Yelp.com

The results from Yelp advertising are fake. They basically told us we received over 60 customers in one month from their platform ads when we received zero. Then they had to tell us our Yelp Deals resulted in many new customers via an email, yet we never had any Yelp customer buy any deal whatsoever.

How can you trust reviews from a provider that cannot be honest?

Stay away from Yelp. They will promise you the world and deliver nothing.

Hello, my name is Gregory Dahl, VP Cielito's Cleaning Service, Inc. located in Plantation. FL. Our company has used Yelp! for paid and non-paid subscriptions for at least 10 years. Fortunately, we survived the pandemic so there were periods of time when the company flourished, and we could afford expensive advertising.

A month ago, I decided to pay Yelp! again and was excited to obtain fresh commercial cleaning accounts! Today I experienced the loudest, rudest and disrespectful customer service representative of any company I have ever witnessed. His name was Sean and I called at 11:37 AM Pacific time on 10/25/23. He screamed at me because my blood was boiling regarding only having 3 Yelp! reviews being spotlighted with a 3.7 rating. We have 26 more 5-star ratings under non-recommended reviews. The problem is that Most prospects looking for the best cleaning service and stumble across our listing, see only 3 reviews with 1 fraudulent 1-star review from 10 years ago. This simply won’t be tolerated! If you are to look at the only 1-star review, it is obvious that it was done out of malicious intent. He says that I promised him that we would clean a condo in Key West, Florida which is a 5-hour drive from our office.

Our listing clearly indicates a 20-mile service radius. What Sean didn’t consider is that no human being should have to suffer and endure unprofessional SCREAMING, especially me with a Bi-Polar 1 and asthma disorder on government disability. I was so shaken that my wife took me to University Hospital (Pavilion) for a psychiatric evaluation. I will be cancelling my account as nobody in Yelp! customer service (14% customer service rating) cares.

So I was awake in this morning at 8a.m. Bye I Yelp representative.instead of 9am and as our conversation started, I told her if she was going to request money at the end don’t even bother with this conversation and she just kept on and on and on and on finally after she goes and has me go to a different website she comes back and has me feeling louder form and then the next stage what’s my credit card information what do you know it’s not get that people don’t have money and you want us to create bills so we have to pay you. I was like very upset because I told her in the beginning of the conversation that if she was going to request money, don’t even bother with this conversation . I also told her I just re-started my business two days ago so she was acting like I wasn’t getting any hits, but what she didn’t realize that I was already on Facebook and having Facebook do my advertisement. but then again, I was like upset because I told her in the beginning I did not have the money to advertise with them at the time. if somebody saying no, they mean no quit pushing them to do something that they can’t afford.

Coggins honda in bennington, vermont sold me a $17,000.00 used honda vehicle and the engine blew up in 1,500 miles and the warranty they sold me did not cover (3,000 mi warranty). I am out over $23,000.00 (trapped) because coggins honda in bennington vermont sold me a lemon and there are no lemon laws in vermont. Do not buy used vehivcle in vermont

I recently looked at the reviews for my company on Yelp. There are only two and both are one star. I clicked on the "not recommended" reviews and there are four more, all are 5 star reviews. None of these are included in the average star rating. Yelp claims that its algorithm only includes reviews from people who have a social media presence. I recognize the names of the four 5 star reviews and they were in fact customers of mine. I don't know and couldn't care less what their social media presence is. They are valid reviews.

Yelp claims it cannot override their own algorithm. I find that hard to believe. So, I called and ask them just to remove my company page altogether as it is doing more harm than good. They said they couldn't do that either. Not sure what kind of company can't control their own processes.

I have a business account page with Google and I don't have any of these problems. My company has 158 reviews on Google, all but 2 are 5 star.

Received a home cleaning from this company in June 2023. Did not like the job performed, so cancelled the cleaning plan. I am still getting charged every month for this service, even though I cancelled the plan. what I did not realize was I also had to cancel the membership. I didn't even know i had signed up to be a member, I just wanted my house clean. I supposedly signed up for a 6 month plan, which ends in December 2023. the company said for me to quit now, I would have to pay $200+ to cancel the membership. Has anyone else gotten stuck with this crap!

They are going to still charge me for the next 3 months for the membership, even though no one will be cleaning our house.

