first name. The reason I knew his middle name was because I found his criminal record, which was mostly for threats of assault and death threats.
We have been told he is on a campaign to destroy both of us. His last thing, before moving out of this small town was to take a piece of memorabilia (not worth money) that my husband had lent him and burnt most of it and left it on our steps. BTW my husband is 76 years old.
Any ideas how we can stop him?
A yelp representative ( Adam) called my place of business and asked to speak to the owner. My daughter answered the phone and she told him I was off, he replied "how lazy". My daughter was more than upset when she call to tell me what transpired. Adam called again the next day, and I told him he was not only speaking to my employee but my child as well. I went on to tell him that was the worst sales tactic ever! He excused his malicious
behavior by saying " my girlfriend tells me all the time I have a bad sense of humor". I agreed. Adam went into hsi sales pitch, i told him " no thank you" o weeks later a client tells me I have a negative on Yelp. I immediately went to this and not only it negative, it's fabricated. I tried to contact Yelp by phone by email with no response. I tried to retrieve my password to this accountA yelp representative ( Adam) called my place of business and asked to speak to the owner. My daughter answered the phone and she told him I was off, he replied "how lazy". My daughter was more than upset when she call to tell me what transpired. Adam called again the next day, and I told him he was not only speaking to my employee but my child as well. I went on to tell him that was the worst sales tactic ever! He excused his malicious
behavior by saying " my girlfriend tells me all the time I have a bad sense of humor". I agreed. Adam went into his sales pitch I told him "no thank you" . He went on to call several more times trying to solicte us and we still said no.Two weeks later a client tells me I have a negative on Yelp. I immediately went to this and not only it negative, it's fabricated. I tried to contact Yelp by phone by email with no response. I tried to retrieve my password to this account I never set up and of course I can not . I asked some of my dearest clients to write a postive review, watch them post there comments and the comments will not post. Lastly I noticed that Yelp , has no review page for themselves (please tell me if you know of its existence) . I find this to be harassing, intimidating and discriminating. My daughter lost her father due to a drink driver , and now Yelp threatens us with greed.
I never set up and of course I can not . I asked some of my dearest clients to write a postive review, watch them post there comments and the comments will not post. Lastly I noticed that Yelp , has no review page for themselves (please tell me if you know of its existence) . I find this to be harassing, intimidating and discriminating. My daughter lost her father due to a drink driver , and now Yelp threatens us with greed. What kind of company is this, does not verify to see if the persons reviews are credible or just vengeful ?
Has anyone tried to co contact yelp to bring the good reviews back?
They say dont worry about it, focus on doing good work and it'll naturally happen.
I am on board what do we do?
Something needs to be done against Yelp! I have been a small business owner for 15 years, and I am a Personal trainer with a reutable business and I have help alot of people lose weight and change lives for the better. Ever so often I come across a client that either just does not mesh with my personality or does not want to obide my contract, and will leave disgruntled. It is common in the business, in every business. I have one of those who has posted a bad review on yelp against me, and everytiing in her comment is bogus. I have had reputable clients whom have gone on yelp to post good reviews and they are filtered out. I can't even write a response to the reviewer who posted the bad review. I have emailed yelp numerous times, and all they say is that they will not remove the bad review. I told them in the last email it is not about removing th ebad review, but posting the good reviews. Still no repsonse. If anyone would be interested in taking this to the mdeia with me, I think it would help us business owners defend ourselves, and also inform people whom are searching for reviews on line to not take them serious. Please let me know if you are interested.
I was always sceptical of yelp and refrained from signing up however a very satisfied customer placed my business on yelp and left me a rather too good to be true review . I was excited and notified a few of my costumers that I was now on yelp , about 3 other customers left me 5 Star feedback .
As soon a this started happening yelp started calling my office asking to speak to the owner I was busy the morning and the guy from yelp told me he would call back in the afternoon. In the afternoon I received a second call , he was trying to have me pay yelp to market my business I declined and about a hour later my feedbacks that was left for me were all filtered out with the exception of the first one .
I think yelp is thorn in small businesses side and we need to get rid of them or we can unite and employ a team of lawyers to sink them once and for all .
After years of contributing thoughtful, creative reviews, all of my reviews have been filtered.
http://www.yelp.com/user_details_reviews_self?use…
I am a retired individual who travels constantly.
