Yelp for Business Owners

Yelp is a business that works for other businesses and yet will dictate when the business can reply to reviews, let me explain, it is yelps business practice that in order to reply to reviews that the owner of the business has to put a very specific type of picture of the owner themselves on the site, stating that their research shows that customers feel more comfortable when Yelp for Business Owners can see the owner,... a bit hypocritical since i am fairly confident that the owner of yelp is not a red flowery logo like what is on their site, i understand their plan but to refuse to allow the companies that pay them for their service to determine for themselves what is the best practice for their company is nothing short of dictatorship, i have spent many hours trying to have them address the issue, and at one point could reply with my company logo as the picture of my company but now they are denying that and i can no longer reply, which puts my company at a disadvantage, i can no longer thank my customers on line or reply to a bad review whether true or malicious, i believe a company i pay should allow me to determine how i do business not demand, dictate and punish for not doing things the way they want. Please think twice about this company and make sure you want them running your business for you before you sign any contracts or advertise with them. Yelps policies are costing my company business and stress. Be careful

Earlier this month I received a call from a lady who said she was from the Yelp Advertising and wanted to help get my business going and hopefully get some clicks. I talked with her and set up my ad campaign. She gave me a code which she said once applied would give me my first month free as a trial period to see if Yelp adds are something I wanted to try. I was all in for this and followed her instructions, added my credit card and selected the options she said would "best help my business gain attention". I was under the impression that I would call back in a few weeks and either say its working and that I would like to start paying the following month or would cancel it. Receiving one website click in 3 weeks I called and canceled, making sure I would not be billed if I continued to use the service since it was completely useless and did nothing for me. Then the next day I get a statement saying I was charged $254.44 from Yeld Advertising. Immediately I call Yelp customer support and after an hour on hold being passed onto another agent who hangs up on me. I try calling the lady that had originally reached out to me and she did not answer her phone. I called once again this time the billing department number and after another hour on hold was told by the man that I had signed up for it and that there was never such thing as a free month trial and that the code I had been given only meant that if I spent $300 or more I would be given additional credit or something like that. Outraged I called around and finally got a hold of the original yelp advertising lady who just blew me off and pretty much said shes sorry but I. Must have misinterpreted what she said. The thing about this whole situation that angers me the most is that I spent $250 and did not even receive as little as an email or anything in return for the advertising. When I looked st the cost breakdown I was apparently signed up for stuff such as "Enhanced Profile" and "Business Highlights" which was something I had never even heard of before and was unaware of signing up for. I was also charged for stuff like a "call to action" button that I never even set up but was charged $79 for. DO NOT ever use yelp advertising and get scammed by one of their representatives into signing up for any trial because Yelp for Business Owners are just trying to steal your money. The whole thing is a scam and a giant money fest and they could care less about your business and help you. I was NEVER able to get a refund on my $254.44. YELP IS A SCAM, TAKE MY WORD AND NEVER USE IT.

I own a popular small business. Yelp has their fast talking sales reps pressuring me to buy their ad services. I do not believe that any business should have to pay a "review" platform for services due to the obvious conflict of interest it represents. A review site should be just that, a review site, with no motive other than posting real opinions of consumers.
Since I will not sign up for a Yelp contract of $300 to $900 per month, Yelp for Business Owners have hidden all the positive reviews that come to my business, and keep posting negative reviews. I would go as far to say that they have created additional fraudulent negative reviews.
Yelp controls the content that review users read. If the business pays, the review content is good. If the business does not pay, the review content is bad.
Yelp is a form of business extortion. It is at best; unethical, at worst; illegal.
I choose to ignore Yelp. Yeah, I could pay them for good reviews, but I wont be a victim of their scam. Less and less consumers take them seriously anyway.

Yelp is a vivid example of the new era American business ethics. Instead of creating a legitimate and trustworthy business model, they stoop to schemes and scams.

I rejected the interview and this was my response to

Dear T*****y H**l,

Thank you for sharing the "Pro Tips" for the job interview. I actually read the link and watched the video too, I was wondering if you have seen this one as well?

https://www.ReviewFeeder.com/reviews/biz.yelp.com

After reading the reviews, several pages of negative comments left from hard working business owners. I feel applying for this position goes against my core values. I am withdrawing my application and Resume. I have been doing my own research. I have a huge network of business owners, I have worked with in sales. I surveyed much of them. I asked if Yelp for Business Owners have placed adds with Yelp. 80% of them said that they reject any sales calls coming from Yelp and constantly get (Bombarded) with repeated calls asking to advertise on Yelps platform. I ask you this, how is this fair to your employees and business partners. After reading countless reviews and knowing what the expectations are of Yelps sales representatives or employees. I sincerely hope that you will share this experience with your management team. This does not reflect positively on the culture of Yelps employees and strategic thinking as a marketing company. I cannot work for a company that lacks honesty and good faith. Your company just has too many negative reviews.

Thank you for your time.

Respectfully,

Christen Diamond

I wish I could give Yelp for Business 0 stars, I honestly feel like it's such a scam. I thought that I had cancelled my ads after I was coerced by a sales rep who had set them up, and I originally went to cancel because the ads were way too expensive, and Yelp for Business Owners charge PER CLICK even though 95% of the clicks lead to nothing. I checked my account this morning and saw that Yelp charged me $420. Like literally everything that I have in my account, I am a new small business owner and I'm 19, I feel so taken advantage of by this company. After charging that much you would think that I would have at least a few customers, well you'd be wrong because all I have had for the past two months are 110 ad clicks, 17 potential clients, 16 of which actually clicked my account, and only 2 of which clicked the book button. So basically I paid $420 for 2 clients, who I am not even sure actually did go on to book with me. This service is such a scam. They are charging wayyy too much for advertising, I will be cancelling my partnership and removing my account, I hope that this review will help other business owners to never trust this service. After calling about this, they were able to refund me, but only 50%. Needless to say, I am very upset and angry.

