Yelp

They removed three of my reviews without even considering placing them in the "unrated" category. The "unrated" category is for reviews that for some reason will not be weighed in with the rest of the reviews. Nowadays you can only view these "unrated reviews" on your computer, not android phone (at least not mine). They did not even consider my reviews for that category. Just removed them, and only two of them had the courtesy of "removed for violations." None of them show up under "about me" although some years back they used to show even the removed under your private "about me." The point is that I believe there are two things wrong. 1) The ones they leave up predominately focus on TSI members complaining about their overage charges or being billed after sending notice or trying to cancel in person. They should have read the contract. Everyone knows you will be billed for one more month, just like leaving your apartment early, especially in NY, Boston, WDC, where there are many urbanites. Why are they complaining about one extra month worth of bill? So most of them are about these bills, while other legitimate ones, such as mine, are removed. 2) I have made it clear that so far I am not annoyed about my billing. I know what I signed up for, and yes, I am disappointed that TSI has closed so many clubs that by now, my passport membership is kind of moot. I probably should go in and ask for $10 off per month, since it's not really possible for me to use the passport anytime soon anymore. But my "beef" with them has more to do with some discrimination I felt I was experiencing as an older minority female. I am not the W/B variety minority, and the service was singling out a few times. On the complaint at Yelp I did say what race I was, and then they probably used that for removal, even though if I was B/W they would have left it in. I am pretty sure that is the reason they chose to remove it. Nothing I said was offensive, and maybe one time it was too long; I was offering some suggestions. But there are plenty, plenty of whiners at the Yelp for the sports clubs, and some of them, are rightfully about the customer service, or the concern of one gentleman at one club I used to visit of feeling like there were "men in towels who did not work out." Ha. I almost could relate to the counterpart in the women's locker-room at that club location. But that is beside the point. It's not fair to TSI to just keep all those reviews of people whining about their bill. These are people who probably pay hundreds in personal attire and grooming, or whatever. There's no way to check out who some of the reviewers are either. Some are clearly saying the same thing at one club then another which makes no sense since you only pay at one club for everything. It is disappointing that Yelp removes my reviews and then keeps these other super-whiny reviews up. It also feels sort of biased. That is why we are writing about it here. I even told them so. Sorry, but otherwise, I do appreciate Yelp. It does offer me a sense of commiseration at this sad, depressing time when we can't even work out that much anymore. I wish that people would rethink everything and sign back up. It's really better than LA or Planet Fitness, and better lighted than Orange Fitness, and more economical than Vida. Even if they didn't get things quite right, it is always a fun place to work out, and the total effect is that it really helps improve your sense of well being.

Too hard to find what you want. Have to get through the weeds first. Pretty bad programming. *******

I've gotten a lot of clients with good reviews for free.
Yelp started calling constantly and bothering me to try their "FREE" promo,

After I repetitively said no, the rep said it would be free $500 in ads for one month! "Just try it!"
I finally gave in so they'd stop calling.

After the first month, I tried cancelling but it was nearly impossible. Contacting then through phone or email was a nightmare. I ended up paying over $600 in ads because I had to put in a couple disputes with my credit card company to remove them! What a tremendous hassle.
And can't even leave a Yelp review for Yelp lol

I have some stalkers and haters that posted fake reviews and YELP.com removed them after I sent them facts and details. Somehow, all of my legit reviews have been moved into the "not recommended" section, which are not visible on mobile phones. I am grateful they removed the libel reviews, though.

So I was perusing new restaurants in my area via Yelp one night because I have always thought Yelp is the place to get honest reviews from people. So as I am reading about this brand new restaurant that just opened, I suddenly come across this twit who has written a novel just slamming this place. It appears she had to wait too long for food. And from the looks of her, she had not missed too many meals. Well,,, it just rubbed me the wrong way. After all, here is a brand new business, a restaurant at that, not easy to run these days in the first place... here is a new eatery just opened, still working out the kinks, and you are going to get on yelp and give it your college try to put them under? No no no... not if I can help it. So I wrote a rebuttal to her blah blah blah and do you know that Yelp deleted it! Yes, that's right! All I said to this girl was that based on her other reviews, she finds fault in anything and likes to complain about everything and quite frankly, is someone a business does not want back, so BUH BYE Felicia!
Now I look at a business, read a few reviews and sometimes see what kind of reviews these people give to other places. There was a girl in my town who was purposely going on Yelp and writing ugly reviews about the businesses near her. So you see, all is not as it seems. Do NOT take every review at it's wording. There is more than meets the eye with these reviews. And how UNFAIR is it that someone can just throw a business under the cement truck possibly without ever having gone to or seen such establishment... huh?
Give everyone a shot and make up your own mind... because some here are out of theirs!