I have been at ALL the locations I post for and have receipts to prove it.
I have violated none of your highly subjective posting criteria.
One would think you would welcome my demographic.
I will never post on Yelp again and they will be left with only like thinking Millennials and Gen-y'ers …y
I would copy your content and put it on Google so your words are not lost. When my personal account was deleted from Yelp in 2008 all of my reviews were deleted. So I wrote content and it was destroyed without my permission.
Yelps Filter in general is a stupid idea, and we all know why. I do have hope however, that eventually people(customers) will just see it as the extortionist, biased website it is, and take it less seriously. I notice a lot of other review sites advertise no filter. People will eventually learn that yelp filters things and is unethical in every way, it just may take some time. Example: Before I vacation I use tripadvisor and I like it. If I ever found out that they were doing something like yelp does I would never use tripadvisor again. I have a question for yelp(which I know they wont answer…); Do you try to weed out reviews you think were done by the company themselves because you think people are to stupid to judge for themselves? When i read reviws im fully aware they might be fake, i dont need yelp controlling that for me….that is why i think yelp wont last unless it changes its ways, or it will just be a place for people to rant……im on first page of google with a 1 star yelp rating …4 others 4 stars and filtered….im ashamed to ask people to write a review for me because if its good there wasting there time! screw listing on sites like yelp, they have an alterior motive, and its not to educate tthe customer, its to make money, just like everyone else. There are people who benefit from using/listing on yelp, but weigh that against the honest businesses your ruining, and you have a big problem….The idea is to please everyone yelp, thats what business is, that doesnt matter to you because you strong arm people. This is the first rant/"review" Ive ever wrote, and its about a review site, ironic. Try to contribute to society with a little more purpose there yelp, your useless scum.
I WOULD LIKE TO ASK THE FOLLOWING QUESTION! CANT YELP BE SUED??? I SEE SO MANY PEOPLE UNHAPPY WITH YELP, WELL LET US ALL GET TOGETHER AND SUE THEM FOR WHAT THEY ARE CAUSING TO ALL THE SMALL BUSINESSES!!!
Hi and thank you everyone for your comments and for the affirmation that I am not alone in my frustration. I am a NY restaurant operator and have worked in the foodservice industry my entire life. While I would like to simply go off on Yelp and other web-based review sites for facilitating damaging behavior, it is important for me to acknowledge that I greatly respect the freedom we are all afforded to express the way we feel without fear of judgement or censorship. That said, as a business owner, I can only hope for the honesty and integrity of others to provide fair information about the dining experience at my restaurants.
I believe there is great value in peer review as it affords protection to consumers and insight to business owners as to how they can improve their operation. My restaurants have hundreds of reviews, thankfully most are positive yet some are downright painful to read. I have never felt, however, justified in believing a review should be removed and have only ever made the effort of reaching out to dissatisfied guests to express my apologies when things have gone wrong. What I am faced with now is something I have no idea how to handle and it is impacting not only my business but also my personal life.
In addition to absolutely annihilating our food, drinks, service and everything in between, a reviewer accused me, by name, of sexually harassing her on multiple occasions during her and her husband's visit to the restaurant. Not only have I never behaved as this reviewer described, but the circumstances she writes about (items ordered, staff member description, etc.) are not plausible. The review was clearly written with the intention of seriously harming me and my business. It is irresponsible and reckless and this person has no idea of the damage and pain they are causing. Allowing this is not fair and needs regulation.
Please help if you have any ideas. Many thanks in advance.
So glad to hear that the bad actions of Yelp are finally catching up with them
and their creator. They always do.
Yelp is gangsters. their review filtering is not fair at all.
I have 15 reviews about my clinic. but only one bad review was remain who is not my client.
I have never met her who worte the bad review.
And all of my patients good review was filtered. they are my real patients. And I could not contact Yelp by phone to fix it. Whenever I sent the email the answer was that they cannot do anything.
It is not fair at all. I do not think it is helpful for the public Goodness.
instead I have a few times return call to ask advertise in Yelp from the agent in this area.
What the hack!!!!
I would like to know how to make an legal action and recover the loss from them
Yelp is destroying my business.
I am shocked by how many comments are posted here about the BAD Times people had with Yelp.