Horrible. I think it could have worked, but Yelp for Business Owners have zero customer service skills ironically. I paid over $200 for for 7 days before I threw in the towel. I'm a new biz. I told them how I assess a move to give a quote. They then told me I should do request a quote which was a horrible idea. Me not knowing really what they meant. I got one phone call. Which unfortunately I missed and they booked with someone else. I called the number back within 2 min. She had just moved to the next ad though. I take that one as my fault. I then got 4 inquiries via the request a quote. 2 of which were asking about services that I did not provide. The other two just wanted an estimate based on a few basic questions that yelp gave them. These questions in no way helped me provide an accurate quote to the customer. So I asked them to call me. Obviously they did not. Then when I tried to work with yelp and get something more geared to my biz. I was told my ad was doing great and it was their way or the highway. Literally they didn't give a f@&$. I figured like hey sorry we gave you the wrong plan here's a little credit and we can change some of the ways we have you set up. Nope none of that. I didn't even get a chance to ask for a discount. Hell I might not have even thought about asking had they cared to talk to me. Long story short they don't care about you they just want your money. I wish I would have taken a pic of my yelp ad page before I canceled to prove this, but I didn't and I don't want to pay $18 to reboot for one day to take a pic. 0 stars

My business was a recipient of numerous phone calls and emails daily. After failed attempts of being put on the "No Call" list and telling people that we are not interested, we decided to speak with one of the reps. I let him know that we are not interested but was very forward to the point of pestering until he could get me on the phone. Through the phone call, he gave statistics on search results and business like mine in the area. Here I told him again that I was not interested in any PAID ads as we do not need them. He let me know about Yelps "Free $300 dollars worth of Yelp Ads" and after stating that I am not interested in paying anything, assured me that the ads were free.

Well a month later and with the Yelps ads doing nothing for our business, I decided to cancel the ads service before the following month since it did not help in the month of August and therefore we did not want to pay for a service that did not help. Come first business day of September, my credit card get dinged with a $500+ charge from Yelp.

Currently have spoken to multiple Yelp reps and my credit card rep to explain my situation. Yelp reps have told me that Yelp for Business Owners would be sending an email to get my payment reversed and looked at and I know that the calls are recorded and I told them to refer to them for calls in August regarding the situation. My credit card company understood and immediately refunded me but for some reason yelp continues to ding my account. I am waiting for the payment reverse paperwork that I was suppose to receive 10 mins after the call ended with the Yelp Rep but have not received anything. I had to call to request my credit card be taken off my Yelp account.

Everything is still in the works and I plan on updating this when I hear more but for now, please stay away from Yelp fellow business owners and continue to block and ignore their calls if you are getting them!

A representative called me out of the blue saying that he is my account manager and he wants to help me with my account. Since I'm not computer savvy I went along with it not knowing that I was signed up for a 15 dollar a day advertising program until I get a bill for 394 dollars that I cant afford. Before I even got the call I got an offer to list my business on yelp when I got my website. That came with free credits and my budget was 30 dollars a month. Well, I tried it out and it didn't work for me because I was only getting spam calls and calls from other companies trying to sell me services. So I stop it before I used all the free credits. About a month after that's when I received the call from the guy who said he was my account manager. I told him that the service didn't work for me due to all the spam that I was receiving. He told me that my account was bare and that he was going to help me setup my account so that it looks professional. He told me that I needed to set a budget, I told him that I'm a new company and that I just wanted to use the service to list my business, I told him that I can only afford around 30 dollars a month which is what I had it set to when I first tried the service. However, I find out later that I was signed up for enhanced services that were totaled 15 dollars a day for a bill of almost 400 dollars. I called the billing dept to voice my concerns Yelp for Business Owners had me to fill out this form to request a refund which I did in the meantime I get a call from my bank that yelp is trying to debit my account for 400 dollars. This company ain't right they use fast-talking con men to act like they want to help you with your account only to sign you up for services that you cant afford. If I want to pay 15 dollars a day to advertise I would've done that when I first listed my business on their site up. If they take the time to look at my account they would've known that before this con man called me that I signed up for the cheapest service that they had, and that I canceled all of the services when I found out that it didn't benefit my business. When canceling my account the first time they ask me why am I canceling my service, I told them I couldn't afford it and because of the spam calls. I never called Yelp for any help with my account, Whoever the account manager was he solicit me, I'm thinking that he was there to help me with my profile not trick me into advertising for 15 dollars a day, and they did this during the Covid pandemic. This is totally wrong, to take advantage of people during the pandemic is very unethical. They need to hire better salespeople and from the other complaints, I see that I'm not the only one.

After close to 50 phone calls from yelp trying to "lock" me into a marketing agreement with them I finally realized Yelp for Business Owners wouldn't stop calling me daily wasting valuable work time so I just stopped answering their phone calls.
WOW! So their "screening" software suddenly kicked into high gear which they say they have no control of how it does and does not add or remove reviews, Suddenly 31 out of 32of my 5 star reviews were deleted by being moved and shelved in a "not recommended" area invisible to any search engines.
MY clients took valuable time to write great referrals for me in order to help others use a referral service to find a great contractor. Instead they have with their supposed "automated screening" software blacklisted ALL new reviews that come in for my co. I have had a total of 30+ - 5 star reviews for my Co. And they have bounced all of them and left only the very first one ever posted many years ago.
They are liars regarding their screening software, It doesn't screen out legitimate reviews, They just blow away great reviews regardless of your service quality which they care nothing about what so ever, They want you locked into a contract period, and if you don't pay say good bye to anyone's reviews who may be trying to help you promote how good of a job you may do. They are lying scumbags and have cost me a ton of work in order for them to promote a local company that does lousy work but pays yelp to get their reviews posted. Yelp is worthless if you are tying to build your business through honest hard work and good references! It is simple formula, they lie to you and then screw you if you don't pay them, Horrible to see all of my great reviews shelved because they are so greedy and really don't give a damn about what is and isn't a legitimate review. It's all about the $$$ of course! STAY AWAY FROM YELP! They hurt my business considerably by being lying scum and not giving a hoot about honest hard working company referrals. THEY SUCK!

