Yelp.com
reviews and complaints

I advertised with Yelp with their Yelp Impressions program and called it quits after disputes with review problems and Yelp acting inconsistent. For example, you get an irrational reviewer posting several reviews on Yelp, the reviewer is removed from the site, yet one review is taken off completely and the other identical one remains as "not recommended." I've also seen Yelp deliberately violate their own policies and my complaints fell on deaf ears. A big part of that is the staff that handles calls for businesses that pay for advertising and that call in to complain. They are unyielding and will not allow you to escalate matters to a manager. That means they get a lot of complaints.

So I got hounded for years and recently tried a trial advertisement involving their pay for click. Like all of their sales people, they misrepresent what they have to offer, what you're actually paying for, and are vague on pricing. DO NOT buy their pay for click. It's a complete waste of money and they push it because they over charge for what you receive to make quicker revenue.

Some people will buy it and this is what I advise: Whatever they tell you, tell the salesman to put in writing and send an email. Since you're registered they have your email account and will certainly send an email to confirm the sale. So they have no excuse to not provide whatever information you request.

Of particular importance is how they price their ads and how they will charge you. Unlike the impressions program where they bill you in advance each month, for Pay for Click, they bill you after the fact. Any ad incentives get lost if you stop advertising. They tell you you can carry over ad clicks that weren't used. Have them put that in writing. When you realize the program shows lots of clicks but no benefit, it's because most consumers don't really know how you are being charged or just don't care. You can cancel this program at any time and they can only charge you for the prorated amount of what you should be paying per month. That's why you want that in writing so you're not surprised when you get billed. If you cancel, YOU MUST go into the business portal, in the ads area, make sure you SELECT "end your advertisment program". If you have any of the other nonsense such as "Enhanced Profile", you must similarly end each of those that are shown. If you don't do this, you will continue to get billed. They WILL NOT merely let you write them to cancel your ads. This is SNEAKY by design in case you file a complaint with any government agency. What's worse is that Consumer Protection agencies don't deal with business to business activity which is a big flaw for small businesses.

Lastly, file a complaint with the State of California anyway. They are well aware of YELP complaints, have taken YELP to court, and the only way they'll take a closer look at their practices is if they get thousands of complaints. It works. Here is the link: https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

I been with Yelp for many years and also 5 to 6 years ago advertised for 6 months. Happy at the time.
Since they been calling me up to 4 times a years to advertise. I tell them all the time to please remove me from there vendors list I explaining that I turn down jobs everyday, that I can't undertake all that is coming to me and that therefore it would be stupid for me to waist money on advertisement. As long as I use to pickup the phone that was fine the filtering system about 10 to 15% of the review. Couple of months ago I ignored there phone call, knowing there Area code (480) since and at once I saw 40 review some that was there for 2 years old going to filtered one and new one filtered too. There is a very obvious coincidence to me and certainly not a computer filtering story.
Doesn't affect my Business. Because my business is on every network and word to mouth since 20 years.
Just like to report the bad practice and pressure that they try to put on companies to get money.

After too many phone calls from their salesmen, I finally caved and agreed to try their "$300 free ads" with the understanding that we could not spend any money after the $300 was used up. I was assured seven times that the card would not be charged. With their rep on the phone, he took us to the page that should have shown us the balance and it was always showing a $0 balance. They are running a ****SCAM**** at YELP by giving people $300 in free ADS stating you will not be charged until this free $300 runs out. We canceled before the $300 had run out and we are being charged for a plan that their representative directed us to choose in order to receive the $300 which left us somehow owing $237 which overdrew our account and caused $210 worth of overdraft fees!. They charge the card without notice and do not allow you to remove the card on file without replacing it. They show a pattern of deceit and misrepresentation to multiple customers as can be noted on this site. They only give out first names and have call screeners employed just to deal with all the angry customers. When asking to speak to a manager they leave you on an endless hold and you will never speak to the same person twice. We have called on different occasions being assured that our call with the sales representative would be reviewed and on our third call were informed the call had still not been reviewed because they considered the dispute to be "resolved" with the $237 remaining as a charge. I still cannot find anywhere on their site where you can see what they are actually charging. When you download the account, there is no pertinent information. Total RIPOFF!

From March 2018, I was approached worh a 300.00 credit for advertising. I put an ad in and never heard from them again. June 1st, my bank account is debited 117.44 for "advertising campaign". I put in a request for a refund. After several emails and phone calls, I was told repeatedly "we don't give refunds". They never contacted me about the ad, how it was doing, or that my 300.00 credit had expired. Very poor business practice. I said I was unsatisfied. They didn't care. I want a refund of the 117.44.