As a photographer here in Hawaii i thought I would give it a try. I was shocked to see how Yelp censored the reviews my clients try to post. It is like the old days in Communist Russia where people read your letters and cut out the stuff they did not like.
I started off with 3 reviews within one week I was down to ONE, I guess the were too NICE and not enough back stabbing towards my work.
I was FED UP with this, as there is no way to cancel your account and NO human you can talk to voice you complaints and concerns. I edited my ABOUT me section on My Profile. Where they asked WHy should people read my reviews …I wrote, You cannot Read my reviews they are censored…but I just copied and pasted them to my Face Book feel free to read them.
This site has a Mafia, Communistic approach. I pity my poor business buddy here who got a Scathing Review about 2 years ago…it is STILL posted on Yelp….this is just so terrible for his business. One bad review will destory a small business . Thanks for this site I thought I was the only only with Yelp troubles!
I am a frustrated small business owner as well. YELP states on profile that my restauranyis not good for kids. I do mot understand how they can make this ruling and I have no rights. I do not want my picture posted to be able to respond. Also my positive comments are filtered out. The reviews are not at all true. It is an unfair vision of a restaurant that I work so hard at in a rural ecomic area..we are struggling to survive as iris. Something should be done. Business owners are the ones making the payments and paying the bills. Where are our tights?
BAD YELP!!! I did try to watch the video but is down, i am trying to leave a review for the yelp business on Google reviews, but i am having a hard time doing so. When you work hard on a job, and then your client takes there time to wright a review to have them filtered is wrong
I too ignored months and months of Yelp sales pitches only to suddenly find myself with a presence and a negative review on their site. Just like the rest of you, since I failed to fork over advertising dollars my couple negative reviews were made prominent and EVERY ONE of my positives are now being filtered, despite their source.
Recently I tested the filter by joining Yelp and posting positive reviews of other business, most of whom were advertisers. All of these reviews were published. I then self published a positive of my own business and…..it was filtered after lasting just 1 day on their site.
For a few years now I have regularly written Yelp reviews. I was made an Elite yelp. That seemed like fun at first. It didn't take me long to recognize what Yelp does to businesses. I have friends locally and nationally who are small business owners. Mostly restaurants.
I thought maybe it would help if I wrote real and positive reviews for businesses I have patronized and had good service and received good food/products. So I have done that. When I have a problem with a business, I go to that business's management and/or owners and do my best to work through it with them. Some owners and managers are too wrapped up in their ego to negotiate like that, though. I do not mention my affiliation with Yelp to them. Most of them would just laugh if I did. But Yelp's power with search engine results is quite major. Ultimately, this is unfortunate for all businesses.
I know business owners who have paid Yelp for whatever privileges that affords. Honestly, they don't fare much better than those who don't pay. And it ain't cheap.
I am seriously considering removing my entire profile/reviews from Yelp. Just trying to understand file transfer protocol well enough to save my reviews without having to copy/paste each one. As a writer, I like to keep copies of what I've written.
I was just visiting a friend's store the other day, a tiny private business downtown. He has no choice but to have Yelp in his life. Once you're listed, you cannot ask to be removed. He isn't perfect and doesn't do business in a way that pleases or ingratiates his customers. But he does the best he can, and has a product that a certain segment of our locals and also people worldwide via the internet have an interest in purchasing. So he keeps on going. But he becomes visibly upset when Yelp is even mentioned. He does spend advertising dollars, but says he will never spend any advertising dollars with Yelp because he perceives their common business practices to be extortion, plain and simple.
I cannot in good conscience continue to be affiliated in any way with a company that does this to small businesses. No doubt some people at the top are laughing all the way to the bank, while small business suffers. This is not right.
I was told by a few customers that their reviews on Yelp were not published but 1 bad review was there for people to see. I went to check this out and realized that the 1 bad review was from a customer who had lied about an incident. The bottom line was that the customer just wanted FREE flowers for a funeral! I attempted to contact Yelp and because I would not siign up and pay them I would have to suffer the consequences. My reviews on Google and Google plus are wonderful, but Yelp seems to be the first thing my customers see. In addition, they are NOT publishing the GOOD reviews from my customers. What can I do to remedy this problem? Is there NO honesty out there any more??
