Yelp for Business Owners

They will destroy your small biz with their fraudulent gatekeeping practices they erase reviews and force you to contact so called leads that are not interested in your service because they are random generated and called leads

Yelp fails to provide a trustworthy platform for objective, genuine reviews and does not accurately reflect customer sentiment. The platform prioritizes negative reviews algorithmically and hides positive ones arbitrarily. Google, on the other hand, offers a larger sample size and a fairer representation of a business's reputation without manipulating review visibility. As a marketer, I was told by a Yelp salesperson not to solicit customer reviews, however, if our business paid for Yelp ads we could offer incentives for customers to leave reviews. After I turned down the salesperson over the phone, several of our newly acquired 5 star reviews vanished. Tell me how this isn't extortion.

After one phone call with a rushed salesman. A salesman who forced me to put a credit card as a place holder to get to the next page. Apparently signed me up for ads that ran daily. The card I put in was now costing 19 a day until our threshold of 480 monthly. I received an email letting me know that my ad was going well? I never agreed to that. I went ahead and cancelled the service and they forwarded my bill for 96 and change. The customer representative put me on hold so she could listen to my call. Not only was she rude when she returned she tried to gaslight me into thinking the salesman gave me full details on the call and told me my card would be run. All lies and my business is still out the money. I'd say the forced usage of Yelp Business experience did not impress nor did it come close to worthy of their price tag during the 7 days they claimed. Yielding an actual call or website click outside of my own would have been a plus.

Yelp should be considered a criminal organization. If I could use negative stars I would. They promised us a $900 promotion for a 3 month ad campaign. It never materialized. They charged us full price. On top of that the few leads we got either had nothing to do with our business or were fake. Don't waste your money.

It's a scam where Yelp bills you for miscellaneous charges. There is no value in enrolling in their digital marketing as you will be charged if even these adds don't being you a penny worth of business.

You work hard to please your customers, you pay a lot of money for advertising on Yelp and they decide to take down two of my customers 5 star reviews in a row, I'm using this site and paying a crap ton of money to advertise to try to boost my business and get more customers and the best way to do that is to allow potential new customers to see the reviews of past customers and see what they had to say about you and the quality of work you did. I am beyond pissed about this and when you call Yelp for an explanation they give you some BS reason for why it happened, I'm done with Yelp, I can take my money elsewhere and my suggestion to anyone thinking of advertising their business on Yelp is to do the same. Don't do it, advertise somewhere else. I've included pics of both reviews that were taken off of my page below.

Yelp will destroy small business. They delete reviews they want add fake reviews. Won't remove personal info or change business info they hold your business hostage. Stay away from Yelp if you run a small business. It's detrimental. Horrible company. Check out other stories on Reddit

A Yelp sales agent "Business Success Manager" or whatever cold called me while I was driving, kept me on the line by promising me sales/leads that same night and that she was "personally invested" in my business because it's woman-owned and that she'd love to keep in touch...then I never heard from her again. She made me stop and download the app, told me I wouldn't be charged because I had a $300 ad credit, and then made me add my credit card info anyway. It's like a scammer they lure you in so hard you can't hang up. I could have caused an accident on the road I told her to call back but this b*tch only cared about her commission. I've lost almost $200 since they rejected my refund request. Do not trust Yelp.

They are a scam. I am so burnt on them I don't even want to type it all over again. The worst hogwash ever. I have canceled a million times by email and phone. Yet they continue to charge me for what? I have no clue. They can call a million times a day all day from a million different numbers for what. Guess is good as mine. Joke & scam. Please stay away from them. I can't believe with all the same complaints. Nothing is done about it.

Decided not to advertise with yelp and they misled me on how to cancel it. They make you go in and cancel it and it's very complicated. It never got completely cancelled due to the lengthy process and they trick you making you think its cancelled. They continued to bill me even though I called them explaining the situation. They would not give me a refund even though they wasted my time while they listened to my conversations them regarding the matter. They are a greedy company and I do not recommend wasting a dime on their advertising!