Yelp is advertising my real business website under a different business name opened by a fraudulent person. The business is not remotely related and has not been in business in years, the name of the businesses are nothing alike in company or activities and they have my website and first and last name advertised under this other company.
I have only gotten them to remove my home address and phone number from the site but they continue to attach my full name and and my companies website to this fake page.

In my case Yelp is not recommending (hiding) 5 star reviews posted by my customers and showing one 1 star review all over the internet. Yelpers do this because they want me to buy their advertising. They try so hard all kinds of things in order to get my money. Of course, I will never buy anything from this company. Why? Yelp is advertising my business for Free anyway.

I was seeking professional representation for my family court appearance. During my search I stumbled upon Mr. Garcia. Throughout our first conversation, he seemed as though he could really help me in my struggle. Although he did make suggestive regards about my appearance I did not think a whole lot of it. It was during our formal consultation that I began to feel uncomfortable about the way Mr. Garcia chose focal points other than 'eye' contact while speaking to me.

Again, I was naive to the thought that he was the right person for my case. It was when we began to discuss the rate of his services that I had my fingers crossed that this man would not charge me an arm & leg, when really his suggestive remarks proved that 'the arm & leg' may be suitable form of payment. I was very offended and felt violated throughout my experience with Mr. Garcia. If you are seeking professional honest help this would not be the right choice for you. But if you are willing to accept his sexual advances in exchange for his services then he may be right attorney for you.

I had a paid account for many years but noticed I was suddenly getting false negative reviews, sometimes by a competitor attacking my business in more than one location with the same review. Yelp violated that person and removed his account, took off one of the reviews but left the other as "not recommended". Obviously that's not logical.
In most instances, Yelp was removing positive reviews and leaving blatantly questionable negative reviews. I had to downsize my account so that the reviews wouldn't show up. That just made matters worse with Yelp until I finally called stopped advertising with them.
Yelp provides reviews for Yahoo, Bing and Apple Maps. That's too much concentration of marketing info. In my experience with Yelp, no matter how diligent your defense is, or should you complain to the BBB, Yelp evades issues and lies.
Yelp does not deserve to be the default review portal for search engines, nor should any business have that type of monopoly. Yelp should be held accountable to a very high standard and it isn't. It's been sued in U.S. District Court, had thousands of complaints, and at the very least, should be forced to have negative reviewers respond to the business they're reviewing and identify who they are. If Yelp decides to yank a positive review, it should provide a valid reason for doing so. Merely saying it's an algorithm doesn't cut it.

Hello, A while back, I submitted a review on Yelp, sometime this year. It was for a local bakery, located on Homewood Avenue in Pittsburgh. The review was my honest opinion of the quality of the pastries, and that they were more desirable than the usual product at the local stores. I also expressed the quality of a sweet potato pie they offered. I did not mention any competitor, and made no negtative comment. The review has disappeared from their website. If I was wrong, I would like to know how I offended. But there is no other way to contact them, except here. Thanks.

Carola Edwards
Owner
Edwards Valu4u

I filed a complaint on YELP back in March 2017. It was in reference to a moving company located out of Miami, FL and has had other negative comments filed against it.
Come to find out that my legitimate review was discarded and viewers were instructed not to :
1 review for Move Quick that is not currently recommended
Note: The reviews below are not factored into the business's overall star rating.

I want to know why this complaint was not taken seriously. It was well written and described the events that led to the substandard rating.
I will not be using YELP in the future and I will also inform people I know not to rely on the information contained in YELP. I also understand I am not the first person to complain about YELP discounting negative reviews against a company. I will go back to ANGIE's list and deal with them in the future.

Dan Figler

Hello.
I used Yelp website a lot. I found many useful reviews there and decided to make my own account. I left several bad reviews and several days later I noticed that all my reviews were deleted! I wanted to contact Yelp but wasn't able to do that. To be honest I did not find their contact details. I only found their questions and answers page where it was said what could be the reason and why reviews were deleted. That gave me absolutely nothing, because all my reviews were honest and I told only truth!
I want to hear from Yelp as soon as possible and I want to know what was that they did not like. I don't think that's a good way to run a website, I just said what I wanted to say! I will not use Yelp again. I will wait for their reply and then I'll delete my account.

One positive review was entered and accepted. The second one was also entered by my client and accepted. As soon as the second went in the first one was removed. Tried to contact them and they have it set up where that is impossible. What gives with these people?

I am a wedding photographer and reviews are important to me at Once Upon a Gown Photography, Indianapolis.

Yelp.com is a big joke and a fraud!

