Yelp

I began advertising with YELP Business in February and it has been a nightmare ever since. The program was to have run through April and I have been billed $450.00 to $550.00 each month since. I have had 4 different account managers and none have been responsive or helpful. Each person told me different reasons why they were still charging my account and promised to correct the problem. None of them did.

Be very wary of YELP Business. They hold your business image hostage and the force you pay upgrade images and the business information. It is extortion at best. Stay away.

These people called to offer free ads. Went through the site with them and they told me what buttons to push to set things up. Next thing I know I'm getting charged large amounts of money. Customer service was horrible. I had to fill out a form and get rejected with no validation. Customer service hung up on me. And there's no responsibility taken. They are rude and just out for money. They have a LARGE amount of bad reviews for a reason. I was conned over the phone. Didn't know I needed to review them because I was signed up for something without even knowing!

As a business owner who has received numerous positive reviews,( that I personally know are legitimate customers genuinely wanting to share the good experience they had at our store,) that have been "filtered", I question the legitimacy of a site that claims to give a shopper valid information.
If Yelp is a forum for legitimate reviews that seeks to be helpful, why not allow all reviews in chronological order. Then the consumer is able to see if there is a trend in the companies service. That would be helpful. But, this random way reviews are handled is ridiculous.

They will not put your 5 star reviews and they will hide behind their algorithms excuse where they post for others. I have contracts as proof saying these are my customers but they don't care. I was advertising with them and that time my review were posted. Once I knew it was a scam, I stopped advertising. I have started using a different platform as well and its working out great!

YELP does not list positive business reviews unless advertisements are paid for. Very dishonest company. As a small business owner, I cannot afford their advertisements so they blocked all good reviews from our customers and left only the bad reviews. Their sales rep was very aggressive and rude. When I called yelp, they explained that their software makes the selections. This company is very dishonest and they care about nothing but generating money.

My clients take time out of their busy schedules to review Bon Jour Matchmaking Service. THEY are certainly not happy about their reviews being "hidden" on a regular basis. THIS time yelp accused ME of writing the most recent review which was actually written by a client I've been working with for a while. The nerve of this company accusing me of writing it and pulling both that review and another that a brand new client wrote! Then they have the nerve to call me to advertise with them! Fat chance!

We set up a budget for Yelp ads, it was 150.00 we only has 11 contacts, reviews 4 clicks and 2 calls.
They charged us 333.48
Called to speak with someone, Brandon hung up on me
Whitney ( whom squeaked like a little mouse) acted all sweet until i asked to speak with someone whom could assist the problem, them she got rude and hostile, and refused to transfer my call. When i hung up she called back to taunt me.

Will NEVER USE THIS service again

My company has been in business for over 2 years. I've had the same number of reviews since. I can't grow because I have 76 five star reviews in do not recommend. These five star reviews are from people who are very active on yelp with many friends and reviews. But if someone who creates an account that day with no picture or reviews or friends leaves a 1 star it stays on my page for 6 months, deeply affecting my business. We as business owners are not protected, whenever I question them about their algorithm, no one knows about it, no one can help us no one can explain why this is happening.

I am running a single family small business in Virginia Beach.
Be careful they have agents who call you to convince to pay for an add campaign. They're very kind, and convincing until you say yes.
One of them convinced me to start a campaign and promised me to stop it at Valentine's Day. She did not do and I realized it from my credit card statement. They charged me a lot.
Then I got in touch with their customer service to explain the situation. They have removed their kind mask and did listen to me.

My evidence was my conversation with Yelp agent. They neither did ask their agent, nor did listen to Voice recording.
They shot the door and cut the communication.

I agree with the fact that Yelp.com does have problems with its filtering in terms of filtering out positive reviews and only allowing on negative reviews.

Another problem with the site is that sometimes posting reviews is not always an easy thing especially in getting all the preliminary details right.

However the site also offers some great features and is still useful when it comes to exposing bad businesses. Just remember that Yelp like other review sites do not post reviews so they cannot be blamed for what goes on to the site.

However they should have the decency to include both the good and the bad reports of a company or website so that all can make up their own minds about the quality of a company or website as a whole

I was giving $150.00 in free pay per clicks and in order to use that I needed to set up an account which requires a valid credit card. So I did After just 30 days I'm charged $450.00 which I was told $150.00 was some extra services I added which I had no clue of and the rest was clicks which that free $150.00 os only valid after my first charge which I was totally unaware of. In the 30 Days I didn't even see any results at all from them. There was nothing they can do for me and we're very unprofessional and told me they rather cancel me then try and work this out with me which I was completely deceived. Shady shady shady business practices and there happy to rob you. Such a joke right that there company was built on reviews and giving good service when they have the worst and there reviews are by far the worst which I wish I seen first before losing $450.00. Beware

Got a phone call from a yelp rep. Was told to get online and set up an account and he told me were to click. After every thing was set up he told me everything else would be handled and i would only be charged if a yelp user clicked the call function on my page. Was hit with a $62.53 charge after 4 days of this phone call. Then today i received an email stating i owed another $352.00 i had only had 2 calls from yelp in a month period. I do not believe this warrants $402 worth of charges. Customer service is horrible. All they want to do is transfer you to 20 different people. Please do your research before letting theses people get you money. After looking at reviews on this page I see some horrible reviews. Save your money and advertise else were.

As a customer using this retail store. I have noticed prices are so much higher than other box stores. The lack of hardware items with over prices on Garden/Paint, allows myself to leave and buy these items at different locations. As I see sale prices are marked up 15 to 30 % to off set for the profit of this company. Thanks but no Thanks as I move on.

Yelp serves no purpose for business owners as they will allow anyone to say anything about a business. You can go online right now and lie about a company and although a company can prove that the allegations are completely false yelp will not even look into the validity of the claim. They let anyone write anything they want and use anonymous names and email address. Do not sign up for this company if you have an online presence. The only thing they will respond to you about is if you buy advertising from them. There are laws in place to fight them but unfortunately you will have to spend time and money. Stay as far away from this company as you can. Many business owners agree and are subjected to the same unlawful acts. Take a look a look at their terrible ratings. They let anyone who can type say what they want and there is nothing you can do but pay a company thousands of dollars to remove un validated remarks.

I do not recommended Yelp to any business, they will remove all your reviews unless you purchase ads from them. Yelp is just trying to take money from businesses, it does not accurately represent any business. If I could I would give them 0 stars. They won't even let you get rid of your account because they want as many users as they can to show how popular they are which is just wrong. I thought Yelp would be a great option to support my business but I was very wrong, Yelp is terrible place to look for businesses and/or support business.