I experienced the full glory of the Yelp Gods this week when I discovered a review written 3 months ago about me, a sole proprietor who actually works for a large company as an independent contractor of sorts. This person held a grudge against me for personal reasons unrelated to business. Using anonymous initials for herself of course, she created a business listing on Yelp using my first and last name so it shows up in Google searches. She graciously provided my website and phone number and left a nasty 1-star review. I discovered it while checking the click-through referrals on my website and was stunned that someone else could set up a business site for me on Yelp. Like any attentive businessperson, I jumped into gear to try to get the review removed and let my happy clients know that I now had a Yelp page so I could get my 1-star rating up higher. I soon discovered that there is nothing you can do about low ratings from people with grudges and to my horror watched as Yelp moved five 5-star ratings from real people who had nice things to say about me to the "filtered" area, sort of like the basement for low-lifes. The explanation being that they were "solicited." So letting people know that you have a Yelp page and they are welcome to leave reivews is a bad form of solicitation? If it's honest feedback why deprive the public of seeing it? Yelp plays God with small business and should be stopped immediately. Do they have some kind of political agenda?
I totally agree with your post. I tried yelp for a month. Their MAFIA, weeded out all my reviews. I totally hate how they don't allow anyone to contact them via email or by phone. I feel so sorry for one small business here who does wedding planning. He got a scathing report about 2 years ago and has been reeling ever since !
I wrote some nasty things on My Profile about yelp, they dropped my account in about 4 hours! Sing that they are keep close tabs on every one….BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING !
My review has typo errors due to my iPad changing words on me! My last sentence should say.. * where are our rights? Yelp has me frustrated.. Along with numerous other small business owners. It should not exist.
Beginning October 1, 2012 Luxury Auto Detailing entered into an advertising contract with Yelp. I had at that time three (3) five-star reviews, one from May 2012. I continually asked my customers where they found out about me. Yelp was almost universal (I did not ascertain whether they started with a search engine such as Google first, but Google analytics tells me that). I was additionally enthused to do it because of press releases noting Yelp and Apple partnering. I looked forward to iOS searches, including Siri, to bring business my way.
There is a definite increase of viewership of Luxury Auto Detailing's Yelp profile (perhaps not worth the $350 monthly which includes hosting my video). However, all new reviews were filtered away. The the two newer of the three I had were filtered. My first five-star review from May remained. My phone continued to ring. Now in January 2013 the filter has removed the first review. The phone has stopped ringing.
Correlation is not always demonstrative of causality, but this is the only thing that has changed.
It is interesting to note that the filter is updated monthly. It is incredible that our account manager, when simply asked for her supervisor's name, title, email address and phone number, launched into a debate around the filter again. I was told that the supervisor could not do anything more for me. I did not receive the requested information.
It is interesting to note that when a new review for Luxury Auto Detailing comes in, I am notified. I am not notified when it is filtered away.
It is interesting to note that Yelp gives lots of statistics about interaction with the Luxury Auto Detailing's business listing, except for how many clicks through to the filtered reviews there are. I would assume because there are none. These reviews can only be seen when you prove you are not a web bot. Search engines cannot index these reviews. Most people are not going to enter the distorted words to get through to these reviews. They just go to the right-hand column and click on my competitors who do have reviews.
It doesn't matter that my work is good enough to inspire nine people to write their first Yelp reviews in praise of Luxury Auto Detailing. Yelp reviewers are supposedly like a trusted friend. But when I use Yelp, I told the account manager, I don't know the reviewers and do not check out their profiles or other reviews.
I was told the advertising contract is separate from the reviews. However, the strength of Yelp, its sole "advantage" are "valid" reviews. I explained that when I bought the advertising contract, I had three five-star reviews, knew nothing of the Yelp filter and was not made aware of the filter or the potential of the reviews being removed. I knew the importance of the reviews for Luxury Auto Detailing and expected the higher exposure to lead people to those reviews. Now with only filtered reviews, the phone has stopped ringing.
So folks, the advertising contract won't get your reviews back up. In fact, Yelp hides behind an algorithm created by a group of engineers so secret, not even the CEO knows how it works. I find that one impossible to believe.
These engineers understand human psychology so well, they filter 100% of genuine reviews for my business.
