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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 am deeply saddened by Yelp too. I ran a skin center and body waxing boutique business in Florida and had glowing reviews. I had a "friend" who used to help me as a promotional model and promote at events and had ONE FREE service in November. Her and I had a personal disagreement which was not related to my business and she decided to ruin my reputation online. She has posted that I am a prostitute, that I ran a brothel, that I had no training etc… This is clearly defamation, personal attack, and false statements about my employees, my degree, and my place of business. She posted these things on Facebook, FourSquare and on Yelp. I was able to remove on Facebook and block her. I haven't been able to remove from FourSquare yet but trying. I have screen shots of all of these postings and references to her personally hurting me, accidents happen, and that she will seek revenge about a personal disagreement. I contacted yelp and they will not remove it. I spoke to the Yelp sales rep and she agreed that it looked fake, and was clearly written to be a personal attack but that yelp readers are smart and probably will know it is fake. They filtered all of my 18 glowing and positive reviews. They also call me non stop and want me to advertise and pay 300 a month. They said that there is no way to prove that it is untrue so they will leave it. I am very sad. Very hurt. Completely devastated.
I don't mind a negative review if it was true. If a client had a bad experience I would hope they would contact me and we could offer them a free service or give them a coupon to come back. And if a client had a bad experience I would reach out via yelp and apologize and ask them to give us a try again. I honor negative and positive reviews and think that Yelp should be used as a tool to rate businesses. Yet, it should be based on real world experiences as we can all learn and grown from bad service. However, a totally fake and vindictivie review is absolutely horrible thing to have happen to you. I live in a small town. It is definitely hurting my business a great deal.
I have had several friends and fellow business owners call me and tell me that they have seen the horrible and nasty reviews online. I am really sad that Yelp would allow such a fake comment from someone who never paid for a service and is clear defamation and a personal attack.
They simply delete your reviews if you do continue to advertise with them.
I had 8 good reviews. The day after cancelling my contract, they deleted my reviews.
Bunch of idiots that run this company.
They are certainly not a professional company. The staff that do the deleting must be a bunch of assholes.
Oh no!! my business is in yelp. What should I do now
I have a small buisness as same as u and had 3 5star review for my Daycare. we work so hard to satisfy customers and go beyond our duties. I am deserved to recived since one time i donate my xmas tree to one parent who stuggel more in bad economy. All of suddent Yelp said this is not trustworthy and filter my review. Also I am 5 Stay but all the 1/2 people on top of me and they are out of the area I am looking for. I am in the second page with 5 stars. I asked them ,they said no way to fixed.
When I first started out, advertising was as simple as printing flyers, postcards, or giving away pens with your company logo. Obviously, things have changed over the years & thankfully, I'm smart enough to see that.
I began advertising my small business on Yelp two years ago. My reputation is impeccable because I like my job & I like my customers. I am in business not only to make money, but to make people happy. Period. During my two years paying for the Yelp "enhanced profile", I have acquired a total of NINE five star reviews. However, FIVE of those reviews became filtered. Of those five, two of them had reviewed more than one business, & another even posted two pictures on my company page. Another filter reviewer even said in their review: "We found Jason on Yelp". Why would they want to filter that review? Doesn't that make their site look better as well?
Furthermore, the Yelp reps offer me no explanation or any sort of reason as to why reviews are filtered. The Yelp reps will also tell you that only about 1% of Yelp users actually take the time to write a review for businesses. If that is true, then why do they care so much about filtering ANY reviews?
After two years, all I've learned from Yelp is that they care very little about helping small businesses grow into bigger & more successful businesses. It doesn't matter if you pay for advertising or not.
I want to post our very bad experience with Oceania Cruise Line. On June 14, 2012 my wife and I booked a "Journey Under The Sun" cruise through Expedia Cruiseship Centers for a cruise from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil to Miami, Fla.
The cruise was to commence on March 18, 2013. At the time of the booking the Expedia rep called Oceania in our presence to inquire whether a yellow fever inoculation is required and was advised that for Rio it no longer is. I have splenic lymphoma and am not allowed to have live virus inoculation. After we had paid all monies due $26,840.00 we were advised that since the ship, "Regatta" sails to the Amazon I would need the inoculation. We requested Oceania to switch us to a cruise from Peru to New York which Oceania refused to do. We did not request a refund, just a switch in the voyage. Oceania was totally adamant and kept all monies paid except for a refund of about $2,000.00 for the hotel in Rio. We have never ever experienced such hard nosed business practices with any other cruise line.
Be warned.
WOW!!!! Personally I think your issue is with your travel agent, not Oceania. Why did you not have travel insurance? That would have covered it? Did you pay with a credit card (I hope so)! You can charge back if so, Otherwise I hate to say you are left with a lawsuit, which they WILL settle out of court. And I'd name the travel agent and the cruise line. That is so unfair!
Also, don't they have a waiver for medical reasons, like the do for kids in school who are Christian Scientists and due to their religion can't have vaccines? Just wondering…
I love Cruises and your's sounded like it was going to be AMAZING!!! I'm so sorry you didn't get to go and that their inability to think logically or provide you with a solution has cost you so much time, heartache and money.