Yelp contacted me to try to pay for their advertising. Close to that time, they got my info over the phone and apparently signed me up for some time. I believe they knew an opposing party or opposing attorney was going to harass me via their site, and they wanted me to pay to remove it. The opposing attorney or party put up a fake review anonymously saying that I didn't understand HIPPA.

Yelp knows that I could not be violating HIPAA because I am not a dr, medical professional, nor do I represent them. They are leaving it up to either get money or harass me. There is zero way this review could've been an actual client, and they know it. If it were a client, then I would know their name. This never happened with a client. Yelp knows this is harassment and threats and defamation from someone with a conflict of interest. There is no way it could be a legitimate review. I have explained, over and over again, but it is like they think it is some type of joke, and the more upset I am, the funnier it is to them. I logged in to stop them from charging me more money, and the site made me agree to some terms I never agreed to before. They signed me up over the phone so that their arbitration clause doesn't apply, but they tried to make it apply to me after the fact. They know what they are doing. It's not a mistake. They are complicit in dishonest conduct, and harassment. They need to be stopped, but no one can seem to stop them. They sought me out so I believe that FL law applies.

I signed up for a free account on Yelp. I have a small home-based business. After signing up I was inundated with calls and emails about running an ad. One salesperson who called me assured me that this was a win win deal. I would only have to pay $5.00 if a person clicked on my business name for more information, Of course, I have no proof of how many clicks there were, All the information about how to contact me, and where I am located is on the search page. So a customer doesn't really have to click for information. But I can assure you I never got a customer from it. I always ask how people find me and the answer is always Google. So, out of 23 clicks they say I got, not one person called me. Seems odd to me. The salesman assured me that I would get responses, but I didn't. Every day I would check my Yelp account for how much I owed, because the salesman said there would be a running tally and I could quit any time, and all month since the beginning of my ad run, it said .00. It said that until the last day of the run and suddenly it was $89.16. Ads are not taxable, so how 5.00 a click became 80.16 is beyond me. The ad was supposed to run from July 13 - Aug 12. However, they bill until the end of month and then continue. I cancelled on August 6th. This morning I got a bill for another $30.02 that was paid by my Visa debit card. Again, ads are not taxable so how is 30.02 $5.00 a click. and, once again I got zero calls from Yelp viewers. The bill doesn't state the number of clicks, the time of the click, and where the click originated from, so how can you tell if they are being truthful. I feel I have been scammed. I tried reaching out to the salesman who said, " if you have any problems blah blah blah, call me at (number). I called the number and it was not in service. I filed a complaint with Yelp and asked for a refund, but I was turned down. Most months I don't even generate $150.00 with my at-home business, so I lost a months' worth of income with the ad that produced absolutely nothing. I told the salesman that my business was very small and I didn't think an ad would really be beneficial, but he kept pressuring me. I thought I would try and if I wasn't happy, I could call him and have him cancel my ad, but it didn't work that way. I did ask him how I would know how much money I owed on a daily basis, and he told me there would be a daily running tally so I could see how much of a tab I was running. There wasn't. 23 clicks and not one customer? Sounds fishing to me. In the screen shot on my account it says there were:

179 impressions = Impressions count the total number of times your ad is shown. This includes search result appearances and messaging leads.

23 page visits = Page visits are the total number of times someone accessed or viewed your Yelp page.

4 leads = Leads are the total number of Directions & map views, Calls, Messages, and Website visits you get.

1 call. It's really hard to believe out of 179 impressions, 23 page clicks, 4 leads and a supposed 1 call... I got zero customers.

I had to fill out a refund form to ask for my money back and I was told I would get a response within 48 hours. I filed it on August 6th but didn't get a response until August 22nd. It was rejected. I'm sure I won't see any refund, but I feel better writing a complaint about it.

Thank you for your time.

Yelp sales person

Joe Dean (he/him)

Elite Account Director, Yelp Inc. | P: +[protected]

Has misleaded, misguided and over a phone he lured and tactically enrolled my business to many paid services without explaining its cost implication and by keeping me in dark. He offered some free package for one things and present case that for 6 month or 1 year everything is free over a call and literally cheated by enrolling my businesses for many paid services. When i realised, i have been smartly cheated by this fraud person, i emailed him couple of time, he never responded to single mail. I have raised my official compliant on yelp support and awaiting final action on my case.

I stopped all enrolled services on 6th july 2023, raised alarmed but still some more funds got deducted from my credit card toward fees.

I dont understand why business need to cheat customers in such a way ?