Yelp.com has a big, filthy, disgusting habit of using people to write reviews for free and profiting from the reviews.

I can not believe that I am actually writing a negative review on a complaints website called yelp.com, but I guess I could be the first one!

I was a volunteer, independent, freelance writer for yelp.com, including other much better social media / complaint websites and do not have any problems with the others, except for this one since they are run and staffed by a bunch of mean, mafia haters!

I was never an employee of theirs, however, since I wrote over
300 reviews, I felt that I was a big part of the yelp.com family and so yes, I considered myself an executive writer with yelp.com (which is a title that I always give to myself when I have done some heavy duty writing), however, that did not mean I worked for them, nor got paid from them and never said I did because the answer is a big no!

Sadly, back on wednesday, march 30, 2016, the very mean, angry mafia group of employees that work for yelp.com have obviously nothing better to do, but gang up on me for no legitimate reason and they just make stuff up as an excuse to close my account!

Trust me, nothing illegal was done, nor committed!

Sadly, once again, the only excuse that they used is the one that I have in the attachments that they emailed me just the other day in which I had mentioned before in a previous paragraph.

This to me is not a legitimate reason to get rid of me and what I do not understand is the fact that why would they let me write at least 300 plus reviews without getting rid of me any sooner?

Strange!

Please note: if you wish to contact somebody from yelp.com to discuss their reasons for closing your account and/or to appeal their decision, then good luck because they have no phone support, period!

Please note: they never reconsider anybody, nor change their mind on their closing your account decision!

Typically if you do something wrong, they tell you by email and then you have the chance and opportunity to correct it. In my case, I only received very minor complaints which were not major and I did correct them since they were all fixable with no penalties applied, however, when you are dealing with a bunch of angry, jealous, racist, hateful people, there is virtually nothing that you can do to make peace with them.

Please note: their employees get off at closing accounts!

Please note: they think that they are doing the world a big favor!

Furthermore, all of my reviews are 100% truthful and honest, unlike the many fake reviews that yelp.com does nothing about!

Please note: not only does yelp.com have fake reviews, but they also allow paid outside employees from various companies to publish fake reviews and of course, yelp.com does nothing about it because they profit by charging these companies for advertising!

Yelp.com definitely is one big ugly mafia as well as being
Very hypocritical, judgmental and biased and here is a very good example.

One of the reviews that somebody wrote had the f word in it which is supposed to be considered a violation, however, when I reported it, they responded by telling me that it is acceptable in their member's review which is what I call # backwards, however, in my case, when I do not use any profanity and just write truthful, honest reviews, they still decide without good cause to get rid of me like trash!

Please note: this is exactly the second time that I have experienced the same type of abuse coming from yelp.com for doing absolutely nothing wrong!

Not only did they close my account twice for no good reasons, but they also
Steal back my reviews that I wrote and it happens to be my property that we are talking about.

Please note: I did email them a request to please return my reviews back to me and so far, I have received no response!

Please note: if I do not get my reviews from both accounts returned back to me, then I will take them to small claims court!

For your information: the reason why I did create a 2nd account is because I did not commit a crime and since I have no criminal record, I feel that I have the legal right to continue writing legitimate reviews on their website.

Please note: for your information... One of the ways that yelp.com makes money is by publishing fake reviews and believe me, there are plenty of them.

Please note: yelp.com also makes their main money by contacting companies and getting them to advertise on their site.

What is really strange about their way of doing business is the fact that the writers/reviewers are for the most part, the ones who are posting the company profiles which include the company's name, address, phone number, website, etc. And so I do not understand of why they continue to harass the companies for money to supposedly advertise due to the fact that the companies being harassed are already listed and published on yelp.com and therefore yelp.com does not have a need for their money, nor to contact them since these companies are already listed for free!

However, yelp.com is desperate for money and will do whatever they can to stay afloat and alive.

Final thoughts: thankfully, they are not the only reviews website out there and all of the other ones that I volunteer for as their executive writer "treat me with respect and dignity" in which yelp.com lacks!

Please do not do business with yelp.com!

A big waste of time, money and energy!

There are much better reviews websites out there! Believe me!

Ps: enclosed, in the attachments, please find two of the latest documents that yelp.com sent to me in regards to illegally closing my account with a poor excuse for doing so for your reference and further review. Thank you.

I put a positive review for a business and they took it down. I asked the business owner what happened and he said he didn't know. I believe they took it down because he doesn't advertise with them. I signed up for an account with them and thought I would be able to write a review that other people would be able to read and make an educated decision on the business that I wrote about. That is the whole point of yelp and what they say they are doing. I took a long time to write my review and expected it to be up on the page and it isn't.