For me, I will totally keep this in mind! It's also why I only ever book any cruises through http://have2cruise.com (Helen Brahms). She's an I dotter T crosser extraordinaire. Please keep us posted with any updates.
i start doing advertising with the yelp , well they told so much how its gonna work ,then i start asking my customer for reviews and they did ,ofcourse no one was showing ,i'll call them and they were making excuse for ….its a computer and bla bla bla ,i asked them from my 11 reviews to show just one ,they sad no ,how is possible to get new bussines from yelp without reviews ….. no possible …. its not wort it to paid this people for advertising
I have never looked at yelp in my life until I opened my new restaurant about a month ago. One of my partners alerted me to our first review. A woman left a review incensed claiming that she had been double charged on her credit card. Anyone having dealt with credit card or bank card mistake issues or refunds in the age of instant online account access can attest to the fact that any swipe of the card leaves a ghost hold on your account showing up as a charge but will clear off your account statement in 3-5 business days. We had spoken with that customer several times and calmly assured her that we had spoken to the processing company and that charge was not active and would disappear from her online statement 3-5 business days. Well, come to find a few days later this customer had written a 1 star review of us on yelp stemming from this misunderstanding. We knew what the core of the issue was but she also took the time to attack our business, disparaging everything from the quality of the food to the service to the prices to the atmosphere. Of course, checking with the bank, her charge had been cleared just as we said it would but the review is still there on our yelp page. What is not on our yelp page are the 12 five-star reviews we have accumulated in the past month from a hand-full extremely satisfied customers that yelp sees fit to filter out. Yeah, I watched their BS video on how the filter system works. They are trying to maintain the "credibility" of their review system. Um, excuse me? This is complete garbage. We recently had 2 anonymous 1 star reviews from "customers" we can't verify every came in, left reviews on the exact same day with almost the exact same story, left 5 star reviews on one of our closest competitor's page on the exact same day commenting on similar items, had written no other yelp reviews but those two and left the same reviews word for word on several other review sites. Now I'm not an expert on negative spamming but this looks like it to my untrained eye. Of course, what reviews didn't get filtered out? You guessed it! I'm staring a 1 star cumulative yelp rating in the face because these crooks can't seem to allow legitimate good reviews at least balance out fraudulent reviews. Review credibility my a$$. Its more like they're protecting the credibility of their bottom line! What's more is that I have emailed yelp several times with no response. I have attempted to call their offices as well. To say there are no humans working there would be both a literal and figurative fact. You can't actually get a person on the phone, not even an operator. There is no recourse to what these people are doing. Apparently if you pay them the negative reviews go away and your positive reviews magically show up. That's extortion! They won't get a cent from me. My partners and I have fantastic reputations for operating local restaurants and bars in the area. We rely mainly on word of mouth and in-house marketing to build our business organically. We really have no use for these online rating and, apparently, free-floating slander services like yelp. It's really just pathetic that these thugs have created a business model out of online racketeering. It's as if they walked in the front door wearing pinstripe suits saying "That's a nice restaurant you got there. It would be a SHAME if anything were to happen to it." Its time to put yelp out of business like they have done to so many other small businesses. Hey yelp…don't you realize these are people's lives, their families, their life savings you're messing with?
Omg where do I start about Yelp they filtered all my good reviews and are calling for me to pay them to take them down. EXORTION is what the BBB said to me lawsuit that they are under. Please someone tell your stories lets shut them down. They are crooks.
Sign this petition to help small business's!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/867/995/092/stop-y…
I bought Yelp advertising and spent $1000.00 in three months. It did almost nothing for my business so i quit buying it. Yelp calls me and wants me to advertise again. I say it did not work for me the last time i did it. Yelp says, our sales rep who is no longer with us sold you the wrong product for your type of business. I say I will try it again just credit me the money for the error of your sales rep and lets try again. Yelp says no, we can't do anything for you. Be careful if you buy Yelp advertising, your " sales person" may not know what they are selling and it can cost you big bucks. BTW, when we were advertising our rating was great. Now since we have declined to advertise our rating has went down. You hope a compnay like Yelp will do the right thing but as usual, it's all about the money.
-Bob Juniper
Three-C Body Shops, Inc.
Bob, did you sign a 12 month contract and then stop paying after 3 months? Or was it just a 3 month contract. We have a 12 month and it is such a waste of money. Im afraid to stop paying it though because our reviews will probably tank and not sure if they would go after us for the additional 9 months.
We did a "special" three month deal. Yelp is a big rip off.
I was fine with the review of Yelp. Being a business owner myself, I found this thread interesting. However, the irony here is the "all about the money" comment.
Bob, I lost over $2,000 at Three-C body shops back in the early 2000's because of a mistake on one (or more) of the employees' parts.
A teenager pulled out in front of me on King Avenue and hit the front-right side of my car. and damanged the front, right fender/quarter panel, and both doors. After getting my car back from Three-C, everything was fixed perfectly (and paid for by Nationwide insurance – the teenager's policy), except for the back right door. The employes at 3C said that "it was damaged in a prior accident." Truth is, I had been in an accident 9 months prior in Cleveland and had the entire right side of my car repaired, so there was no way.
After providing this proof, the employee took my car back in and they fixed the back right door – but this is where things get very, very strange. I was then re-billed for the entire job. In other words, it seemed as if 3C was paid once for the incomplete job – and then when they took the car back for the back right door repair, they billed me for the whole repair all over again (but the insurance company had already paid for the first part of the job).
It was crazy. I took it to small claims court, where a corporate attorney offered to "settle" with me for $500 outside the courtroom (to which I declined – I was owed $2,400 for a repair that wasn't my responsibility for an accident that wasn't my fault). However, regardless of all my evidence – and thanks to our wonderful attorney-judge-relationships, the corporate attorney was not to lose to a little pee-on by little old me. So, weeks later, I received notification that I'd lost the case all together and had to pay up.