I am not paying for the advertising any more. In fact, with the reviews I became unfortunately complacent. I must take other action swiftly before this over-reliance on the Yelp thugs breaks me. Let them come after me for the $1,000 cancellation fee. They will never get it.
I'm so disappoint because I have a business that I put lots of love into it. This client that only came to my store once in July 2011 tried to be my friend just because we are both gays And I didn't think he was my type. Because I didn't answer his request he puts a fake not realistic review on Jan 2013. Is this fair?
Sad…I'll bit yelp will not take it down either. We had a friend here in Hawaii who works in the wedding business, he got a scathing review on yelp 2 years ago…it is still there and the poor fellow is reeling from one bad comment.
I had account, in one week they removed 2 of my good reviews and left me with only one so so review.
I no longer am a yelp follower!
What would happen if lots of people rate Yelp poorly on Norton's web ratings?
Is this wonderful site on Face Book…LIKE a 1000 times if you are!
Totally Agree!!!!!
Yelp offers no help. Recently we have had numerous patients from a different business post reviews on our site. We are an orthodontic office out of the Los Angels area and they are allowed to review a DDS out of Orange County on our site. My frustration is no one will do anything. I know the procedures to have reviews removed through violation of guidelines. While they eventually remove the review the damage is already done. How many potiential patients are we losing a day? On top of it we have to spend man hours to go through their chains and it takes 2-3 days to have to review removed. It amazes me how everyone there passes the buck. We have an account rep which we PAY a monthly fee and she is useless. My contract ends this month and I will not renew it. I am curious to see how this effects our reviews.
It sounds like you're blaming the YELP REVIEW for the failure of your 25 year marriage bahahaha
Establishing a family owned business is tough. Especially an auto repair shop was started in 1953 and is on it's 2nd generation. Bringing the shop into the online age may have been a mistake. With Yelps help we have lost business and gained nothing. The flag every single 5 star review we get and keep a one star review that complains because we are only open for 15 hours a day. I finally got disgusted and filed a BBB complaint against Yelp. I suggest every one else do the same. They are based in California, so be sure to send Yelp some negative reviews in exchange.
I will share with you my experience as a poster on Yelp that really turned me against the site. A new Thai restaurant opened in our city and after my first visit I was highly impressed with the food and service. I wanted to share my experience and so I checked into various forums looking to write a review. I had never written a public review before and I decided to sign up on Yelp and post there. I searched for this restaurant on Yelp and not finding any reviews yet, I entered all of the restaurant information and wrote a very detailed review of the menu and service. Upon my next visit to the restaurant the owner told me that she saw the review and thanked me. However, a few weeks later when I returned for a meal she said the review had disappeared.
I logged into my Yelp account but found my review intact. However, I then logged out, cleared out my cache, and then went back onto Yelp anonymously. I then found my review was missing from the site and no reviews existed for the restaurant. When I looked for a way to contact Yelp, there was no method to communicate my complaint. A week or two later all of a sudden a new review pops up on the restaurant and identifies it as the first review and gives that poster a blue star or something. Later, I was told by the restaurant owner that a Yelp sales person called them and put a high pressure sales pitch on them to pay for an account on Yelp. I am not sure if they did so or not.
Over the course of the next several months I only wrote one or two reviews of other businesses that I found worthy of my efforts. It wasn't until months later, after never seeing any of my reviews, that I found out that Yelp essentially rewards frequent reviewers by leaving their reviews up but filters reviewers who are sporadic. This has nothing to do with the content, size or quality of the review. How in the world can a person seeking information on a business get an honest evaluation of a business if Yelp only includes those who have nothing better to do than blog on their website? Does it devalue my review just because I don't spend all my time on Yelp scrabbling for their attention by posting incessantly?
I still visit Yelp on occasion to locate restaurants when I am travelling but I place little stock in the content of most of the reviews knowing that they are there simply because the person writing the review is prolific on Yelp or that they extorted the business into paying for an account.
A major problem that I haven't seen addressed here is Yelp's utter and complete lack of monitoring content and users on their website.
Instead, they expect users to monitor themselves. What has that created? Flagging wars. It only takes ONE user to dislike another, then create lies about him/her, in order to have their friends help flag another user off of the website.