Im a small buisness dog grooming school in manhatten, they let a whackjob post a review afyter her dog was accidently scrapped at the grooming school and then called the nys police and wasted their time to come out because her dog got nic'd at the groomer, lied about whether we give them water, (how would she even know that) and of course we give them water, called the bettter buisness and asked for 5000 because her dogs a star, this girl dated the directors of the buisness's cousen (and he dumped her) because she is crazy and now she is trashing the buisness. Lies on top of lies she wrote. We love ythese animal and always do the right thing, im getting a lawyer as well. Wrong is wrong I want the post removed

This website is insane! If you are a business owner better stay away from Yelp! You can have great products, lots of costumers who loves you and things you do. They would leave a great review about your business and service, but Yelp will remove the review. Discussing this with the customer support is just a waste of time. They will tell that positive reviews about you are fake and that is the reason why are they deleting everything. But they leave all the negative ones and even fakes. You'll never prove that review is fake, even if you're 100 % sure about that. Don't trust Yelp reviews! These guys are disgusting!

Reviewers are aloud to mention other restaurants (Creekside) on my restaurants (Sundaes restaurant and ice cream) reviews. So I can go on creeksides yelp as a reviewer and leave them a fair review and mention that sundaes is a great place. So why would I want to pay for advertising? I will do that for all the restaurants in the area. Not asking for review to be removed but want (Creekside) restaurant removed from the review. It is different if someone is paying for an ad on my page verus it being in reviews section.

Yelp does nothing to stop fraudulent business on there site

My wife was defrauded from a business she found on yelp. After contacting authorities about this person and business they informed me no such business exist and they are already in the process of taking criminal action about this person. They provided court action they took against him thinking yelp cares about the content they have on there site of business listed I thought I would provide them proof of all I just mention and direct contact numbers and email to government officials here — guess what they said not interested and will still keep the business listed — here is the google map link of a current fake listing who is ripping people off in my city — this address is a boarded up warehouse! I would appreciate anyone to help me mark this business as "doesn't exist" so he stops ripping people off here in my city.

Https://www.Google.com/maps/place/a-1+junk+cars/@43.10236,-87.943273,15z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0xbf965b6c77578767

Here is what yelp wrote in response
Hi larry, thanks for your feedback. We've corrected the name of this biz to a-1 junk cars, as well as correcting the address and website. Our position is that if a business is providing a service to consumers, they should be listed on yelp. Consumers benefit from being able to read experiences from others who have posted about this business, even if they are operating without a license.

Regards,
Steve
Yelp user support

Apartment reviews on the internet are almost never positive. Squeaky wheels flock to apartmentratings.com and Yelp to whine and moan about every last thing imaginable. So, I will keep this short and sweet, and call attention to the fact that this review is from 2015. DO YOU LIKE COCKROACHES? I do not. They live here at the Parc Meridien, despite feeble attempts to whack-a-mole their existence one apartment unit (out of forty) at a time. If you like cockroaches (which are really just small lobsters anyways), and think $1300 a month sounds like a good deal to live with cockroaches in a studio apartment, come on down. You can hang out together in the bathtub and wash behind one another's ears (or antenna, as the case may be).

I am posting this here, because whenever it is posted on Yelp, either the business page manager (who mentioned that he had never pulled a post (?) OR the person emailing and harassing others (likely Smoque-affiliated/employee) has repeatedly pulled it. Customer service IS a part of the business model, and how businesses treat customers are extremely important. Businesses should be transparent and address issues that exist, instead of hiding them. Customer should be allowed to share their unique experiences. If businesses do not value these experiences, then there is no way for a business to grow with their customers and make improvements, where necessary. Freedom of speech is extremely important, and businesses should value it, as well. — 1) My initial email:

I'm writing in regards to someone from the Smoque team sending extremely negative emails to those who give mediocre to negative reviews. I have posted their response to the Smoque page, and in response, either the Smoque business page manager or the Smoque employee has requested Yelp to take the post down, under grounds that his representation of the business and interaction with customers is "not a new firsthand experience with the business." Yes, what the employer was doing was representing the business by reaching out and qualifies as a firsthand experience with the business. Customer service and treatment IS a part of the business and experience with the business.

This has happened before with 1 other business, and when I contacted the manager, he dealt with it professionally, discovered which employee was representing the business in such a way, and did not act to limit free speech and a customer's expression of his/her experience with the business. Every customer can have an individual experience, and each experience is valid. It is unbelievable that a business would attack anyone who had a mediocre or negative experience and further begin to read all the person's other reviews and skew them negatively. The poster even found fault with a 5 star review posted for another restaurant.

