Yelp for Business Owners

Yelp is a detestable business.

I currently have 8 reviews on Yelp, but only two are visible. A 5-star, and a 1-star. The other 6 reviews are all 5-star, but are marked as "unrecommended" and hidden from customer view. When I called Yelp to discuss this, they informed me that if a user doesn't use Yelp enough, doesn't review enough, isn't funny enough, is too positive, their reviews can be removed by an AI system. Yelp also informed me that they have no control of this, and cannot, (or will not) fix this. I even told them I could name every single customer's hidden last name to prove that I've done work for them.

I've worked hard for the 40+ 5 star reviews on Google. I currently only have 5 star reviews on Google. To work hard for this public image, and then to have a lower marks from Yelp right next to Google is aggravating.

I called today and told them I wanted to de-list my business to make a statement about my distaste of treatment of business owners, and how this treatment of reviews was unfair and detrimental to my business. I was informed that they will not de-list my business because in their words, "The public has the right to know about reviews and the quality of businesses." That hilarious because to them, the public only has a right to know of the reviews that they deem fit. They will then call you to market a review showcase, of which you have to pay for. This strong arms new business owners into thinking they will become more successful only through the use of ads.

I will tell every business owner I know about this, and encourage anyone I know who is starting a business to avoid Yelp like the plague.

My restaurant was temporally closed for construction in March of 2022. We do have a Yelp page, we did our best with content and always had good reviews, but we have never had much of a budget for online ads. Because we haven't paid for ads the account wasn't set up for ads, so I was confused when in July I received a bill from yelp for several hundred dollars, especially since we were at that time still dealing with construction. Turns out it wasn't for the official page we have, but another page, one with no photos, no content, obviously no reviews and my personal cell phone number as the contact. So either someone hacked my Chrome account or unlawfully used a computer at our business to set up a "Self directed" ad campaign onbiz.yelp.com. When I spoke with my CC company they immediately called it for what it was, fraud, and issued a refund for the charges. No worries, so I chalked it up to people being awful and changed the login for all of computers and called it a done deal. NOPE... Yelp is to this day threating me with legal action and credit reporting for the total balance. After speaking with over a dozen people, 50+ emails, they admit that there are two accounts and that it doesn't make since, but they DO NOT CARE. They say its all outlined in their Terms of Use that "self directed ads" are not refunded base on content, and that it was my fault their wasn't content on the page the ads ran for. This after admitting that there were duplicate pages for the same property but different contact information and obviously no content. I know its my computer and my fault if someone hacked it, but they make their money by allowing others to scrutinize small businesses, yet we have no way of giving it back when we have been wronged. At our restaurant if someone were to put an item on another persons tab we 1000% will remove the purchase, no matter the cost to us. Small business owners do this all the time, and not because of reviews but because its good business and the right thing to do. What they are doing may not be illegal, but its wrong.

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 they 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!

They don't allow more reviews in and from the feedback I'm seeing on this site, they hide or manipulate reviews.

They 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.
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If you have an issue with a yelp charge you will wait on hold for roughly a half hour and then talk to a "rep" who is basically there to tell you why you can't be credited back any of your charges.

I was talked into running some pay per click ads during the last 10 days of my clients business season. It was explicitly stated many times that we would only want to run the ad for 10 days because the business was closing for the season. This is stated in the sales agent's notes and on the voice recording.

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 I received a call from the client a month later that they were charged $570 for ads that ran while they were closed.

We were also told that we would only pay for actual ad clicks which no one wants to click an ad to rent a boat in the fall but also Yelp conveniently will charge you the maximum per month even if you don't get the ad clicks.

I called and was able to speak with an agent that said their sales people are not responsible to turn off ads despite what may be interpreted or implied. I asked to speak to her manager and she said she was the manager. I asked for her name and ID# and 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.

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.

Any company that is so desperate to keep shady ad money without any sort of negotiation or acccommodation is on it's 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.

Yelp claims they cannot assist in correcting errors as their process is automated. Truth does't matter

I am completely appalled that when you seach help on the cell phones that this sitejabber site does not come up at all. Why? Because with SEO you can move all the good talk about yelp and not see anything negative. I signed up for a "trial" with the promise of a call back to teach me what to do, and $300 credit to be applied to my acct while I learn how to use the program. Neither was done and they wiped my PayPal and bank accounts clean! This company uses SEO for cell phones only because they know 90% of people do their research from a cell phone. So Please don't sign up for this is a scam! MY RELATIONSHIP WITH PAYPAL AND MY BANK ACCOUNT AT SCARRED because they will keep trying to take the money and its not in the account because I have no money left after this. They never applied the $300 to my account during the trial as promised and are not even to entertain the fact that they even promised the $300. Please don't do it! And Please share your reviews on FB and all social media platforms.!

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! They 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!

Please, avoid do any sort of business or trials with yelp. I know they seem and have been realiable from a customer point of view. But when it comes to their business owner/Clientele they will rip you off. I was given a FREE TRIAL for a TWO WEEK period. Once I tried to cancelled they help me thru it all and said they were sorry to see me leave. I insisted that this product wasn't for me and so they proceed to cancel everything before my trial period ended. Which was a day before the billing process. I wake up the next day to see a billing charge on my account for the amount of $250.35. So I email them like there website suggested and called them in three different numbers and ONLY TODAY on NOV. 5TH did I finally get thru with someone on the other side. ONLY TO TELL ME "I"m sorry sir, the trial was just the service but the ""ADDS ONS"" that were added wasnt. Which is BULLSH*T because the marketing agent GAVE ME THOSE ADD ONS. To TRY but I come to find out that... this is there way to SCAM YOU PUT OF YOUR MONEY. YELP is honestly no different from any marketing companies. So PLEASE AVOID.

YELP will generate loads of ads and charge you up the butt for them, but in no way shape or form are they 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.

In short, yelp stole my money and it sucks.

I was contacted by a representative in June. The call opened with him mentioning that people in my area were looking for businesses like mine (photography) He said that Yelp wanted to help with exposure. He walked me through how to set up an account for Ads. I was hesitant to enter my card but he said it was a formality it wouldn't charge me in fact he had a code so I could try the ads for $300 free. So I put my info in. When I connected a second small business I own on Yelp, a woman and then the same guy called back and had me sign up my second account. Below attached is the email I received after the call. Notice no reference to being charged at a later date. I didn't look for another email because I assumed that this was the only one I should be looking for. A month later I was charged $600 no email or warning. These are small businesses and I'm a recent college grad so that was pretty much everything I had in those accounts mainly for taxes. I called Yelp and submitted a review form. It took weeks and I'm am not sure if this is a coincidence but only after I tweeted about the company did I get an email saying that in good faith they would return the money for one of my businesses (the account that was charged less.) The other account was denied because the salesperson did "nothing wrong" I called today after calling a week ago and was told to email the representative. When I didn't see a reply I followed up and the answer was there is nothing they can do. They tried to frame it as if they were generous for giving any of it back. They front as if the promotion is absolutely free i have never dealt with ads online and I didnt know better *sigh* I wont be dumb ever again but be warned.