It's the go-to site for the newest restaurants, plumbers, and electricians. But I preferred yelp's old model of nominating Elite reviewers. The new system is you nominate yourself to be a Yelp Elite and it's up to the community manager to approve your request. The yelp app also has issues with it crashing unexpectedly.

The reviews can be questionable but I use them to find some restaurants in the area. Not the best..

YELP is a SCAM Company! DO NOT trust them! DO NOT advertise with them! They will send you business in the beginning but then will send you FAKE mail and still charge you! If you freeze your account bc your business is affected by Covid they will tell you it's frozen but STILL charge you! Then when you call them on it they'll apologize and give you a "CREDIT" which signs you up (without your knowledge) for MORE advertising! Then when you deactivate your account they will tell you that you have an outstanding balance from this commitment that you were completely unaware of! There is NOTHING honest about this company! EVERYBODY RUN LIKE HELL! And if you don't believe me just look up "YELP SCAM" on YOUTUBE and watch all of the other people speaking out about them! 5 of their own Staff quit the 1st day of training! What does that tell you? What is our world coming to? Seriously are there any companies who have integrity anymore?

We had an operator from Yelp contact us about advertising and paying a fee. After turning them down our good reviews got taken down and moved to the hidden "filtered" section. Yet, two bad reviews seem to stay on top no matter what. They also pitched me on paying a fee to remove the negative reviews. It just goes to show you that Yelp is out to scam small business owners off of false negative reviews. There are plenty of review companies out there that have rated Smart Energy Contracting 5 stars and show that we are not a bad company such as porch.com, houzz.com, and yelp should be no different. Yelp is pathetic and I will never sign up for there advertising services.

I like the service for locating restaurants and shopping, but they are the most annoying when it comes to advertisements. I can't get them to stop calling. I finally just blocked the marketing number, but in my blocked voicemail folder I see that they're still trying.

I usually like to check out the reviews on Yelp for new businesses. I do believe they are honest because there is always a mix of good and bad. I wonder if it true what others are saying that they use discretion on what to post.

I invited a caterer I found on Yelp to cater an event. Some of the food was great, some not so much. The caterer agreed to return $100, as it was clear that what was promised was not completely fulfilled. My attention was elsewhere when they left, and I did not get a chance to tip the servers (who did a great job!). I asked the owner to give our refund to his staff, so if any of you are reading this, ask your boss about it.

Sadly, a local pediatrician (Dr. Kevin Grant MD of Folsom) has repeatedly been able to get my very honest and factual Yelp reviews removed. This is very unfortunate because Yelp is thereby not helping the public when it comes to protecting them from unscrupulous businesses.

It therefore appears that we need to also check Facebook for "negative" reviews that provide the "dark" side of some businesses, especially medical and dental businesses.

On the other end of the spectrum, I have a new dentist subsequent to my long-term dentist selling out his practice. I am very pleased with this new dentist and his hygienist who I never knew prior to the transfer of the business. I placed the first Yelp review (for the new name of the business). I gave him very high ratings so others would know his new business exists and that I believe he is top notch. His name is Dr. Chee Chang with "Smile Care Family Dental" of Sacramento.

Shockingly Yelp knocked out my first customer review because they think I am related to him (I am Caucasian and he is Chinese!). There is no way to challenge these actions by Yelp. So now they are knocking out both a great review for great businesses and also a bad review of a business.

I had so much faith and trust in Yelp. Their recent actions have greatly shaken my belief that I can fully trust Yelp to provide honest business reviews that happen to be exceedingly good or exceedingly bad.