In the end, Bob, not only did I have to pay the $2,400 I did not owe… I had to pay attorney fees and court costs to boot. So, I applaud this thread for the opportunity to finally (10+ yrs later) get my chance to vent this experience to "the man" – especially at a time when I was just finishing college, broke, and trying to start my (now successful) career as a business owner in Columbus, myself.
I don't fault you personally, but there's some crazy, shady stuff going on behind closed doors – doors you can't see behind as the owner of a large, successful Columbus company. Thx for taking the time to read.
Yelp is in it strictly for the money. As long as you paid ,you have a great rating. Stop paying if you have some difficult financial issues and down goes your rating. They will not be successful long term with this business
model.
Not true. Yes they are in it for the money (as is every business), but even if you pay that doesn't protect you, doesn't make the negatives go away or reveal all the positive reviews that are stuck in the filter.
I had completed a positive review based on my experience with a SF Bay retail vendor and I indicated that this vendor met the same service standards of my previous vendors who were employed by the manufacturer of my product.
YELP responded with feedback indicating how my review did not meet their review/filter standards? What!!??!! Meanwhile, I'm looking at negative reviews towards this vendor by people with LITTLE or NO product knowledge. These incompetent reviews met their filter guidelines??!!?? Absurd and very damaging to a business of skilled and knowledgable professionals. I presented this case to YELP and of course they did not respond. I tried to repost again, but it seems as if they have blocked me based on my critical response. I also passed the word onto to the retailer about this matter. They were very hurt and frustrated. By the way, the vendor does have positive reviews, but why block a review based on industry standards?
YELP is a bully who may be doing good for some business, but irresponsibly can be a destructive force to many businesses out there without any stakeholder accountability.
They should be subject to a 'class action suit' for their bully tactics towards consumers and businesses as they have neglectfully devitalized the economic spirit of some of these small business 'family' operations during a difficult time in this country.
What a disgraceful organization. You should be liable for all the damage you have caused to small business in this country. As a consumer, I clearly have experienced your influence.
absolutely the same story I have!!! thank you
Hello, we are class action lawyers preparing a lawsuit against Yelp so that they will pay all of their hereto now writers $100 to $200 a review. Important to this case is to show that Yelp fires its writers when they don't follow Yelp's rules. Could you please send us an email with your phone number so we can talk to you about this?
Dan [email protected]
yelp has a filter to leave on fake reviews,wont use them again.
Complaints fall on deaf ears at Yelp.., and regrettably our Government is too busy with being trillions of dollars in debt and…, starting or embedded into various wars to be concerned. – Yelp wanted me to pay for advertising, for help in showing my good reviews. Extortion?
This reviewer admits in his review that he was working for the restaurant that he reviewed in which in gave four stars. He says that he was working doing 'marketing' for them and in exchange for that he got free food – on the house. Then, Lo and Behold, he goes and writes a sparkling four star review for the restaurant which then guess what? Yelp then gives the restaurant reviewer the Coveted Review of the Day!
Now if this isn't old fashioned bribery, then I don't know what it is? And to top it off, on the Yelp Edmonton website there is the discussion section Question and Answer where somebody named Violet called out this review as Coercion and basically lambasted the reviewer's morals and ethical standards (as well as Yelp's). To make matters worse, about five Yelper's disagreed with Violet and found nothing wrong with their 'friend' who wrote the Review of the day because he disclosed that he got free food!
What a bunch of morons! These Yelpers are more interested in protecting their buddy (sounds like the Nuremberg gang) than doing the right thing and recognizing when a wrong is a wrong!
——————————
copied and pasted from the Edmonton Alberta Canada Yelp. and this was the Review of the Day
One review for Arc En Ciel Restaurant
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Matthew L.'s Review
Review from Matthew L.
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408 reviews
Matthew L.
for the love of bread
Edmonton, AB
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1/30/2013 1 photo ROTD 4/13/2013 First to Review
I will start off this review with a few caveats:
1) While Arc En Ciel Restaurant is not paying me anything, I am volunteering my time to help the restaurant with its marketing efforts.
2) Because of this, the restaurant has fed me some food on the house.
3) I would not write this review if I could not vouch for the tastiness and preparation of the food.
And now for a review:
Arc en Ciel means rainbow in French, so with a name like that you'd expect French food – it's not – the menu offers an assortment of Vietnamese and Chinese Dishes.
We are been victims of YELP. If there is a Freedom of Speech in USA , then you would read good reviews and bad reviews. Yelp holds good reviews (Yelp calls it filtered) to show bad reviews written by non customers, Yelp staff, Angry customers who do not want to pay for services, or sometimes competitors (or their employees / relatives).
YELP is practicing digital age highway extortion and small business robbery.
IF the constitution is allowing freedom of speech then it should be no person should expose false and bad reviews to benefit from twisting the arm of small business owners to extort money under ads money. It is not right and un fair . http://www.yelp.com/biz/bastet-cat-hospital-burba…
I amazed by yelp service – it costs quite a bunch here in the UK and expected really good results.
Alas it was all very big scam – do not go premium with those guys!!! They sell ads per impression but they do not give you interface to tell you how much of those impressions you have served to the customers. All in all you pay per something you can not measure which is just hilarious. Not to speak for their target method which is "pentagon" and can barely match any real target area.
I do not know how their service in the USA is but here in the UK it is pure waste of money.
Not to speak about the fact their are merging with QYPE and they do not know what is going to become and happen after this.