Yelp contacted me and gave me a hard sell on using there service on a trial basis...ir was a total flop. When I cancelled the service they removed ALL OF MY POSITIVE reviews and only left the negative.

Called Yelp and they indicated that I would have to pay for a service to get them reinstated. This is clearly extortion and unethical.

The Yelp ads are a scam, don't fall for there trap, don't even answer their emails, they will promise the world that they have a proven ROI, however as you see almost no positive feedback, don't get burnt like many have been, including me.

This is the perfect scam as a new business owner I've never felt so violated this company hooks you on multiple leads start running ads supposedly than get fake calls for service than an immediate call to cancel services

$300 credit is not what it seems, hidden charges that are borderline illegal. No way to take your credit card of file. AND so over priced! Consider this i am the only window cleaner advertising on yelp in my area, they claim that you pay the least amount required to get the click. Apparently that's $20/ freaking click.

A Yelp salesman called me asking me to pay for online presence. I agreed to pay 70 sudden R dollars a month but was never mentioned about a paper click and don't even realize it until they tried to charge me almost $400 for 1 month averaging $37 per click when I do bail bonds we all know that I'm gonna get lots of calls so that would not be a smart decision however they seem to think that I agreed to it. I already work in a shady industry but these guys are more like criminals than my clients. After I called him out on it he got cocky with me so he must be used to this. They are used to dealing with clients that are unsatisfied... if you look at my businesses the 5 stars. I deliver what I say

I have used the yelp for business thinking the were giving me a 300 credit to get started for my coffee shop. Come to find out it end up costing me 500 or more for a few clicks and they make it hard for you to see what's active and what's being charged. The customer service was unhelpful. Please steer clear. All they care about is their bottom line and not yours.

I do know Yelp is a complete waste of time. They remove everything. We actually bought a lead directly from them, did a great job, customer left a great review, Yelp removed it in their risk management and refused to put it back on. They said the Yelp profile of the customer didn't have enough reviews to go through. All 10 reviews they deleted accept for 1 review that I left personally, the only one that SHOULD have been removed before I knew the new policy. When I explained that to them they deleted that too. We spent so much money there. We hate yelp with a passion and will never use them again. Google is the true way to go, that's where I search when I need something. I think Yelps business model realized that good reviews would create organic leads and a lack of dependence buying new ones. They want you to be dependent on them for purchasing all your lead's for any new businesses established before their new and current business model. Super shady.

They will steel your money. They sell clicks for advertising. They Will show you other companies and have you click on their ads which is costing the company money because they charge you by clicks. It's all a scam and those other companies that bought into it just like me are getting clicks every time they want to show a new client how it works. There should be a lawsuit against this and everybody should get their money back. Un-freaking believable. Never again will I go with anything that has to do with yelp big scam company that does nothing.

My "High-End Appliance Service" first review was left 2/27/2017 with 36 visible (4-1/2 stars) was stolen by Yelp! Every picture was deleted except one that shows me, and Yelp replaced them with generic photos from the internet. All my reviews are still there with Alex in most reviews and few mentioning "High-End Appliance Service". Now it's "Beverly Hills Appliance Repair" https://www.yelp.com/biz/beverly-hills-appliance-repair-los-angeles-4
Sending emails asking Yelp to give back my account that Yelp stole has no response.
And that's not counting every other day phone calls, voice messages, emails offering paid services

I took them up on their offer of a $300 first month credit toward advertising. Within 2 weeks they had blown thru this "amount" and started to use money from my credit card -- without any notification! At around $5.00 per click, it added up to $130.00 fast, before I caught it on a bank statement. I called and got it stopped -- I thought. They took another $93.00 after that call.
I have told my CC company to fight it. They have gotten full refunds on both charges! Thank you, US BANK!