SO Now I am getting people selling 5 Star yelp reviews guaranteed! WOW What credibility could any think this bunch of BS could have regarding a real "Referral and Rating Service". What a bunch of crapola Get the word out, People now SELL Yelp reviews.!

I, like many others here was offered $300 free ad credits. As a small business owner I thought this would be a great opportunity to drum up more traffic to my site and get more sales. Unfortunately Yelp's business model completely takes advantage of business owners. I signed up for the program and did not hear anything else from Yelp. Not a call, not an email, not even a 'here's how you're doing on our platform.'. Two months later I notice an almost $200 charge taken from my bank account. There was no communication about any impending charge, no detail about why a charge was assessed and no explanation. When I called a representative, she was rude, condescending and threatened to end the call when I asked to speak to a manager. She refused to offer a refund or allow me to speak to a supervisor, instead saying she'd have one call me back in 24-48 hours. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath. It actually seems more like these 'account managers' are only there to tell you 'no we aren't giving you a refund, we are keeping your money." She didn't offer any apologies, accept any responsibility or try to accomodate me in the least. DO NOT ACCEPT ANY FREE OFFERS FROM THEM! It is a scam to reel you in and take your hard earned money. If you do, read ALL of the fine print, check in to the account daily to see your progress and set a reminder to cancel that crap AS SOON AS THE $300 runs out because Yelp will NOT give you any update on how the ads are performing or when to expect a bill or a chance to opt out.

Yelp for Business Owners cold called me and promised me that with my 300. Credit I can try it out. I cancelled when I was told I can cancel before receiving any significant charge. I did and they did not get me ANY business. I cancelled and keep getting bills for over $500. I told them I will not pay more than $2. Per click and they now tell me that they enrolled into a pay per click program and charged me 15. Per click. I never received any clicks. They told me they sent me an email with the terms and conditions. I asked where it was sent from and when I searched my email it was not fount in mail or spam. I asked them to play back the original sales call to see what I was told I bought (not pay per click) and they told me they cant do this. I asked them to have the original sales person contact me and they could not do this either. They then said the terms and conditions are on their page and after navigating through 6 pages to find it I realized it is in spanish and I do not read spanish. I enrolled in a plan that for $60 would boost my ad and keep competitors off my page. I was not told this is pay per click. I was told I have a new client $300 credit and If I called back within 30 days to cancel I would not have any charges. I did and was told that no charges have occurred yet and to call back in another 30 days to cancel if I did not see any business by then I did call and cancel at that time. Then I received a bill for $390 and was told another bill for $70 would be coming. They told me I received 22 clicks. I asked them to prove it and they could not.
Do not advertise with this SCAM company. They Lie and cheat and lie again.
--

Avoid their advertising! Gains no new business and will cost FAR more than Yelp for Business Owners promise you!

Yelp contacted me about trying their advertising and taking advantage of a $600 advertising credit promo over 6 months but I had to sign up for an $8 average per day budget. This seemed like a lot of money for me to spend on marketing (at $240 a month) but with the $100 per month credit I decided to give it a chance. Specifically because I was told I could cancel at any time without losing my promo or dealing with any hidden charges or fees.

After 10 days I had no potential clients contact me via phone or email. The ONLY contact I had from "potential customers" was through Yelp's direct messaging and they were all inquires about services that I do not provide at my business. Of course when I contacted the "people" back to inform them that I did not offer the services they were inquiring about, I never got a single response. Were these contacts even real people? Hmmm

I decided this was not the right direction for me to take since I did not even have 1 real lead in 10 days so I cancelled the next day. Math: $8 a day × 11 days = $88 -$40 (total for 11 days ad credit) = $48
THIS amount is what I expected to pay! THIS is what I signed up for. So color me surprised when I was charged $85.93.

I figured they must have made a mistake and forgot to remove my ad credit. No problem, mistakes happen. I would contact them and get it resolved. So I email Tessa (the ad specialist I'd been working with) she never got back to me. I gave her a few days to respond and when she still hadn't replied I called. No answer. I left a polite voicemail explaining the charge and my concern of not having the ad credit applied. She did not call me back and instead sent me an email saying everything was correct and that my ad credit had been applied and that the $8 a day is an average not an exact. I explain that that would make the cost significantly more than what I agreed to. Double in fact. She then gives me a bull$#*! phone number to contact billing at Yelp.

So I contact billing. This rep says if I have a dispute on the bill I have to contact a different department. He transfers me, Yelp drops the call. I call back, I finally talk to a customer service rep. I'm certain they hear this same exact issue from clients all day, every day because their ad program is misleading and dishonest.

I explain my charge situation to her. She tells me they already credited my account the $40 for the promo. I asked how I could still be charged at the cost of $8 a day if it had been applied? She explains that $8 is an average and my ad costs had come out to be more than that. So I ask how is that possible when I hadn't gotten 1 lead and only inquires not related to my business? And what would be the point of this "promo" if the average is more than the $8 a day you're agreeing to, so you are never actually saving money on anything and are paying exactly what the full cost would be? Then she became argumentative and defensive and I then realized they had no plans on doing the right thing and reimbursing the $40 credit I was swindled out of. Total con artists.