As for reviews – in order to have reviews there you either need to pay Pro Users to post reviews for you or have none because your legit reviews are being filtered out. They have two filters one for paid users who can post reviews and one for everyone else that is denied to post review.
If you can avoid using them especially if you want to advertise!
Yelp is destroying small business in America. Something our country is dependent on. The worst thing is. When a small new business is first trying to adjust to master there concept. Here comes Yelpers trashing these places before they have a chance to be open for a month are so and make needed adjustments. If you believe in America like I do and want to do it a favor. Stop clicking on yelp ads and it will shut this company down This is just my opinion.
[…] Tell Your Yelp Story […]
My husband and I own a small local service business. My husband is very knowledgeable and friendly and darn good at what he does so we often get 5-star reviews on all of the review sites, including Yelp.
The last time I checked Yelp we had 12 five-star reviews with 2 five-star reviews filtered. Recently, a sales rep named Jason called my husband and was pressuring him to buy their $300+ month advertising package for more exposure. Well, we don't have that kind of online advertising budget so my husband said no. Jason was getting REALLY pushy and because my husband needed to get off the phone to leave for a job, he finally just hung up on him.
Knowing Yelp's reputation, I told my husband, "I sure hope that doesn't come back on us."
Well, guess what? It did. I just saw our listing in the Google results and it shows 2 REVIEWS. Since all of our reviews are 5 star it still shows the 5 golden stars, but not the volume of reviews we had.
We don't solicit Yelp reviews. Yelpers and searchers find us on Google because our Yelp listing is currently #1 for one of our popular search terms. So they naturally go back and leave a review because that is where they found us.
So now we only have 2 reviews, 8 filtered, and the rest are just plain gone. The lady who gave us our first review doesn't even show as the first reviewer any more because hers is now filtered.
From now on we are going to tell our customers what happened and ask them to review us somewhere besides Yelp. It is unfair to our customers who take a lot of time out of their day to go to Yelp and write a review only to have it filtered or deleted!
We are going to write to the California Attorney General's office and tell them our story, http://oag.ca.gov/consumers. The AG office needs to be flooded with complaints about this crooked company! Send proof such as screen shots of your reviews and dates of phone calls and recordings if you have them.
I just attempted to leave glowing compliment for the Arbys in Sacramento on their yelp page. In order to post the compliment, I was REQUIRED to create a Yelp account. No problem, I did and as required by Yelp, I provided my junk email account. Yelp will NOT post my compliment until I confirm their email. Well, that wouldn’t be a problem is Yelp had something I was interested in receiving from them, otherwise, I don’t want Yelp to use this compliment opportunity for Arby’s to give Yelp permission to send me unsolicited email. This is a nasty trick to get users to opt-in to Yelp so that Yelp can have permission to SPAM the user.
Yelp = Internet extortionist! I have been frequenting anew restaurant in my Jupiter, FL neighborhood called Chowder Heads. They serve awesome fresh New England seafood ..the best clam chowder and lobster rolls and much more. I do look at review sites and one day looked them up on Yelp. I was shocked to see so many negative reviews and was thinking that someone is out to do harm to their business in a very methodical way using YELP!
I happened top mention this to the owner and he told me that a salesman from Yelp called him to sell him adverting and when he said no he did not want it the Yelp salesman who thought he had hung up went on a bout a half an hour rant calling the restaurant owner every dirty name in the book. Since that time any positive reviews are sent to the so-called filer (I call the trash can).
I personally have written two positive reviews and they both went straight to the trash. In my opinion Yelp is about extortion!
Yelp doesn't "trash" their reviews. Yelp places them in an area where they are still visible, but not up on the main page. If you scroll down the the bottom of all the reviews there should be a grayed out link that says "Filtered Reviews".
The reason why your review was filtered was probably because you either didn't make enough reviews or you didn't complete your profile. Once you complete either of those tasks, then you review will come out of the filtered section and onto the main page. In most cases, these filtered reviews are just people who don't bother going back onto yelp, so their reviews stay hidden.
I was pretty pissed off when many of my reviews weren't passing the yelp filter test. But after writing about 10 reviews, all of my reviews went live!
This isn't how it works. I have a ton of reviews, and a ton of friends, and am active on Yelp (on purpose and totally abiding by the Terms of Service so if they do delete me again it will be a publicity problem), and even some of my reviews end up in the filter. I mostly review restaurants, so some of my other random reviews may not get seen. This is where they say their filter chooses what is suspicious. Like if I review a hair salon in Australia but I didn't check in, and have no other check ins there, the system will think, you live in the US, why are you reviewing in Australia? That's how it's supposed to work. But the filter is broken, so all bets are off. We've tried to have people who had only written a couple of reviews add friends, write more, add a picture, etc. It still didn't release the filtered reviews. There's really no tried and true method since they change their filter frequently. This is why I suggest business owners copy the filtered reviews, send a thank you email to the client and then ask them to post it on Google where it will be seen.
I agree, I've had several yelp reviews one was very negative. All others are positive. Yelp only posts the negative one and all the others are "FILTERED"
I have a salon in Delray Beach, FL and we have been successfully in business going on 10 years. About 3 years ago we had a terminated employee created a yelp account and decided to blast us pretending she was a client from a service. In the meantime I motivated guests to check out yelp and review and whenever they would it would be filtered…About a week after that I was contacted by Yelp saying that they noticed the negative comments and that if I paid them $1500 a month they would fix the filtered reviews and move down the negative. I declined and was so angry that I was being basically blackmailed by this massive company that is completely abusing its power with extortion. Shortly after I looked at my yelp page and my ratings had drastically decreased. I called yelp and they just kept on saying that no one from yelp would ever do that and that their filter is not able to be manipulated or touched.