Date/Time: 7/31/23 7pm

Called Yelp customer service number advertised at the top of their website. A young women came on the phone and we attempted to ask her some general questions regarding Yelp as a business and what they offer. She was extremely condescending and cut as off of every sentence that we tried to speak. Even when she asked a question, we were not allowed to finish our answer. Her overall attitude was don't bother me and you are beneath me. Even when we tried to explain that we are a conglomerate of small businesses, she still acted like we were not worth her time. She said that she will email us some information and quickly hung up. Not the service that we expected and would like to receive from a company that is supposed to help other companies with advertising. This is not the first time that a Yelp Rep was rude to us. We had experiences in the past whereas we were hung up on. Thought we would give them another chance.

We asked for an appt to discuss having a yelp pg. We were told that was not possible. She literally said "it's now".

Tracking number for returned Package

936128970021959731695, returned 0713/2023

Delivered to sender

Applying Ga 30802

07/18/2033 3:41pm

Item # [protected]

$73.63

Contacted Customer service which was and mission in futility. The customer service on Amazon web site is joke it’s impossible to leave as by kink of response limited wrong question s purposely designed that way !

To discourage customers from getting help and to prevent Amazon liability

Yelp needs to understand that not all small businesses can pay their monthly fees to have their 5 star reviews show up.

This is pure blackmail.

I know of several great reviews that my small company received on yelp because my customers told me about them. But the reviews never show, only bad reviews show. Yelp claims that this is their algorithms. What EVER! No algorithms are used when a customer gives a bad review, it immediately shows up within seconds. But when a good or great review is given, it may take several days or not show up at all.

I cannot believe that yelp has not been sued over this. BLACKMAIL.

We are a small business with a limited marketing budget. We invested monies into ads on Yelp.com a couple years ago. Eventually, we could not afford marketing at different platforms, and we decided to cut our lowest generating sales platform which was Yelp.com. Since then, we have received sales calls from their business advertising teams and they have turned more and more unprofessional.

Today a sales representative called and kept repeating varying versions of-- "I am asking you to act like an adult and respond to my question like a human being: why will you not commit to a campaign with Yelp?"

I admitted that his tone was not going to encourage us to do business with Yelp and that I took the time (between 30-45 minutes) on the last call with another member of his team to explain why we could not commit to a marketing campaign. He kept repeating his 'you need to act like an adult and human being' line, so I excused myself from the conversation, wished him well, and hung up.

There is nothing that gives Yelp.com employees the right to forgo professionalism, especially with potential customers.

Why did we have a lack of interest in re-investing in Yelp.com ads before this customer service issue? Again, we have a limited marketing budget. We re-evaluate the allocation of marketing monies every three to six months. When we stopped advertising with Yelp.com over a year ago, they listed our name at the bottom of all other competitors in our area. Many of these competitors had incomplete pages waiting to be claimed, which means they never paid a dime to Yelp.com yet were listed above ours after we could not afford ads. The message was clear: pay to get listed on the first page, or don't pay and get dropped to the bottom of all paying and nonpaying competitors on page three or four.

We will not be doing business with Yelp.com for questionable business tactics and poor customer service.

I have legitimate clients who took time out of their work day to write reviews for the services they received from me. I take their reviews seriously and appreciate them very much.

After seeing that Yelp wrote for people to IGNORE ALL MY REVIEWS, I had the misfortune of speaking with a completely indifferent woman when I called Yelp. Basically, she said there is nothing I can do about it and it happens all the time with their algorythm. She was very clear that I was annoying her and she ultimately hung up on me.

Also, she told me they do not delete pages so there is no way to remove myself.

The indifference in her attitude was only overshadowed by Yelp's inabiltity to put forth a reliable product, a fair business, and customer service.

Yelp is a platform that claims to help business owners get more customers. They encourage you to download their app and offer you what seems like a great deal - hundreds of dollars in free advertising. However, as I found out the hard way, this is not the case.

When I signed up for Yelp, they asked me to choose a budget for my advertising. I chose a budget that matched what they claimed I would get for free - $300. Nowhere did it say that I would have to pay out of pocket or that I would have to call and cancel. Two months later, I looked at my bank statement and saw a charge for $247 debited from my account. They had my account information from a previously authorized purchase.

So what did I get for my money? Not much, it turns out. My listing was close to the top of the list when someone searched for the services or products I offered, but only if they searched for my business by name. I was shocked at the unexpected charges and couldn't figure out what went wrong. I disputed it with my bank, but the charge was still pending so they couldn't do anything for me. It was a tough time - rent and bills were due at home and at my business.