Should have known better than to advertise with them when I learned years ago from a business owner friend that they were contacted asking them if they were interested in paying to have Yelp not show negative reviews on their business. And when they refused because the review was bogus, and didn't meet criteria for a valid review, Yelp refused to remove it unless they paid. Scammers!

So beware! They are not concerned with long term, honest business relationships. They are money grabbers.

Lesson learned for me. Thank God I ditched them after 11 days... I can't imagine the gauging they would have done beyond that.

If you are in real estate don't get taken by Taylor Ray with Yelp. He'll tell you anything to get you to sign up. He told me that the clicks were an average of $8 ea and I had a $475.00 ad budget (plus another $125 in junk fees - call routing etc...) which I thought would allow me a large amount of clicks and potential clients for the money. In reality, it started at about $17 per click which I immediately called him about and wanted to opt out but he relentlessly encouraged me to continue saying I hadn't given it enough time and that it would get better. It only got worse climbing up to $28-$33 per click (even he was shocked!). But still telling me to hang in there and that it would improve. Nothing but BS! After the 2nd month I had enough and would not listen to him any longer and said I want out and not changing my mind! Yelp for Business Owners require another 30 days of paying these ridiculous rates before they will stop the program. All in all, I have spent roughly $2,000 and got absolutely nothing! Not a single call, email or anything from a potential client. Just a bunch of BS! They also say that they have an early termination fee of $700 which they politely waived. My thoughts on that are that it is just a fake fee to make them look good when someone wants out-so they waive it! Big deal!
I was very clear with Taylor when I signed up that I didn't want just empty exposure with no ROI and he assured me that wouldn't be the case. In his words..."you're gonna do great!" He just lies to suck you in and then you're forced to pay the enormous fees. Don't believe a word he says... ever! Yelp is a bold faced lie for any industry. They will not do what their salespeople say they do. All that matters is what's printed in the contract which is very vague. STAY AWAY! If I could rate it a -5 stars I would do it!

Wow! I am the latest victim of Yelp!... I too was suckered in by the $300 in free credit... I have to start googling these things before signing up and providing credit card information... Yelp for Business Owners got me for $1300 dollars... What I found to be mind boggling was that they never sent any payment confirmations or invoices or anything for their monthly billing... They just silently bill you while providing no ROI at all... Its SHAMEFUL and Ironic for such a successful company like YELP to take advantage of small business owners and no one seems to be providing a consequence for their actions so they keep doing it to so many people... Basically I was never informed by their reps that I had to go turn off the ads after the credit expires... from the control panel and how to exactly go about doing that... I have gotten exactly 32 clicks to my website for $1300 dollars... THATS INSANE... and not a single message or lead was of quality enough to turn into any sort of business... ALL TRASH... If you are reading any of these comments prior to advertising with YELP!... I am sure you dont need any more advice as far as not to do any business with this crooked company... I will do my best to spread the word more and as should you and anyone else you know... -- Muzzammil Sajjad

YELP will generate loads of ads and charge you up the butt for them, but in no way shape or form are Yelp for Business Owners fair with their business deals. They will call you endlessly to upgrade to a more expensive program, and the longer you dont do it they take secret action. My page went from having a whopping 57 5 star reviews, to 32. MORE THAN 20 REVIEWS REMOVED FOR NO REASON. I looked at other people who pay more for ads than I, and saw them have 100 posted reviews with 15 not recommended while I had 32 showing and 35 not recommended. They charge for page upgrades and will not refund them even if you have your business up as closed. THEY STILL CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS WHEN YOUR BUSINESS IS MARKED AS TEMP CLOSED. Customer service does nothing but keep you on hold and give bull $#*! reasons for their actions. They claim they have no control over reviews, and yet reviews get taken off and put back on daily. Negative reviews are sent to the top while great ones are set to not recommended UNLESS YOU PAY MORE. They will never admit it, but if you pay them $1,000+ a month theyll cater to you. Any less and they dont care. They treat this like they are your boss, and you do what they say and you dont have control. If youd like to cancel ads, they require 30 days notice SO THEY CAN CHARGE YOU FULL PRICE FOR ONE MORE MONTH. Isnt this MY business not yours? If i want to quit I get to quit. I'll use YELP continuously but I dont recommend their ads.

YELP never ceases to amaze me with little hidden surprises as this time I found new razor blades buried in their bag of candy. Thank God I inspect things. Many businesses listed on Yelp are fake businesses that are proxies for other businesses and contain fake reviews. This helps these greedy businesses get larger market share. YELP also has an Elite Yelp Squad of reviewers that just want social acceptance and are willing to review anything for the sake of adding another notch to their review bedpost. And for these elite reviewers, the payoff is an invitation to wine and dine at restaurants with other like-minded YELP Obsessive Compulsives on YELP's tab. It's a reward system to reinforce the YELP review anything culture.

Everyone knows that YELP doesn't hold itself responsible for which reviews it leaves on or takes off since this is done by some algorithm in the cloud over which Yelp for Business Owners have no control, and with their self-induced climate change, this cloud opens up and peepees down the backs of hard working business owners. So, if you're the recipient of any false reviews that follow your business and negatively affect your image, if you have a paid account, cancel it because eventually the review should get get buried in theory and replaced by other subscriber reviews. BUT, just when I thought it couldn't get worse, it did!

YELP resurrected one of my positive reviews that was previously taken off which in turn resurrected my business presence toward the top of YELP's website for a search for my type of service. First I thought they were developing a sense of responsibility because the positive review raised my review average. But then, presto, they took the review down again, recalculated my review average downward, listed the removed review as not recommended, and the damage was done once again. My business shows up more frequently with more negative stats.

Keep in mind that most businesses, other than restaurants, don't get a lot of reviews. So, each one counts.