I was furious..here I am with my business that I have worked so hard for and now all the sudden this activity of my business on yelp states that we are a 3 star salon. I finally chose to completely stop activity on my business hoping after some time the reviews would get better.. NO. I keep getting legitimate reviews which are immediately filtered however the ex employee made up yelp review brands my salon 3 years later STILL 3 stars. It doesn't matter how long you wait–bottom line is if you want to fix this you need to pay some scammer from yelp to unfiltered good reviews….its terrible..
by the way does everyone realise Yelp is also run with Paypal..if anyone has encountered serious issues with paypal you will see how similar they are as far as unfair and illegitimate business practices.
They hold businesses hostage.
They delete my valid reviews (68 total).
I will never post on Yelp again.
My law partner and I are filing a class action lawsuit to get you $100 to $200 per review as you should be paid for your labors. Can you go to http://www.yelpclassaction.info and gives us your information. http://www.yelpclassaction.info
EXTORTION — how sad. small business' reviews are filter so their larger clients get more business. no explanations for this 'filter'? they treat their own software like it's an all knowing human being that cannot be questioned?
i can't wait for this internet bully to go down. boooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Is there a lawyer in the house? I've been 'yelped'! We own a small construction business and got one unhappy customer who decided to get back at me on Yelp with a negative review! Well, I've asked some customers to review positives but they all get filtered! It seems wrong (legally?) for a site like Yelp to choose which reviews make it, unless their policies are violated. In the meantime, is there any way to not have Yelp come up when people google my company name? Don't know if there are any legal steps we can take!
I have the same thing happen. I had all great reviews, and then one person from last summer, who was incredibly difficult to deal with, wrote a horrible review on me, and since then, EVERY SINGLE ONE of my reviews (Even the ones before him) have been filtered.
YELP did this to me and to several of my customers.
1.- We did not list our self, we suddenly appear there.
2.- People gave good reviews. Small bad reviews.
3.- They call US (not only my business offer 300 a month) we say no.
4.- ONLY BAD REVIEWS.
to YELP: You are unethical SOB's
me too good legitimate reviews filtered out and bad reviews shown. How do they sleep at night? I have offered to give them names and phone numbers of legitimate customers who came to us form Groupon or Living Social but they don't care. What sort of a service is this and who is it benefiting – I don't understand their goals. This sort of tainted and absolutely wrong system benefits no one and does not value the yelp reviewer, the yelp community nor the business. A business should be proud of what they do and have some moral values too.
YELP IS VERY UNAMERICAN in my opinion.
Its sad they have so much social power.
Our company has 100’s of GOOD reviews from happy consumers. Our 5 or 6 bad ones are posted. Why is that?
Because if you do not buy advertising from Yelp they will go out of their way to harm you with bad reviews. I have two negative reviews that are so obviously FAKE but the Yelp rep said that if I would buy $1,000 worth of advertising she would try to make it go away. PLUS, yelp claims my average ticket ( amount spent by single customer ) is $83.00 We are a self serve car wash and the highest priced automatic wash is $8.00 They refuse to change anything unless you advertise with them.
Please help: when my company is googled the one and only review that they published (1 star) appears on the search result! Is there any way that this can be moved down or at least the review not opened right on the search pages results?
Yes, I too fell victim to Yelp advertising. It's been said, "A fool and his money are soon parted" and so I was. I believed their many claims about how there were 3,100 people in my area searching for my type of business, a photographer. They assured me they would put my ad in front of 550 of those people looking to buy my services. I gave in and signed up. They wanted me to sign up for a year. Then they would settle for 6 months. I said the only way I would try Yelp is with a 3 month commitment. They said ok. I'm 2 months into my $350/month advertising and yet to have one single new customer that I can even remotely attribute to being derived from Yelp. The said I would have a dedicated account rep I could pick up the phone and talk to. Yes, I did have a rep, but can never get through on the phone. She tells me I have to "email her to schedule a time to talk". Are you kidding me? So, it takes on average 2 days to speak with your "dedicated rep". Yelp advertising is a huge, huge waist of money. DON'T DO IT!!!! Don't take my word for it, research it yourself. Look at the reviews on Yelp advertising. Don't be a fool. The reviews are telling the truth. Yelp isn't worth it. You're better off spending your money on lottery tickets.
I can't believe what I am reading. We too have had Yelp.com mess with our business by only leaving up negative reviews. We have a crazy lady Liz S. that must be off her meds because we were in constant communication with her during the process of getting her orders ready to ship. She states that we did not contact her for 10 days. Not sure how that is possible when we sent her an email within 3 days with the rates. In the end, we told her to come get her wine and other food stuff because we were not going to do business with her. In the end she ended up shipping her wine through a UPS store in her area and a bottle of it ended up breaking and now her review and someone else who has never used us has make negative comments which yelp leaves up. It is sad how 2 crazy peoples reviews can remain but ligitimate customers we shipped to go into the filted reviews which no one see. We have requested that our business be removed from Yelp.com so we will see what happens. Now we realize that we chose not to sign up for their advertising last year and now this is all we get. Worst thing we have ever done was to sign up for yelp.
My business was slandered by someone who gave a false name and location. I didn't have a yelp account, he reviewed me. About 4-5 customers of mine went on yelp and gave me excellent reviews. They all ended up in the filter. The ONLY one showing is the bad review. It's things like this that scream out for regulation. Yelp needs to get sued.