I called Yelp to try and sort things out, but they wouldn't budge. I got no warning, no email, nothing. Eventually, I figured out what had happened and remembered that I had fallen for the same scam a few years prior. I spend hours advertising, including advertising Yelp, but I rarely get customers through Yelp.

When I cancelled the service, things got even worse. That same day, I got my first bad review from an unknown customer who made claims that were impossible. I tried to dispute it with Yelp, but they wouldn't help me. It seemed like Yelp was biased and only benefited my business when I paid. Bad reviews from uninformed people or revenge reviews were permitted. I was even extorted for free services by a person threatening to give me a bad review, later to find out that person was never a customer.

In conclusion, Yelp is not a platform that I would recommend to other business owners. They make false promises and charge you without warning. Even when you pay, you don't get much in return. And if you don't pay, you risk getting bad reviews from people who may not even be your customers. It's a tough world out there for small business owners, and Yelp is not making it any easier.

My business was getting a lot of calls and emails every day, and it was getting really annoying. We tried to get on the "No Call" list, but it didn't work. So, we decided to talk to one of the reps from Yelp for Business Owners. I told him that we weren't interested, but he kept pestering me until I finally agreed to talk to him on the phone. He gave me some statistics about search results and businesses like mine in the area. I told him again that I wasn't interested in any paid ads, but he told me about Yelp's "Free $300 dollars worth of Yelp Ads." He assured me that the ads were free, so I decided to give it a try.

After a month, the Yelp ads didn't do anything for our business. So, I decided to cancel the ads service before the following month. I didn't want to pay for a service that didn't help us. But, on the first business day of September, my credit card was charged over $500 by Yelp.

I talked to multiple Yelp reps and my credit card company to explain the situation. The Yelp reps said they would send an email to get my payment reversed, and I told them to refer to the recorded calls from August. My credit card company refunded me right away, but Yelp kept charging my account. I was supposed to receive paperwork to reverse the payment, but I never got it. I had to call to get my credit card taken off my Yelp account.

I'm still waiting for everything to be resolved, but for now, I would advise other business owners to stay away from Yelp. If you're getting calls from them, just block and ignore them.

I gotta tell ya, I got an email on 7/24 that said I could get $300.00 in free Yelp Adds (see attached). I was like, "heck yeah, sign me up!" So, I signed up on 7/25 and then I got a call from a woman in Sales (see attached welcome letter). I told her I didn't have a lot of money to spend, but she assured me that I could adjust my budget after my $300.00 was used up. She said I should make it $450/month so I could get the most out of my free $300.00.

Well, on 10/1 I got an email that said my debit card was declined for $373.05. I was like, "what the heck? I wasn't supposed to be charged!" My business is just starting out and I don't have any funds in there yet. So, I went to the Yelp website and closed my Yelp Business account right away.

But then, on 10/4 I got another email that said my card was declined. And then on 10/8 I got an email that they wanted to talk to me about my account. I talked to them on the phone and they said my ad was never cancelled, but they would go ahead and cancel it for me. Then I got another confirmation that it was closed. Ronni said he would go back and review the phone call to see what I was told when I signed up, but I never heard back from him.

Fast forward to today, 1/23, and I got an email that they are sending this to collection. Can you believe it? I ended up calling them back and paying the bill with my credit card.

Here's the thing, folks. Listen carefully to what they say. They will tell you that their free $300.00 will cover everything, but then they'll encourage you to sign up for things they know are beyond the $300.00. And then you'll get stiffed with the bill. Hang up immediately if they call you! Do not fall for the free $300.00 scam.

And here's another thing. As the business owner, you do not have the right to remove your business from their website. They will never remove it or allow you to mark it as closed or remove your contact information. Once you are on Yelp, you are always on Yelp. So, be careful out there, folks. Don't get scammed like I did.

So, I had a bit of a problem with Yelp for Business Owners (biz.yelp.com) and I gotta say, it wasn't a pleasant experience. If you're like me and you have an issue with a Yelp charge, be prepared to wait on hold for a good half hour before you can even talk to someone. And when you finally do get through, the "rep" you talk to is basically there to tell you why you can't be credited back any of your charges. Not cool, Yelp.