So this time, instead of stabbing me in the back, they attempted to hide razor blades in my candy and now I lost my sweet tooth.

The worst part about running my business is dealing with Yelp.

- Let's start with the good:
It's a necessary evil for local SEO and reviews from clients. It does help your local pages rank better if that's part of your marketing strategy.

- The bad:
I've had yelp business accounts for years and have gotten less than 0.5% of my clients from Yelp (without paying for their overpriced advertising) - whereas my organic Google and Google maps listings bring in 60% of my clients and Facebook and Instagram brings in around 30% of my clients FOR FREE!

Yelp for Business Owners endlessly call and email you to hassle you to buy their advertising... If you have multiple locations this problem is magnified so much worse... I've asked to be placed on do-not call lists yet I still get some calls from them.

I have issues that the sales team says is "no problem to resolve" yet nothing gets resolved. Clearly, they don't care about serving their customers, they just want to make the sale.

Claiming and managing different locations is such a hassle. I don't understand why they don't have a better backend for business owners on mobile. It feels disorganized to me.

They charge for so many services that Google My Business gives you for free.

They place businesses and business reviews similar to yours ON YOUR PAGE and then expect you to pay to remove them...

This is the absolute worst business directory I've ever dealt with. It's just a constant headache with them.

Use this app for the free features and send your reviews to Google. The ads are very expensive and bring in little profit. Also, out of 20 customer reviews Yelp only displays 4. I recently attended a business owners conference and it was unbelievable to hear from hundreds of business owners expressing that same frustration with reviews and return. This last month we paid Yelp $570 and basically only received a few inquiries and fewer actual jobs. It's mostly people fishing for prices, so Yelp for Business Owners will contact you and several other companies and you have to pay for those inquiries. Also, the craziest part of it all is, we're paying over $500 a month for ads, naturally you would think Yelp would do everything that they can to make their customers happy. That is not the case. I was overcharged and after being transferred repeatedly and told that there was nothing that could be done, I was actually hung up on by a Yelp employee. Since I learned that you can't call and get help I submitted my complaint electronically and never heard from anyone in the company. In the end I learned that what's most important is Google when it comes to establishing your reputation and Facebook for online presence. (This is valuable info I learned from several business owners who have tried Yelp, Angie's List or Home Advisor.) I cancelled my ads and guess what Yelp did? They took down even more of my reviews. Wow! For any new company without a whole lot of experience please take this review serious. It's so sad to see people attempting to build there dreams be ripped off by huge companies with poor customer service. They are very nice during sign up and will promise you the world but beware. They do not play fair. They control everything on the platform to what type of calls you get to which reviews they believe are real (which is unbelievable being that they hang up on customers even when they are wrong). Just do you research because we have wasted a lot of money and to attend that conference and hear the complaints about Yelp is disheartening, I wish I could have attended sooner, I would have saved thousands of dollars.

What I am posting here is what I have FOUND on the Internet. Nothing here is new, unique, or original. Everything summarized here can be found with a simple Google search on the Internet.
All over the Internet businesses are complaining that that YELP makes it difficult to find POSITIVE reviews for a business, but makes it very easy to see a negative review. That wrongfully makes a business look bad and businesses are complaining.
A common complaint on the Internet is this: YELP often predominantly posts a business's negative reviews. If you dig long enough and hard enough, you MIGHT find 5-star reviews. However, you truly must DIG to find those reviews. Therefore, YELP makes businesses look bad. LEGITIMATE REVIEWS ARE HIDDEN FROM VIEW. Business have wonderful 5-star reviews that YELP makes it difficult to find. A search on the Internet can make a business look horrible on one negative review when the firm truly has dozens of 5-star reviews.
All over the Internet, it is written that YELP makes efforts to "sell" advertising services when you call to complain about the bad reviews. There are articles on the Internet indicating YELP sales representatives have been "busted" for trying to extort advertising dollars to remove bad reviews. There are many videos and recordings exposing real YELP salesperson phone calls. Here is one. Listen to a real phone call with YELP sales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxivVdg_YOc
YELP's response to complaints often cites Yelp for Business Owners feel their algorithm is just fine regarding reviews. However, how can this possibly be accurate when there are literally THOUSANDS of YELP complaints on the BBB website alone? The algorithm can't be good if so many businesses are complaining. Let's also keep in mind that a competitor can literally MAKE UP a bad review and post it about another business. For example, a restaurant owner can easily post that if you eat at "ABC" restaurant, you will get food poisoning. I have seen articles indicating their competitor was posting bad YELP reviews about their business.
YELP touts their algorithm is an appropriate way to treat reviews. Notice that nobody can write a YELP review about YELP on YELP's website. Just think about that for a moment. They very system YELP touts as being appropriate is something that they themselves would not dare avail themselves to on the Internet. Does this not suggest that YELP is afraid of how they, themselves, would fare using their own algorithm?
There are articles and videos that state YELP wants to get your attention by putting a negative review high in a SEO search. They hope this will trigger you to call YELP. When you do, they launch into a sales pitch like this one… Listen to a real phone call with YELP sales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxivVdg_YOc
There have been thousands of complaints to the BBB and FTC complaints. Some complaints alleged YELP was displaying the bad reviews in order to get businesses to call YELP, just so that YELP can make a sales pitch for advertising.
When I did research, I found articles and videos like these:
YELP IS A SCAM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OosiRvr3bA4
YELP SCAM EXPOSED: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmlh6OsCh7Q
YELP IS A SCAM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OosiRvr3bA4
Heavy drinking, sex tapes, and a pyramid scheme: YELP insiders speak out about the company's high-pressure sales culture:
https://www.businessinsider.com/YELP-insiders-disturbing-stories-high-pressure-c...⇄ /> Documentary explores the allegedly shady business practices of the review site: https://www.eater.com/2016/7/21/12248622/yelp-film-billion-dollar-bully
If you google "why is YELP bad" you get this response: It's no secret that YELP makes running a business harder... It's also possible for a business to pay someone to write fake good YELP reviews to boost their scores. Business owners have also accused YELP of extortion, claiming YELP moves positive reviews to the top after a business pays to advertise
A current Google search of "YELP SCAM" yields 25,000,000 results, and "YELP RIP OFF" currently yields 4.9 million results.
If you google "why yelp is bad for business" you will find: It's no secret that Yelp makes running a business harder. The Wall Street Journal points out that business owners often see a dip in profits after a slew of negative reviews, and the fact you can be anonymous on Yelp means it's possible for competitors to leave as many fake negative reviews as they want.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that YELP's manipulation of reviews and advertising tactics were a form of "hard bargaining."
I have also read many articles on the Internet stating YELP has retaliated against people that have posted complaints against YELP.
I have seen people write on the Internet: "YELP is a bully and an extortion machine. Horrible. They lie and mislead consumers. Disgusting."