How is that a problem for businesses? They are using valuable content. Every time a user gets maliciously flagged off of Yelp the business loses their reviews.
I have personally seen many Elite members flagged off. In less than a year over 40 users have been flagged off (or bullied off) in the L.A. area alone. Not to mention all of Miami, San Francisco and other cities were affected too.
With good users getting flagged off it leaves only the bad users. If you have any doubt what type of users are left check out the talk threads in San Francisco, L.A. etc.
Here is evidence for my claims. You can see the type of photos that are posted on Yelp. Plus, user Chad A. (an Elite member) not only posted a user's personal information publicly, which is a direct violation of TOS, here he is willing to make things up in order to get someone he doesn't even know flagged off. This demonstrates that not only does Yelp not follow their own Terms of Service (note: I didn't repost the personal information) but they know that Chad A. was involved with "Yelp shenanigans" and continue to allow him to participate as an Elite member.
https://picasaweb.google.com/10460709430478222144…
Another thing that hurts business owners are business owners who have Elite status. There was a San Francisco Yelper who owned a restaurant and maintained his Elite status for years because he was loved by the local Community Manager. Here is another example: http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=hr8l47KjK…
He has admitted to Yelpers openly that he owns a sunglasses business. Yet, he claims that he personally knows Jeremy S., CEO of Yelp, and he keeps his Elite badge.
TOS means nothing to Yelp. What a joke.
I could provide many other examples and list lots of examples…oh wait, I will. More to come soon.
Hello from Dan, a lawyer in a law firm that is suing Yelp in a class action. I'd like to talk to you about the business owner that knows Stoppelman, owns a business but continues to keep his Elite badge. Can you email me your phone number so that we can talk? Have you written a lot of reviews? We are suing to get each writer $100 to $200 from Yelp for each review that they have written to enrich Stoppelman and the stockholders of Yelp. [email protected] http://www.yelpclassaction.info
We Yelped Yelp and gave them a negative review.
We told the truth.
They deleted our accounts.
We are a law firm that is suing Yelp for treatment similiar to what Yelp did to you. Could you email me your phone number so I can get some more details? [email protected]
Dan
We have received about a dozen 4-5 star reviews in the past week since we opened our new bar and grill. They were not published!!!
There is one negative review because we wouldn't honor a bogus coupon.
How is it that YELP HIDES GOOD REVIEWS AND ONLY HIGHLIGHTS THE BAD REVIEWS?
Where are the good reviews? I am at a loss. How does YELP benefit by doing this?
Positive get filtered from actual clients, negative remain visible, even they are spam. We know it for fact. One of the biggest issues that we are having is, that one of my clients has a wrong location and 5 negative reviews. The unhappy clients even blame the business for the wrong advertising. We did not create an additional listing, Yelp did. And when we asked Yelp to close the location, which is an address of a private house, their response is: "Nothing we can do" This is the most pathetic thing I ever heard. We get to blame that we do wrong advertising, then we get a call from Yelp that want to sell us advertising! LOL, Pathetic.
I'm just now learning how Yelp works as my husband is a chiropractor of 30 years, is the director on the Santa Clara County, CA Chapter. He has close to 15 5 Star reviews that have been filtered and 2 negative reviews that are on his featured page giving him an average of 1 Star. After years and years in practice, his reputation, I believe has been damaged by this. The two reviews were by people who were not even patients and never even received care in my husbands office. Other reviews by actual patients, yes he did ask them to post to offset the negative ones before we understood the filtering (what a joke) function, have all been removed to the filtered section.
ONE THING I NOTICED, is on the unfiltered negative reviews, you can indicate whether or not this review was helpful, funny, cute, etc. However, on the unfiltered reviews you don't have this option. So if someone actually finds their way to the positive reviews, they don't have the same option to indicate that they found the review helpful. This is a TOTAL BIAS against the legitimate positive reviews.
ALSO, they have a chart in the FAQ section showing the percentage of reviews and what ranking they were giving (i.e. 12% of all reviews were 1 star), proving that negative posts are not the majority of reviews. HOWEVER, this is not the STAT I WANT TO KNOW which is what percentage of UNFILTERED (featured on main view) are 1 STAR. It is one thing to say the percentage of all reviews, it is another thing to tells us what the percentage is of those reviews that remain on the featured listing. (which gives the overall average to the company being review.)
