Yelp for Business Owners

I did a 6 month Yelp advertising campaign for my business and got nothing for my money! I was charged every time my listing was displayed, but there is no way to confirm this. I was charged for clicks on my account, but there is no way to confirm this. And I was charged for calls to my business that I never received! After spending $500 per month for six months, I cannot confirm anything that I got from this ad campaign except for two phone calls. They have blocked legitimate reviews supporting me and refused to do anything about it because a computer program controls it. In sum, I spent almost $3000 and did not receive anything that is tangible. Yelp is a great scam for advertisers.

I have used Yelp for business and Yelp ads and the customer service reps are very rude and difficult to deal with. I have numerous legitimate reviews on Yelp that were unsolicited by happy customers, yet ALL of them were flagged as "not recommended" by Yelp. I called Yelp and they told me that it's based on an algorithm that applies to everyone so that business owners can't solicit reviews from friends. While that may be the case, they are also penalizing me for getting 5-star reviews from legitimate clients. I believe they started penalizing me once I stopped paying for my Yelp ads. This is not a fair policy and I will never use Yelp ads again.

Horrible experience. Charged me $18 to NOT get my flowers delivered to the funeral! Supervisor in customer service promised me it would be done... not to worry... told her I had to take my husband to Houston medical center today. Got home with urgent message wanting an "alternate address" because florist couldn't deliver to funeral home in time! Who wants a large funeral spray brought to their home after a funeral?! I don't even know an alternate address anyway. Never use this company! Most of their customer service people barely speak English. You can't understand much of what they say. In addition, they claim they will send you an email of the invoice so any errors can be corrected, but I never received any invoice on either of the two sprays that ultimately were ordered! No invoice, but still charged a service fee of $18. No flowers for the funeral. No customer service. If you really want flowers and service, find a florist in that town and call them directly.

I have many 5 stars review from real clients but Yelp decided not to publicly advertise them after many attempt of encouraging me to pay for advertisements. I guess that is the reason why they dont show great reviews for my business. Therefore, I am telling to my clients about Yelp being inconsiderate and unorofessional of handling these situations. Plus the marketing people who calls me are rude and demanding. I am very disappointed. I wonder if they will let this review be shown publicly. I might have more than 20 reviews but they only shows the two complaints or poor reviews that we actually did no give any services and other less than 5 stars. But I have about 20 reviews that they are not showing that are great and from out real clients.

During Covid19 time I received call from Yelp employee to sale me advertisement. This was in middle of the April 2020. I explain to him that I am not interested because my business is closed by government of WA State. He still insisted telling me, that he can help me to set up my business when I will be reopen again. He set me up for not disclosing any charges, telling me, that is free of $900 add. He lied, push for his goal. He is no longer with Yelp. They probably had to fire him from so many complains. Now, I am stuck with a bill for "not free" advertising. Such a misleading, not disclosing his goal, kind of like a snake. Now I try to resolve this problem with administration and they don't replay or answer my calls. Shame on them doing this to small business owners during the pandemic. I hope someday Yelp will be punished for this. Horrible experience. Never again. Elizabeth

I paid yelp $300 for a month of advertising. Most of what I got was people not even serious enough to provide contact info for a free estimate. My account rep was not knowledgeable enough to help me change my add did not get back to me as promised. When I called customer service to complain and ask for some relief of charges they basically told me no and that a manager would tell me the same. Don't waste your money folks these people are extortionists.

Signed up for Yelp ads, got the sales pitch of how they would generate a ton of business and my account manager was just a call or email away. Not the case at all, sent my account manager several emails, called and left messages. No call back no email back for weeks! I was not generating many leads from this which was my reason for contacting him. I cancelled my service and told them this was why. They charged me a $700 cancellation fee, I called them to ask about it, they just bounced me around to several departments and did nothing about it, I even asked if I signed back up and tried it again would they credit the $700. They said no way, so I tried calling back and asking other departments, they said they would call me back but never did. I could not believe how horrible their service was. If I ever treated a client like that they would probably be writing a terrible review on Yelp.

I received 300 free advertising credits from a purchase through vistaprint. I setup my page and advertising program to allow up to $300 spend per month thinking I would be able to cancel once my credits were used up.
July cost (using credits) = $55.41
August cost (using credits) = $53.66
September cost (using credits) = $40.97
October cost (using credits) = $36.08
Total spend on Credits thus far = $185.06 (so still have 114.94 credit remaining right? Wrong, credits expired at the end of October so now the November bill I receive = $173.99. Way more than any previous month's cost + credits expired so I owe the full bill. I called customer service, they say nope can't do anything about it, you should have called us in October if you wanted to cancel...
Also, I received no customer leads or contacts from all of this advertising.

I had representatives from Yelp contact me continuously and I finally gave in to them, with the understanding that I would get leads; well no leads, but later find that within 3 weeks I was charged $500 for what? Ad Clicks! I called them and they indicated that they recorded the call and I was clearly told ad clicks, I would never have agreed to this, had I understood that this was what it was. Then I asked for my account to be deleted and was told that they could not unless I had a court order or the business no longer existed. I should be able to remove my information if I no longer want to be associated with them. Very disappointed in them; I will not even use them for personal business anymore.

As they say, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." After a miserable experience two years ago, I foolishly allowed myself to be convinced to give it a try again. I won't repeat what soooo many have already reported on this site. This is a despicable company with reprehensible business practices.

I like advertising with them; what I don't like is how much it costs and that Yelp charges you approximately $800 if you get out of the contract before the year is up. I am an ad agency editor and a resume writer with fabulous reviews, but I didn't get much business the first two months. Word got out, and Yelp DID give me useful advice about beefing up my ad; however, their advertising fee is exorbitant (about $350 a month to advertise), and then I just told you about the $800 travesty. Very difficult to pay that much money, hoping I will have a return on my investment. A bigger tragedy was Google Ads; spent more than $1K, and didn't get even one customer. Waiting on May 2017 to arrive.

For any small business considering using yelp, do your research. They promise a promotional credit for free advertising to test out their service and I wouldn't be charged. But they need to take credit card and have it on file. Less than a month in, I'm charged $400 for advertising service that I didn't authorize. To top it off, after escalation to their service manager who was rude and not helpful, they won't reverse the charges and will just hang up.

Sales pitch led me to believe I would be getting $1200 free ads - well that's on top of the $787/mo I was billed. I wasn't expecting that. By the time my first bill showed up on my card and I shut it down, I had another $810 due. When I called to dispute the charge with Yelp, I was told that the $1200 was free additional advertising on top of what I spent out of pocket over 3 months. Yelp has shady sales tactics and misleading when my sales consultant walked me through setting everything up. Avoid unless everything you are getting is crystal clear.

I signed up with Yelp about 6 weeks ago on their "$300 Special" for business owners on a "$20 per click" basis. It hadn't generated any leads but the bills keep coming in anyway. Over $650 of my own money spent for nothing! I had cancelled after the first 30 days but my credit card was still charged over $430 this morning for who knows what. Impossible to contact anyone with an issue. How this company is allowed to operate like this is a mystery. Stay was from this company like a virus!

These make the mafia look like angels! Only one star reviews get shown on your listing until you pay up. How do they get you to pay? They spam call you until you eventually cave and subscribe to their B. S. "business listing services". If you don't pay, you don't get your earned 5 star reviews to show! They will black ball you until you pay their fees. How do they do this legally? They must have some people high up in their pockets. Once they get sued and somebody wins against them (eventually it will) the flood gates will open. Old timers who like to use this scam app will lose their trust, and yelp will be no more. Can't wait until their day in court comes. Reach out to us if you have a class action already started.