So I was receiving daily calls by yelp marketing reps, Yelp for Business Owners wanted me to give their website another chance. I explained to them over and over that for a new business who is not where they want to be, Yelp would be just a waste of money. They charge you anytime someone clicks on your page or something. So they offered me a credit of $300 to reinstate my account and a rep assisted me and supposedly wanted to show me their features. I asked many times during this call if they would be charging me, I told them I was ok with using their credit just to see if it is worth joining or not. She and many other reps would assure me that I was not being charged that I had a credit. So after a week or two I decided it was not for me since I never ever got a lead using them. So I asked again Ann's they assured me they were not charging me. So I matter I canceled with available credit left over I get charged 85 dollars more or less. I called customer service and they changed their whole tune, telling me that it is in their contract and disregarding any L anything I said explained my case and asked for a manager, rep claimed to be the manager in corporate and was being very aggressive. I told her if they monitor calls they could heat my ask on. Every call if they will charge me and each rep said no not maybe but no. So they flat out lied and. Will not give me my mo ey back. Total scam.

Yelps software system filtered many of our good reviews but was able to keep the bad reviews. For instance, back in March, we had a bad review about our lettuce, and a customer did post a picture of it. I admit that the salad was not that great since we didnt have any Romaine lettuce in Michigan, and got some from out of States. Long story short, we didnt serve that kind of lettuce, and it died quickly after we served it to our carry-out customer. By the time other customer came back and showed us, we couldn't even believe that salad was served from our store. Eventually, we threw out 93 cases that were stored in our nine restaurants. We preferred our customers safety and satisfaction over the $4,185 worth lettuce.

Now, six months later, a customer called my manager and said: I love the Mediterranean salad and you were recommended at work, but I dont want to spend money on old lettuce. My manager explained to him exactly what happened, and this customer decided to give us a try. This client became a loyal customer and ordered eleven salads in just three weeks (According to my supervisor), and didnt even find one piece of bad lettuce. The happy customer told us "I would spread the words"- and started posed his fresh and clean lettuce on Yelp. However, sadly, "Yelps software" didnt recommend this review. I called one of Yelp's top managers- and he gave me the same answer as every business owner gets. Our software did not recommend it, and when I suggested to him that their software need to be updated, he added Our soft is accurate than Google's. It knows- every time- if a business owner pays someone to write a good review. And that is why consumers only trust Yelp's reviews.

As I have stated, a customer came six months later after our non-happy customer review had written, why would I wait that long to pay someone and cover the bad review? Is it smarter if I called the customer who wrote the bad review, and offered her $400 worth gift card? Despite the questions. Our salads team got rewarded from my supervisor a $400- after the good review about the lettuce posted. Do you know why Yelp for Business Owners got $400 awards? It is because they disposed of more than twenty-four cases of unhealthy lettuce- in less than four months- since we cant control the farmers. Our salad guys got rewarded because they kept their eyes on our customers safety- which lead our client to satisfaction service. Wait to hear the most interesting question is, What kind of software is this- It keeps the picture of the bad salad online- but couldn't attract 1,200 unseen dangerous lettuce? When I said unseen lettuce, I meant the sense that our salad guys use to tell if the lettuce is bad without discoloration leaves or smell. They tossed this kind of lettuce before it got mixed with our house dressing that made of extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, red vinegar, garlic, and Mediterranean herbs and spices- which can be hard for even farmers to tell if the lettuce were good or bad! What kind of software is this?

Did you know that I still advertise with Yelp even though they did all that to us! Now it is far-fitted. Two reasons we still advertise with Yelp. First, they bring more customers. Second, specifically, they make the job easy for me- by keeping and highlighting only the bad reviews. Therefore, it makes it easy for me to increase the sales and see only its bad reviews. I think it is fair for my customers, but is it fair for my honest employees not the see their efforts on top of our business page as long they worked hard for it since 2000 before Yelp exist? So, How long Yelp will stay in business if business owners are not satisfied, their employees will keep getting blamed, and consumers themselves are upset?

I have used Yelp in the past and paid over $4000 in my purchasing of ads. As of a year and a half ago I cancelled my ads feeling that Yelp for Business Owners had not produced the returns I was looking for. I received a call from a new rep asking me to come back and try the company again, with an ad credit. This then turned into a paying ad service on my credit card that I had tried to cancel online, but for some reason it didn't work on their site (you click cancel and cant... hmmm) so the ad runs were not cancelled and my credit card was charged again for another two months. I just called Yelp to complain explaining my experience and was told that Yelp felt that it wasn't their fault, and by their policy the don't issues refunds that are not their fault. So basically their button to stop your campaign and stop charging my credit card doesn't work and yet its my fault. The person I spoke to was diligent and said she totally understood my frustrations but had to stand behind their policy. I explained to her that company growth is about listening to your customers and exceeding their expectations, not falling short of them. I also explained that I would be going onto social media platforms to warn others about their suspicious tactics and billing practices.