The bad review was for "Dr. Kevin Grant MD" who is the owner of Folsom Lake Pediatrics. Somehow he influenced Yelp to remove a fully substantiated review that identifies very serious and documented character and integrity deficiencies.

People need to know who to trust and who to be concerned about in the medical and dental area. If doctors or dentists are unscrupulous and lack integrity you want to know this from the experiences of others instead of painfully learning it the hard way yourself.

Bottom line is that it appears you need to go to the only known review forums (i. E., Facebook) to see the really favorable review comments and especially the ones that can protect you from potential disaster with an unscrupulous business.

When I spend the time to sign in and write a review and it does not go through, I stop wasting my time doing more reviews for them.

I was reviewing another company on YELP. I think it is extremely important for people not to sign up for a course on line, because the on line payment page is not secure. Yelp removed it saying it does not comply with their guidelines. So how many people will get identity theft because of YELP removing the review?

Yelp will delete reviews that violate terms of service within the review such as using profanity which is fine. A business can pay to have reviews sent to the "not recommended" section which is at the very bottom and you have to really look for it. Really bad businesses usually have quite a large "not recommended" section and that's where you find the most honest reviews. Also don't discount a Yelp reviewer if the Yelper who wrote the review has limited reviews, there are people who don't live on social media and are only inspired to write for an excellent or truly horrible experience with a business. It is true Yelp won't delete a review unless it violates terms of service but they will make it hard to find negative reviews and the reviews that get banished to "not recommended" won't count in overall star rating.

Find myself using yelp more and more. Most useful for finding a place to eat in new areas when traveling.

I have been using Yelp for about 6 years now. Yelp is a great tool for finding restaurants and businesses. I travel extensively and I can always count on Yelp when I need great places to eat or just need a place to stay. In terms of being a member of their Elite squad, it's all politics. Yelp rewards their Elite members by throwing free parties with booze and food and they think that's enough to keep people writing reviews. The Elite squad has become a laughing stock over the years because they are approving anyone who has 20+ reviews. Yelp makes millions of dollars thanks to people writing reviews voluntarily.

When I became Elite, I had well over 100 reviews and hundreds of pictures and I actually had to earn it. I have attempted to give suggestions in terms of earning points for reviews and having a rewards system that can be exchanged for discounts or yelp merchandise. The cliques of yelpers get together and attack anyone who tries to change their perfect little yelp world. At the end of this year, I will be giving up my Elite status voluntarily. I don't need a title to write good and honest reviews for people to read. If they want to censor my reviews, so be it!

I'm also pretty disgusted by their extortion allegations. A business shouldn't have to buy their marketing options in order for positive reviews to show up. People have the choice to purchase or turn down their services and if they do refuse, there shouldn't be retaliation. Their so called algorithm is manipulated by something other than a computer. It's pretty suspicious that positive reviews would appear after a business owner makes a payment for their advertising.

I do use this site, especially for restaurant reviews, but some of them seem overly critical, and some of them seem to be from the owners or shills.

And you'll be fine.

Helpful website, take it with a grain of salt.

Bad site... never get the good service i ever tried..

I am surprised Yelp's rating is low. I always use it when I am trying to find a new restaurant or even trying to decide what to try at a new place. Their "highlights" have kind of gone down hill. It's not so helpful, when you highlight words like "bar," "music," or "brunch." They used to be more specific recommendations for good dishes to order... hence only 4 stars. Also, did you notice how some of the reviews are hidden at the bottom... down to 3 stars now.

What I've heard (and hearing just on a radio station), they had a interview with one of the head ponchos on yelp. Explaining about the system where they filter good reviews and bad reviews. Supposedly they try to sell ads to certain business and "explain" to them they can help get rid of bad reviews... and increase the good ones to show up. Some say "no" and start noticing bad reviews filtering out more. I'm not sure what station it was, but you can try finding it online. There's a lot more to it as well. Just google it.

Again it's just mixed feelings. Even hearing that, I still use yelp and usually right good reviews for a lot of the places I go to. Only a few i wrote bad, but not to many. Pretty considerate guy. Good yelping!