I run a female owned business and Yelp is the worst thing to ever happen to me. Same thing, I complain, they try to sell me ads I do not need nor can afford and bingo, all the good reviews disappear and many totally fake false bad reviews pop up. They are so obviously fake because of what they write about I do not have nor ever had. I hate Yelp and they need to be put out of business today.. larisa
Here is my suggestion. Most all of us have websites, some with "links" tabs or "resources" tabs. I am thinking of putting a link to this specific page on my "links" tab. If everyone did this wouldn't the one way links to this site would shoot it to the top of search engines organically and therefore …hopefully level the playing field by informing the average consumer about such valid points. Therefore, they may hold yelp reviews only as a very small picture in choosing to buy from a company. I mean this is what the goal is correct, to get the average consumer to look at the big picture and not just yelp reviews that may be flawed??
That would be awesome!!! Thank you! We already get about 30,000 visitors a month. The key is to engage with one another, thumbs up each others posts, and comments. Google loves comments. So if you have a suggestion for someone, please reply!
How do you do these links?
Just add a link to https://yelp-sucks.com/tell-your-yelp-story
So, I started a business, built a site, and was quickly contacted by yelp with a convincing sales pitch about how great it will be to advertise with them. I fell for it and signed the agreement, for a whole year @$350/mo. It seemed like a lot, but I figured I would be flooded with work because of the advertising. It was clearly stated that my first bill would be May 1. April 1, they debited $350 from my account. I call the guy who signed me up, and he assured me that it would be taken care of right away. I called the other guy, my "accounts rep", a couple days later. He said it was out of his control and there was nothing he could do about it. 1 1/2 weeks later, I called my bank and contested the charge. I also cancelled that card so they can't try to bill me again. TWENTY DAYS later, I finally got a credit from Yelp. I can assure you, they won't get any more of my money.
I work and live in a small beach community in northern California where everyone knows each other. I went out of my way to help a customer. He dropped the ball and blamed me! I am salesperson for a family owned automotive dealership we have been in business 40 years. I have been selling cars for 10 years and even sold this guys parents a car. He said he was waiting for a insurance check and would have the money in a week! I clearly told him that I couldn't take a hold or take a deposit on the used Toyota 4 runner, but I would park it in the back parking lot In hope that none of the other salespeople would notice the "Cream Puff" Another salesperson had a internet lead on the car and sold it. The guy came in 2 weeks later and said I promissed this and that and threatened to sue me and Yelp me. I tried to contact Yelp to give my side of the story with no luck. Do you know of a phone number to call? Do you have any ideas to help get this removed? I later found out that this guy was a jerk to people that rented commercial property from his parents. I feel that I work hard to maintain a good reputation and standing in the community when most people dislike car salesman.
There is no phone call. But you can respond to the review and explain your side. That won't help your star rating, but it may help people who are reading it understand.
Recently I had gone to a local restaurant and having a good experience(and before reading this site) decided to post a very good review. It's a small place and opened about 6 months ago, I decided to try to help them out. So after you go through all the hoop-la to be able to post one, my 5 star was never seen and the reviews that are on there can't possibly be the same place I visited. Some complain about the tacky decor, ummm, themed restaurant, think about it people. Another complained about the gum popping waitresses, there are two, maybe three people who work there, they are behind a counter and two of the three are male. Long story short, I think that perhaps, and I could be wrong, but I doubt it, either these are fake reviews or from someone who has glanced in, but never been in. I stopped in and told them I tried to post a review but it never showed, I was told not to worry about it because they refused to advertise, they had been warned that something like this would happen.
I wasted my money with Yelp once, but never again.
Like one of the other commenters said, yes they tried to get my business again, nothing doing.
Once bitten.
I have emails from yelp "elites" telling me if I give them money they will change negative reviews into positive ones. I have emails where I have shown these to yelp and they refused to take action. I also have instances where racially derogatory terms were used about us and yelp refisued to remove not even the racial terms! Who do I contact RE getting these into the right hands?
forward me the emails and I'll get you the media attention you deserve and get the Elite's exposed for blackmail.
I answered an ad on craigslist, and agreed to meet with the person at a local coffee shop. The Job was advertised as an “internet marketing and sales position” by a private party.
I was offered a job to write bad YELP reviews on local businesses such as restaurants, dry cleaners, house painters and automobile service centers. This is how it works; the person who is a YELP Salesperson gives me a list of businesses to bash 50-60 a week. Then she goes and shakes down the business owners offering to filter, remove or move my bad reviews to the bottom of the list for $800+ or –
I thought about contacting the police, shouldn’t this be illegal? Racketeering?
If you have that ad or any email communication I'd love to see it!!! YES! That is RICO! That is illegal. And that is what we have been saying is happening and they keep denying! When was this?
Wanna see one of these fake review trolls in action?
Search for "Dan w." in Denver (shortcut to this guy is below). http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=tu_4UEhaD…
He has TONS of reviews and they are all 1 to 2 stars with very non-sequitur and innocuous (see nitpicking or whiny) complaints.
This would make a great media story, profile of a nitpicker. Is the guy really real? Can we track him down? Does he check in where he reviews? Is he the kind that blackmails for free stuff or is he hired to be mean? What's his story? Oh yes, I like this. 🙂 Great find!
i have had this very thing happen to me….This week I was contacted by YELP advertising. When I refused I had a bad defamatory review of my business within 24 hours. It was unfactual untrue and it was clear the client had never been to my business. I contacted YELP they have decided it should stand. It is obviously an illegal tactic to drive business to advertisers only.. I will be contacting an attorney and the FTC to lodge formal complaints and to file a defamation suit tomorrow.