Watch out! Save your money and go buy yourself something nice because this service isn't worth it.

If I can save other people the $500 this cost me this time around, I will be happy that I have done my part to cost this company the way they have cost me personally and financially.

Where do I start?

I paid $305 for ads in March and received zero referrals. When my bill arrived on April 1, i sent an email requesting a cancellation and I I called. The phone rep said that he couldn't give me a refund, but that April ads would be comped. I said ok.

On May 1, I was charged $226. I didn't notice the charge until May 14th. I called and spoke to a very nice, competent person named Jaye. Based on the case notes, she said I had a great case for a refund. I filled out the form and it was denied.

I called again. This time Ashley told me that I canceled on April 1, but called on April 3rd to reinstate. This is a LIE. Incidentally, all of my case notes were "missing". The calls were not recorded. Yelp for Business Owners flat out lied to me.

I called AGAIN. I waited for 20 minutes, and, when I finally got through, the rep hung up.

Now my company doesn't come up when I search for landscapers. It's not even listed in the top 100.

Yelp should be ashamed of itself for these tactics. I have been lied to and black-balled.

I am working on obtaining refunds through my credit card company. I have the email I sent requesting cancellation. Smoking gun? I hope so.

DO NOT ADVERTISE ON YELP!

Alpine Roofers crunched and damaged my tree while doing roofing for a client across the laneway. Yelp for Business Owners were never going to report it which is like a hit and run. It was business as usual for them. I have contacted the city and an arborist. The sign clearly states no trucks beyond 2 m wide and no parking in the laneway but this does not apply to them. It took 30 years for that tree to grow and was planted for my youngest son. When I could see it was localized and see the truck I knew the truck hit my apple tree and hit hard. Fixing up a client's property at another neighbors expense should not be your companies standard practice. Traumatic injury to trees can be a serious and even deadly problem. Vehicle injury to trees can be particularly difficult to correct since the damage is often severe. Many cannot survive the mutilation that breaks and distort branches and their ability to get water. Not only does it cause physical destruction, but the very vitality of the tree is impaired. In severe instances, the only decision may have to be tree removal. Wound injuries allow insects to get in, eat the limbs and leaves, expose the inside to organisms such as fungi and bacteria, scaring occurs, and even discoloration. Tree damage by a truck may also include bark splitting which is also impacted in the winter months. In short, hits like this severely compromise the life and health of the tree. THEY WERE ARROGANT AND WERE NOT CONCERNED IN THE LEAST. IF YOU HIRE THEM, YOU MIGHT GET THE JOB DONE BUT HAVE SECONDARY ISSUES WITH THE NEIGHBOURS. HIRE SOMEONE ELSE AND HAVE PIECE OF MIND. THEY ALSO LEAVE A MESS. THEY ALSO PARKED IN THE LANEWAY.

All of these reviews are spot on. The sales reps are persistent and aggressive. Yelp for Business Owners will tell you anything to get you to sign up and they will lie about how you will be charged - before you know it you will have racked up a few hundred dollars with nothing to show for it. When you try to contact them to resolve the issue the billing reps will tell you it's all your fault, that it was either a "misunderstanding" or that you weren't listening closely enough and that their reps follow tight scripts. It's obvious the business reps deal with this all day long as they will shut you down before you even have a chance to begin - I even had one hang up on me. It seems clear to me the company lawyers attend training sessions to make sure the reps deny deny deny til they are blue in the face. It's just awful. And honestly dehumanizing as you realize you've been had and you are completely powerless to do anything about it but pay so they don't try to further ruin your life. Companies like this should 100% be held accountable for their indiscretions - they are not interested in costumer service or satisfaction whatsoever. At this point it truly is a scam marketing platform where they just take your money and run to their next mark. Shame on you Yelp.

Yelp scammed my regarding promotional ads. Told me I was getting $300 in free ads for the month if I set up my ad campaign a very specific way. Yelp for Business Owners walked me through it on the phone so I believed everything was good to go. Once the month was over I was charged $540 and they only applied approx $100 in promo credits. So they're telling me I had so many leads that it would have cost $640 for the month without their help? For around 60 clicks? Their ads did not lead me to one single job. Spoke to them about it and they told me my maximum budget I set for the month was $540. Yea? You mean the one you told me specifically how to set up? So even if they applied $100 in credits, shouldn't MY COST be $440? And what happened to the $300? When speaking to "customer service" they told me I didn't understand how the ads worked. The agent literally insulted my intelligence and attempted to humiliate me while arguing with me about the promo campaign over the phone. No refund. Reported to the BBB - they still refuse to refund. There is recorded phone conversation evidence of their rep lying to me over the phone about the ad campaign and how it "works." They won't send me the audio because they know they're in the wrong. These guys WILL LIE, TAKE YOUR MONEY, INSULT & DEGRADE YOU, REFUSE TO OWN UP TO THEIR MISTAKES/BLATANT LIES, AND FORGE REVIEWS (you heard me... Look it up). DO NOT EVER USE THIS AWFUL COMPANY.

Wow! Where to start... Seems like a lot of other businesses has had the same issues as I did. When a lot of people say the same thing you know it's an issue and should be fixed.

This may be long but I wanted to give a good insight into what happened to me so others don't fall into the same issue.

Just to start off, I am not only doing this review because it is negative. I give positive reviews as well. So I am not one of those who only gives reviews when it is a negative one.