Please let me know what we can do on a legal basis. My husband takes two trips a year to Sacramento and has as the director of CCA and has face to face time with congress and law makers.
I think we need to address this in the court system but also with prohibiting unfair practices. There is a right to free speech but there is also the right to face your accuser in a court of law. People can accuse our businesses on Yelp without the benefit of cross-examination.
Thank you for this opportunity to voice my frustration.
Mary Z
I am a dentist who has recently dismissed a yelper from my practice. This person kept reminded me he is an elite yelper and he should receivie special treatment. He would have usually requests including his visit must be during our lunch hour or squeezing him in while I have other patients. He also think his copayment should be discounted or waived because he is an yelper. Finally I couldn't take it anymore after he kept interrupting me during a procedure. My office manager dismissed him. Because of that, he left a one star review with false statement and attack me as an incompetent doctor. What should I do now? Hiring an attorney or report him to police for blackmailing?
We are a law firm that is filing a class action against Yelp. We are going to sue to get the writers paid for all the 93 million reviews that have been written. I'd like to ask you more about the "Elite" who blackmailed you. Can you email me your phone number? [email protected] http://www.yelpclassaction.info
Contact the Attorney General's office in the State of California where they're headquarters are located. That's what I'm going to do.
Same thing happend to me, 13 good reviews deleted and the 3 that are not that good stay there
I hate YELP. They suck so bad. I have 8 good reviews and they are all filtered. Some racist enters my spa and for whatever the reason, she assumes because there is a black employee that it' s black owned and that I rent a room in this place. She never met me and did a racially motivated review of my full service spa. I don't know what to do because her review comes up first in the Google search engine when people Google my spa. I have contacted them and all they could offer is a way to pay for advertising with them. They are the biggest scam. I wish I knew how or what to do. We need a class action lawsuit against them and run them out of business.
Yes!!! Is a class action possible. We have only 1 review ( maybe more I can't see) and it is bad. It was up twice in slightly different form from same reviewer. The ONLY review they have ever written for anything. The review goes on to mention a competitor by owner's and business' name, and how much better they are and people should go there. Oddly, this business had opened only 2 weeks before review was posted. Last year yelp contacted me to advertise, and I refused based on this review. The sales rep said they would check into it. The review was removed based on the fact hat the reviewer recommended a competitor and did not write enough reviews. That was 3 months ago, it was gone. We decided not to advertise because the rates were too high. I checked today and the same review is back. They are extortionists. This site needs to be driven out of business.
I've been in business now for four years. This obviously has been one of the most challenging economy's in recent history. We've been working diligently to attract and maintain new customers. I have 38 extremely positive reviews on Yelp and they are all legitimate. However, the only review Yelp posts is the one that is negative. Yelp contacted me several years ago to advertise and I declined. I can't imagine this would lead to what I've experienced but I have no other idea why the positive reviews keep getting filtered. Has anyone heard of a class action lawsuit pertaining to this? This may be the only recourse. Yelp will not respond to me or any of my staff or customers! I don't know what else to do!
I've read all of the other comments on this site. All I can say is Ditto. 2 visible horrible yelp reviews. 9 hidden. Of the hidden, 1 is bad, and the other 8 are overwhelmingly positive. Totally biased. Yelp sucks.
It makes me wonder…does YELP have a Yelp page? I bet if they did, all of their positive reviews would be showing and none of the negative ones would appear.
Of course they do! http://www.yelp.com/biz/yelp-san-francisco
And I'm on the first page of over 4796 reviews. So if you guys feel the urge, can you go click the Funny, Useful, Cool tags on my review? AdryennA? 🙂 Thanks!
Thank You for posting the yelp page, I am SHOCKED, FLOORED by all the negative comments…which yelp TOTALLY DESERVES !!
What a stupid e-mail that idiot sent you. Reading it pissed me off big time, not even worth explaining why he's so dumb, because its obvious. I can't understand how some people are that stupid!