The media would love this story. Send me your contact info and I'll hook you up!
You can forward them to me if you'd like me to give them to the attorney's and media. Also, I'm about to do an interview with one of Yelp's outside attorney's that I know, trust, and have known for years (long before Yelp existed) and I am happy to get them into her hands as well.
Yelp is a breading ground for negativity and hate. Has anyone brought up the point that Yelp doesn't have to identify the writer of the reviews but yet they can show our logos and our names, employees name all over the place and we have no rights to stop them from doing that . We own a family business for the past 27 years. We got coaxed to register our business with Yelp. com when we ran a deal on LivingSocial.com. We were told we couldn't run a deal with them if we didn't register with Yelp. So we did it with our hearts open and our hopes high, not knowing to much about it at the time. We had great reviews on our Facebook and so we went for it. Fast-forward to now we have more positive reviews than negative ones and the positive reviews don't show. The negative ones are totally false and use names of employees we do not even have. They are clearly so outlandish and have affected us in a negative way. We have emails from possible customers who change their minds and don't want to use us after they read some of the things on Yelp. We have done some investigating and Yelp makes it's money on every time a person clicks on a negative review so it makes sense why the focus on them, hence the name "yelp" . The person who owns this company is getting rich off all of the hard-working business owners trying to feed our children and provide support to our communities by offering jobs and being contributing Americans. Yelp is taking away these dreams by allowing false statements to be written. We have mortgages, bills, children, health problems and lives we support by being business owners. We have email chains with Yelp telling them we refuse to allow them to show our logos & our name that is copy written by law and we want to be removed from Yelp, but yet it remains the same. Every single day the other owner and myself talk about Yelp. I have cried my eyes out in frustration. EVERY STORY has two sides and Yelp is one -sided. Lord help us all to defeat this Goliath.
Yelp is a plague on the net. Horrible company practices, clearly out for extortion. A crazy person called our office for a free consultation and the secretary got so spooked she refused it. Then he writes a one-star report, which gets published even though the guy has other reviews that are beyond weird, derogatory, calling people bitches and talking like a criminal. The other review written by a legitimate customer gets filtered, for no reason. This company is just plain awful, and needs to be dealt with.
Yelp called me one day for ad $$ but I wasn't ready to speak to them. I dragged my feet for 3 weeks. When ready I spoke to Kevin at Yelp when I found out the ads were $350.00 per month I told him I had to talk to my partner. We ended the conversation…or did we? I stayed on the phone and he had not hung up the line. I could hear him cursing me out, calling ma jerk and worse. I emailed him back and told him next time hang up the phone, or and I won't be advertising on yelp.
The next day my restaurant reviews went haywire. my good reviews were filtered out and my bad ones were up top. I was getting reviews from people that had never been in my restaurant. Then I found out the Yelp sub-contracts people who write reviews. One such guy livers in California, has never left the state but has written over 1000 reviews in all 50 states. Yelp sends the info and he writes the review.
Finally after several contacts with yelp, frustrated and worried that my new restaurant was going to be destroyed by this internet monster relief came from YAHOO. Ashley Lutz revealed the truth about yelp and people replied and the comments to the replies were in the thousands. I was getting calls from other restaurant owners who yelp extorted. Low and behold in 2 days my bad reviews disappeared. Even the one where 2 rats were seen having sex in the corner of my brand new restaurant.
Yelp is a bully, they need to be taken down. If you would like to join in a class action suit please contact me. [email protected]
I wrote a review of my favorite restaurant some time ago. I then noticed that my review was "filtered" and was not factored in the tally of reviewers. When I looked closer, most of the reviews they were showing were negative. I then went to look at the filtered reviews and of the 16 reviews, 14 were either 4 or 5 stars (mostly 5 stars) and only 2 were negative. I had complained to Yelp custormer service and they tried to explain their policy saying that I only had one review and therefore I was not "reliable". That is nonsense. I then told them to delete my profile and close out my account. They did as I asked. I refuse to patronize anything that maintains unfair business practices. And Yelp does exaclty that. I encourage anyone who feels as I do to immediately request that your account be closed. Yelp's value on Wall Street is entirely based upon how many "accounts" and users they have. If everyone who is fed up with Yelp were to close out their accounts, I imagine Yelp's market value would see a nice hit. After all, money talks.
By closing out your profile… did that delete the reviews? My guess is no.
Nope, closing out your profile does not remove your business reviews. I believe that if the reviewer closes their profile the review vanishes…
I put my business on Yelp (my first mistake). Posted on my Facebook business page that my business was now on yelp. A disgruntled ex-employee who was fired for theft and dishonesty puts up a slanderous untrue review accusing me of many untrue things and calling me a mad women (this same ex-employee has also contact my customers on Facebook claiming we are swindling people and that we don't make our own products – very untrue). I receive four 5 star reviews from actual customers in the next 24 hours. All EXCEPT the negative review are filtered. I recognize the names of those customers that had their reviews filtered – they are completely legit reviews and those customers are long term good customers of my business who buy my products. Turns out these customers made yelp accounts specifically to comment on my business because they enjoy my products and customer service so much! I got TWO calls this morning on my business phone from those same customers asking if I knew that those reviews seemed to have been deleted and asking if I knew why! I am now waiting for the Yelp call to try to sell me advertising. Wonder when it will come.
Here is the problem with Yelp: if u get a negative review and you want some of your customers to post a positive review (legitimately, but you ask if they could), the customer most likely does not have a YELP account and has to start one with your business their first review. First reviews that are 5 start almost always get filtered out!