I was also offered $900 in free ads. I was also told I will not be charged to try out the service since I would be getting $900 towards the ad service.

I was very adamant from the beginning about not wanting to pay to advertise since I already invested money in other options. The sales person told me nothing was going to be charged and this would be a promotion so I can try out the service and see if would like it.

The whole service was explained line by line over the phone while Yelp for Business Owners had me navigate the system. All the limits were set by the salesperson and explained that all of it was going to be under the $900 cap amount. Believe me, I asked to make sure since they needed my credit card information to set up the account. (by the way, you can't even delete your credit card from the system once they have it) I thought the limit amounts were high but I was told to take advantage of the free service and get as much exposure as I could then at the end of the month I would get a call to go over everything and if I liked it they can help me set it up on a reasonable budget I can afford.

I started the service mid-month in March 2018 so I was expecting a call about a month from the start date. On April 2nd, I was charged $567. I did not get any leads from the ads until March 29th, 3 days before the end of the month. To which I felt a little suspicious in not getting a single thing from them until the end of the month. I did not get any sales from those few leads. But that is neither here nor there since it's not Yelps fault on the types of leads we receive. However, the initial sale pitch is and how they get you to sign up with them.

So back to me waiting on the phone call to go over clicks, impressions, and how the service would benefit my business. Of course, It's not mid-April 2018 yet for me to get a call and I understand but already getting charged for something I was not supposed to get charged in the first place is an issue.

I called to get clarification to which I was told I needed to contact the sales person that I spoke with. I was told that they must be away from their desk cause they couldn't reach her to have me transferred. I looked through my past emails and I found the sales person's number and what do you know, I got in touch with her as soon as I called. Once I caught her up on the issue she then changed her pitch and explained herself different than what she had sold me at first. What startup business would agree to a $30 per click service and agreeing to $750 a month budget? I know I didn't! Then she told me that I needed to contact account management so they can assist me further. I see where this was going, typical call center answer to give me the runaround and send me to another person so I can explain everything once again.

Once I contacted account management they told me that they do not give services for free and that I must have misunderstood. By all means, I am not the most experienced business owner, however, I am not stupid to start my business in the negative and agree to give money away without first getting results. They put all the blame on me and took no accountability for the misinformation given to me. They didn't even offer anything to put me at ease and told me they can't give me a refund. I told them that I was going to dispute the charges with my bank and he said to go ahead. Wow!

I was harrassed almost daily regarding contacting them to setup my profile. Initially thought it was part of process hours later told that I wouldn't get charged anything for the trial period. No trial period. I got charged $110 for 6 days which I cancelled after 2 days because I explicitly told her I couldn't afford the daily amount Yelp for Business Owners laid out. She said we will also give you $150 in advertisement if you setup trial now just for trying there premium features. Well 3 organics clicks cost me $110. Don't bother calling the sales retention department get tossed around and told not sure where the communication gap occurred as none of what I was told is a THING. Ultimately my add setup is done solely by the client and I should've known the charges i agreed to regardless of what was explained to me. Oh and that $150 is only if I keep my add for the entire month so because I only had 5 days I only got the $25 towards the adds and there is no TRIAL! Just frustrated I explained my budget and not only did I not get one review, call, message only 5 clicks, 3 organic amount to $150 what a deal! Way to prey on new businesses, they should be sued for punitive damages and than the outrageous lies of fees for there fake advertising!

I'm a small business owner with a certain budget for advertising. A Yelp sales person contacted me to see if I might be interested in paying for their service to steer customers my way. I was pretty skeptical but she tried a number of angles..."yelp is the preferred search engine for millennials", "Yelp is different and better than other search engines", "customers can contact your business directly through yelp" i. E. it's the most user friendly search engine ever. I bit, but set a spending limit of no more than $300 per month, with the assurance that I would probably never reach that limit and, if I did, my business would be growing proportionally. Last month Yelp for Business Owners billed my credit card for $525 and I can't recall a single customer that found me through Yelp (I do check with each customer to see how they found me). I called to cancel and they tried the old "Oh... we're sorry we feel that way." Then..."if you really want to cancel, you can go online and cancel through our website." This of course sounds like an exercise in futility to me, so I demanded that for $525 of zero value, surely they are capable of shutting it down on their end. FINALLY they agreed to shut off my account. We'll see if they do. Oh, and by the way, they can't forward you to a supervisor if you ask. They're a frigging "state of the art" search engine, and you can't go up the chain of command if you are looking for answers? They are web criminals in my opinion. I'll be watching to see if they actually shut off my account, and I'll also notify my credit card company that I do not want to honor any more charges from Yelp. I'll be surprised is any of this goes smoothly.

In the last few months I realized Yelp has reviews of my business, so I decided to set it up like I did with Google Business... Anyway, after adding photos and updating my listing etc etc... I would get an email, from clients, here and there asking why I removed their review. I was like WHAT?! So, I looked and yep, all but four 5 star reviews have been removed (hidden). Yes I have 1 star reviews, I run a fishing business and sometimes people don't catch fish, which is expected from those who think you can catch a fish on every cast, however, Yelp has made it that the 5 star reviews show less and Yelp for Business Owners keep all the 1 star reviews on your listing. So... I wrote this on my about the manager... And as for the reviews on here... You cannot always trust reviews on Yelp. Seems that quite a bit of our reviews, 1-5 star, have either been made invisible to the public or removed. So if you have left a review and I did not respond or you do not see it, it is because Yelp has removed it for some reason... Let's see how long it takes for Yelp to realize I wrote that and take it down and how many of the 5 star reviews are removed. I will update... OK 5 minutes later I get a rejection for the update on my profile. YELP IS A JOKE! I wish more people knew that and realized that YELP wants you fail and it's like they want you to pay a ransom to release your 5 star reviews!