Here is an email I received 1 month ago from one of your employees who chose to go by the name "Jake J," and who created a Yelp profile with the sole intent of harassing customers with negative experiences (they have 0 reviews and no Yelp friends).

"Dear Emma C.
Your reviews on Yelp are some of the most ridiculous I have ever read. I'm actually surprised they are even allowed to be posted as they come across as borderline racist. I have been a server for 15years and can handle a ton of criticism, it's part of the job. I cannot, however, tolerate your blatant # ramblings.

You also mention that Smoque BBQ is worth trying, but warn fellow Yelpers that if you drive a"nice car"you might think twice about trying this restaurant. Yes, parking is difficult in that"working class"neighborhood, but is it fair to scare people away from trying a local, independant, neighborhood bbq joint because you were uncomfortable where you parked? I don't think the price of the car you drive is relevant to a Yelp review. Speaking of the"working class", your review of Zed 51 refers to the servers as being"working class"and I cannot even fathom what you might be insinuating. You even mention in some review that your dining partner is some nyc account executive and is therefore an expert on fine dining. Really? You clearly try to come across as this" I tell it like it is"wanna be - foodie - personality - voice, but no one really is listening to you. It's so bad, it's"barfable"!" — 2) Here is how one of the owners has responded:

My name is Barry Sorkin and I am one of Smoque's owners. I am also the person who has managed our Yelp page for the entire time that we've been in business. I am the only person who has access to Smoque's Yelp account and the only person who is authorized to respond to a customer through Yelp or any other social media platform. So I can tell you a couple of things with absolute certainty:

1. I did not write or send the message that you received.
2. No Smoque employee was authorized to write or send a message to you under Smoque's user name or any other.
3. Smoque did not contact Yelp to have either your initial review or the update from a month ago removed. Yelp has its own methodology for scanning and filtering out certain reviews, but they don't share the algorithm with anyone.
4. If any employee of Smoque were found to have sent such a message, we would deal with them very severely.

We take great pride in how we treat and interact with our customers and it is not acceptable for any employee to undermine our service philosophy, even if they do it anonymously or under a pseudonym. So obviously, I would like to get to the bottom of this. I read the email text that you provided several times over looking for clues. Not only, did I not see anything that would suggest who it might be, I didn't see anything that indicated that this person had any past or present affiliation with Smoque at all. If there is some other piece of information you have that led you to believe that this was a Smoque employee, please let me know so that we can address it on our end. — 3) My response (shortened to fit)
Thank you for your response. I received a message from Yelp that detailed that someone insinuated that it "failed to reflect a unique new experience with the business."

I understand that you have been running the Smoque page, but I am not sure if you are a Yelper yourself/familiar with the Yelp community. I have been a part of this community since 2010 and have written numerous reviews and connected with many Yelpers since. It is well-known in the community that Yelpers do not attack one another for their negative or positive reviews. Yelpers are here because they want to help one another and share their unique experiences. Whenever Yelpers have been attacked, it is by someone part of the business that received a negative review or sometimes, unfortunately, even by the owner itself.

As a Yelper, there are glaring holes that point to this person being affiliated with Smoque. This person has created a new account, has not posted any reviews prior to the attack or after, and has no Yelp friends. In sum, they have no Yelp footprint; they are not part of the Yelp community. Additionally, this user has tipped off that they are and have been deeply involved in the restaurant industry, by serving "15+ years as a server." I am confident that almost all Yelpers would agree that this person's message, information, and mannerism does not describe a Yelper. For those of us who have been attacked in this manner, it has always reflected someone who is affiliated with the business.

Here is a link to the message sender's page: http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=nC_uNMi84wwNo8z85EiLjw

Attorneys look to motive and incentive. Yelpers have no motive or incentive to attack one another for taking the time out of their day to help others by sharing their unique experiences. Further, in the message, the user sends very specific details about Smoque that a mere Yelp user — who already would not attack another user — would not likely include, such as: "is it fair to scare people away from trying a local, independant, neighborhood bbq joint."

Yelpers would not think that one mediocre review (it was not even a 1 star review) would "scare" others away, especially when Smoque maintains a high overall review. In addition, Yelpers DO NOT then continue to scour through other Yelpers history of reviews only to attack and twist them in a penultimate message.

Further, a former employee would have little to no incentive to defend Smoque vehemently. The bottom line is that neither a Yelper part of this community nor a former employee has any incentive to attack another Yelper. If a Yelper disagreed, they ignore the review or do not up-vote it. Yelpers do not attack one another for their experiences, and if you ask any Yelper, they will agree. Yelp has a strong community camaraderie.