~Kelly and adam hits the nail on the head.
H2o Supremacy – Stephan K
I'm freaking out. We had one bad review, tried to correct it (with the client) which made her more mad (gave her a refund, and she wanted an additional refund…when she didn't get it, she posted her anger about it on Yelp). Anyway, now all our good client reviews are disappearing into filtered. Seems like every time I contact Yelp they delete more! I'm freaking out…went from 5 stars to 3 1/2 stars in one week's time. These are all legitimate reviews. We've had hundreds of happy clients since we opened in 2011 and this is the first super unhappy one. I am so frustrated and defeated. Trying to bury Yelp in search results by using other tactics: google, linkedin, facebook, twitter. God help me! Does anyone have any tips?
Flag her review. She got a refund and is now out for blackmail and using Yelp to get it. If that doesn't work, go to the media if you don't mind the whole situation being aired. They love local stories and how Yelp screws business owners is always a hot topic.
I explained the insurance company isn't stupid and air conditioners don't break after 3 hours unless there is something wrong with it. It has nothing to do with us. She kept our furniture and refused access to the house to remove it, the day we came to pick it up she took a hose to my sofa set and ruined it. I took her to court for which I won judgment, damages and court costs. I then garnished her bank account and put a lien on her house. She was mad and wrote a fake review. As if the experience wasn't painful enough.
I met some people who knew her on a personal level and learned she has 8 restraining orders that have been issued against her by her own neighbours. I sent pictures, witness testimonies and even the court judgment to Yelp. They just send me a generic response and say we have contacted the reviewer and the reviewer stands by her review. I flagged her review they say they already know.
Here's where to post messages about what a scam YELP is, on the finance boards, destroy their stock value! http://finance.yahoo.com/mb/forumview/?&v=m&a… Let investors bring their stock down and destroy YELP!!!!!
Hi, I am from a young journalists group at WHYY and we were hoping to do a feature story on yelp and seeing your post on the yelp.com business page we were wondering if we could call you and do an interview and just ask about what your experience with yelp is. You can message me at my email: [email protected] as soon as you can! Hopefully we can get in touch and we could get some information from you! Thanks so much!
Her name wasn't Lisa by chance was it? I had a crazy unreasonable customer too. We're a staging company and we staged this woman's house. She loved my worked, even signed our contract the day we finished and paid her final installment for the month. She got 2 offers on her house for which she didn't take. The second month came and she had to renew her rental for the furniture and accessories. She said all of a sudden, "by the way" I apparently broke her air conditioner because I had the front doors open for 3 hours meanwhile she had her personal contractors working there for a week with all the doors and windows open. She tried to force us into committing insurance fraud that way she could get the service for free and she keep the furniture she rented from us and her suggestion was we get paid through the insurance company.
Go to Yelp's home page and review Yelp… copy and paste it to your own business page and give your business ONE STAR. All potential customers will read it, it will stay first on your page until someone else reviews your business with one star review…. then you just write it again. Definitely review Yelp.
Why not start a petition like this one- and we promote the page everywhere- 🙂
https://www.change.org/p/stop-yelp-s-review-filte…
San Diego Judge describing Yelp’s advertising contract as “the modern-day version of the mafia going to stores and saying, “You wanna not be bothered?”
I own a business where the customer will offer to give me a review. I directed one customer to yelp and received an outstanding review. The review is impossible for any one to view.
I now direct my customers to provide a review at any site except yelp. I no longer use yelp and recommend that all of my customers avoid this strange and unusual site. It's only a matter of time before these thieves find a different profession. Is there any chance these guys are the same people from Nigeria that troll Craigslist?
My husband bought a turnkey business and was doing great. We are small but we got some very good reviews. Then some old fart local lied about us on Yelp. He said something had happened that neither he nor our employees ever reprted to us. Yelp refused to remove the false review. Some months later I read that Yelp was removing bad reviews for money. If I ever have another business I will NEVER put it on Yelp!
Here's where to post messages about what a scam YELP is, on the finance boards, destroy their stock value! http://finance.yahoo.com/mb/forumview/?&v=m&a… Let investors bring their stock down and destroy YELP!!!!!
You don't have the option of "not putting it on Yelp". They can simply include your business against your wishes. And then you must deal with negative reviews.
Yelp refused to remove a review that says the BBB shows an F rating, when in fact there is a B rating.
Further, I had someone falsely state that they are a client, and Yelp did not remove. Obviously false information, but Yelp won't take a moment to backup their claim that "innaccurate information" is against their policies.
I had this guy say I was a criminal- unbelievable that Yelp did not remove.
Another person called me a scammer and liar- still no reply from Yelp to remove the content.
I would totally join a class action suit.
J
I am not the only one who is saying this, a huge Yelp lawsuit now is the proof
There should be someone who can stop this bully act and unfair practice. I am here file this complaint and request all bad and good review to show or just completely remove my listing from Yelp
All small business owner put money, sweat and countless hours into this and we dont deserve this. We have customer out the door line up and these lying, bully act has affected my business so much
While the company claims this policy builds integrity in their reputation by providing trusted feedback for consumers, it also discredits them by engaging in unfair practice. Sales associates have to make a living, yes. But do it the right way!
Someone need to help ! PLEASE
I agree with you Aimy 100% I often say I feel like an abused woman. I am being abused by Yelp who happens to be my spouse and he keeps abusing me and won't let me leave. If I could leave there would be no more abuse!