1. Yelp owners are scum bags. 2. People who write bad reviews are typically scum bags; its ok to tell your circle of friends you did not enjoy a restaurant, fine. But tell the whole world? and its there forever. Let's say a customer has a bad experience (bad food, bad service), it happens; maybe the server was fired and no longer works there, maybe it was just one mistake by him. Secondly, you don't eat the whole menu, maybe what you ordered sucked, that doesn't go for the whole menu, maybe they've improved the meal since your review was posted…..BUT IT'S THERE FOREVER……
YELP, SEO COMPANIES, REP MANAGEMENT COMPANIES, GOOGLE AD WORDS…..BUNCH OF COMPUTER DORKS SCREWING OVER HARD WORKING PEOPLE……I'M USING FLYERS, PHONE BOOK PRINT,LOCAL PAPERS.. ITS CHEAPER, AND GUESS WHAT? MY BUSINESS IS GROWING!
Yielding Errantly and Leveraging People (YELP) seems to be the company's mission. My story is like many others except the bad review from years ago contains an admission that they never used my services. So how could the filters have missed that fact? The negative reviews are deliberately filtered to remain. When called, yelp wants to turn the contact into business and tries to 'customer care' you into submission. I tell anyone who will listen that their information is unreliable and they have a business model that thrives on negativity. I enjoy watching their stock go nowhere. Wow negativity is catching!
On another topic, was a review site ever going to really benefit the user? Should a bunch of people you don't know have a say in the music you like or the food you eat? Could people have a disingenuous motive to review?
Yelp constantly "FILTERS" out all my positive clients reviews no matter how many "friends" they have or how many reviews they have written but, the same type of business as mine who pays YELP for advertising gets 0 filtered reviews even when they come from consumers with 0 friends and 0 other reviews?? Where's the sense?
Yelp definitely plays favorite to their advertisers and every one else can go suck it right! Yelp sucks and if there is a class action suite I will definitely get in on it for principal!!
Yelp sold me $680/month for internet exposure. The salesman promised once I get started with their contract, they would help and remove all the nonsence and false(possibly by unhealthy competition). First of all, that never happened. Secondly, the charged me $680 for 2 months running and charged me another $1,660 for ealy termination. Worst of all, I did not get more than one or may be 2 calls. This was the biggest rip off and worst advertising investment I have ever made. The biggest scam they have called “IMPRESSIONS” which shows their traffic activities. How come by showing thousands of so call impressions and yet no callers??!!!!
I hope they choke on every single penny they cheat people with
This is pretty bad now. I have tried many many times to try has a yelp sales associate call me for advertising , but i guess im blacklisted.
What happened : About 2 years ago i started a yelp page for a moving service based in San Francisco. I built up some reviews and then the calls kept coming, ” We need to you to advertise with us ” so eventually i gave in, fearing they would remove the page and leave me with no work. And since i was busy, i figured it is worth it, and since im getting work via their website, its fair of them to want me to advertise.
So i did, and as soon as the money left my bank account, suddenly the 2 bad reviews that i had, appeared on top of my page. They had filtered down as i had about 50 now, but now that i paid them, the 2 bad reviews i had where now in the top 3 reviews. Wonderful i thought (Sarcasm), WTF, I paid you for this crap, and all my account manager kept saying, was ” Its the algorrhythm ” we can’t control it. Oh yeah, B.S. So he keeps saying, don’t focus on the bad reviews, you have 48 – 5 stars reviews.
But as we all know, people here believe everything they read, so if they see 2 bad reviews at the top, nobody will call, and nobody did. I Went from a blossoming moving service 1 week, to getting about 3 calls in a month, for 3 months. i had to go back on to Craigslist labor moving section to get work, Thanks Yelp.
Now here is another story. I guess they realized that my business finally recovered, so some sneaky person who works for yelp, suddenly my zip code was changed, It listed me as being in East Oakland, But when i went to change it, it was LOCKED. and yelp wouldn’t contact me to change it.
So when people search Moving in San Francisco, my company is addressed in San Francisco, but its not, so i went again from having work to no work.
Some how the address became unlocked and i changed my address to oakland, so now i’m getting work again.
But things a slow due to the time of the year i guess, and i have tried to get a sales rep from yelp to call me for advertising, but they never do. I wish yelp would forgive me and unblacklist me, because im never going to be able to make this business big enough , because everyone here believes everything they read on yelp.
Its a
that happened to me too, it was my city that was misspelled. For YEARS. But it really didn't matter since they'd already blacklisted me and taken me out of the search results.