Here's what happened: I was talked into running some pay per click ads during the last 10 days of my client's business season. We made it clear that we only wanted to run the ad for 10 days because the business was closing for the season. This was stated in the sales agent's notes and on the voice recording. But what the sales agent didn't tell us was that we were responsible for turning the ads off at the 10 day mark. I personally checked the account after the 10 days and it appeared there were no ads running, but a month later my client was charged $570 for ads that ran while they were closed. Not cool, Yelp.

To make matters worse, we were also told that we would only pay for actual ad clicks. But no one wants to click an ad to rent a boat in the fall, so we didn't get any clicks. But Yelp conveniently charged us the maximum per month anyway, even though we didn't get any clicks. Not cool, Yelp.

So, I called Yelp to try to sort things out. I was able to speak with an agent who told me that their sales people are not responsible for turning off ads, despite what may be interpreted or implied. When I asked to speak to her manager, she said she was the manager. When I asked for her name and ID#, she would only give me her first name. She was more than happy to tell me how she wasn't going to help and that it was our responsibility to pay for it regardless of the error. Not cool, Yelp.

I have multiple clients and know multiple agents, so this is roughly 50 people within direct reach of me that will never use Yelp. I explained this to them with zero result. I called one more time to see if I could get a different rep and answer to no avail. Not cool, Yelp.

Honestly, any company that is so desperate to keep shady ad money without any sort of negotiation or accommodation is on its way down. I assume they know they are doomed to Facebook & Google reviews and are doing a final run for a money grab before they sink. Not cool, Yelp.

So, I had this restaurant that was closed for construction in March of 2022. We had a Yelp page that we always tried to keep updated with good content and reviews, but we never really had the budget for online ads. That's why I was really confused when I got a bill from Yelp for several hundred dollars in July. We were still dealing with construction at that time, so I didn't understand why we were being charged for ads. It turns out that the charges were for another page that we didn't even know existed. This page had no photos, no content, and no reviews. The only contact information on the page was my personal cell phone number. I have no idea how this page was created, but it was obviously not something that we had authorized.

When I contacted my credit card company about the charges, they immediately recognized it as fraud and issued a refund. I thought that would be the end of it, but Yelp has been threatening me with legal action and credit reporting ever since. I've talked to over a dozen people and sent more than 50 emails, but they just don't seem to care. They admit that there are two accounts for our business, but they refuse to refund the charges for the self-directed ads that were placed on the empty page. They say that it's all outlined in their Terms of Use, but it just doesn't make sense to me. They're making money by allowing people to review and scrutinize small businesses, but they don't seem to care when those businesses are wronged.

I know that it's my responsibility to keep my computer secure, but it's still frustrating to be held responsible for something that I didn't even know was happening. What's even more frustrating is that Yelp seems to be more concerned with making money than with doing the right thing. At our restaurant, we always try to do the right thing, even if it costs us money. We would never charge someone for something that they didn't order, for example. It's just good business and the right thing to do. Yelp should be doing the same thing, but they're not. It may not be illegal, but it's definitely wrong.

This app is great for the free features, but the ads are super expensive and don't bring in much profit. Plus, Yelp only displays a few of the customer reviews, even if you have a ton. I went to a business owners conference recently and it was crazy to hear how many people were frustrated with Yelp's reviews and return on investment. Last month, we paid Yelp over $500 and only got a few inquiries and even fewer actual jobs. Most of the time, people are just fishing for prices and contacting multiple companies, which means we have to pay for those inquiries. It's a total rip-off.

The worst part is that Yelp doesn't seem to care about making their customers happy, even though we're paying them so much money. I was overcharged and when I called to complain, I was transferred around and then hung up on by a Yelp employee. I tried submitting a complaint electronically, but I never heard back from anyone in the company. It's like they don't care about their customers at all.

After all of this, I learned that Google is way more important when it comes to establishing your reputation and Facebook is better for online presence. I talked to a bunch of business owners who have tried Yelp, Angie's List, or Home Advisor and they all said the same thing. I cancelled my ads with Yelp and they even took down more of my reviews. It's crazy!

If you're a new company, please take this review seriously. It's so sad to see people trying to build their dreams and getting ripped off by huge companies with terrible customer service. Yelp is nice when you sign up, but they don't play fair. They control everything on the platform, from the calls you get to the reviews they think are real (even though they hang up on customers!). Do your research before you waste a bunch of money. I wish I had attended that conference sooner, I would have saved thousands of dollars.