Business Owners Raise More Complaints About Yelp

[metoo]

Yelp is anti-business enterprise, but consumers are smarter than Yelp wants them to be. They know Yelp is a joke.

[rsj]

Agreed, Yelp is terrible. Our business also has several reviews on Yelp, all are positive except one. Of course they kept the negative one and filtered all the others. Please keep in mind we had nothing to do with the reviews, all are legit, one even coming from the Food Network! I emailed Yelp asking them to review my filters however received this lame response see below:
(in a nut shell, Yelp will not publish reviews unless the person is established or has a history with Yelp, which is very unfair, especially to the person that took the time to write a review about your business)

Thanks for contacting Yelp about your reviews.

The review filter sometimes affects legitimate reviews, especially those from less established reviewers. Since fake reviews rarely announce themselves on their face, the filter is left to look at other signals and work with the information at hand. We think it does a pretty good job given the sheer volume of reviews and the surprising number of people out there trying to game the system to benefit their own business or hurt someone else's, though there's always room for improvement.

It's worth remembering that the filter isn't static - the reviews that it filters today may not be the same reviews that it filters tomorrow as it constantly assesses and reassesses different trust factors. As a result, filtered reviews may find their way back onto your main profile page as the reviewers become more established on Yelp.

[Cindy]

Anyone who has experienced yelp's manipulation please sign in at Small Business Owners Against Yelp on facebook. We might be small individually but not in masses!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Small-Business-...

[Phil Fisk]

SaveUsFromYelp.com is another outlet for people frustrated with Yelp. Feel free to vent your frustrations there. This company has way too much power and shows way too little responsibility. There needs to be more information about this business available to consumers and business owners. Share this new reviews site with your friends.

[Phil Fisk]

Would you mind posting your opinions about Yelp at www.saveusfromyelp.com ? thank you for your support

[MntnMan62]

I posted a review of my favorite restaurant. It was a positive review and they filtered it. The restaurant had a 2 star rating. I gave it 5 stars as I go there every Friday with my wife and son. I'm a real person with exactly zero interests in the restaurant business. I'm just a legitimate person who is offering a legitimate opinion. When I realized my review was filtered, I noticed that there were 8 other reviews that had been filtered, all with 4 or 5 star ratings. I complained to Yelp and they of course did nothing. I finally told them to close out my account. Yelp is a joke.

[C Robert Diacnik]

Yelp is completely biased, a closed system that hides honest and accurate reviews. Yelp is completely corrupt. As a business owner who maintains a flawless rating from the BBB, yelp only posts negative reviews about our company - and HIDES all of the many positive reviews about our company. Glad that google dropped yelp from its places page and that it decided NOT to buy Yelp. Smart move Google. Yelp is tired, and a hopeless business model.

[Phil Fisk]

My story is the same as thousands of others. I intend to help get the word out to business owners and consumers on how we can take action. Visit www.saveusfromyelp.com to voice your complaint then visit https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/ to file a complaint with the ftc. If you are wondering about laws governing consumer testimonials visit http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

[John]

Yelp.

.Y Yes We'd like to see Yelp die.
.E Erase Yelp til can't see.
.L Lie is yelp's born.
.P People say Yelp is suck.

[scott]

Yelp is a joke! My adviser told me to ask my customers to write reviews when they are blown away by the service I provided. I had some great reviews started on the yelp site. They are gone now. I will not call my customers to ask to re-write a review. It is a shame that yelp does this to hard working self employed people.They should be ashamed of themselves. I am proud to work with dirty hands and a clean soul. It is nice not having to look over your shoulder when walking down the street. Yelp is a sound a dog makes when it is hurt. Yelp is like a wounded dog that should be put to sleep.

[Yelp is absolute BS]

I recently opened a business and noticed most good reviews are being filtered. Then I started looking at businesses I frequent as I have first hand experience at them and found they had mostly bad feedback. Of course, the good comments had been filtered. Makes you wonder if yelp isn't deliberately filtering for negative comments to feed the drama America craves. After all, look at all the reality shows. They are full of negative drama. Yelp has some smart marketing people to jump on that craze but in the process are hurting some good businesses out there in order to line their own pockets. Greedy bastards.

[Mel]

Try www.AmericanEateries.com

Here's a video about the AmericanEateries.com : http://www.youtube.com/watch...

They give away $25 restaurant coupon every week and give away free t-shirts.

They don't charge users or restaurants for anything.

[Maureen]

Yelps bs wrote:

I have had yelp remove several positive comments by real people who posted them. When asked about it they gave some BS about only leaving the posts on for a certin amount of time....

I wish this were true. I've had a blatantly false negative review sitting on my listing for far too long and they won't remove it or close out my listing.

[Maureen]

Phil Fisk wrote:

SaveUsFromYelp.com is another outlet for people frustrated with Yelp. Feel free to vent your frustrations there. This company has way too much power and shows way too little responsibility. There needs to be more information about this business available to consumers and business owners. Share this new reviews site with your friends.

This is just a Yelp sign-up page.

[AMark]

It is an interesting point that Yelp filteres out some reviews; however, their filtering process is not foolproof in that both good and bad reviews get filtered, so:

1). Legitimate good reviews are removed or hidden. There are businesses with 100's of good reviews you can not see right way because they end up in the filtered section.
2). Legitimate bad reviews are removed and anger Yelpers. If you had a real complaint, and the day after it was placed, it was gone, you would feel betrayed by Yelp like the women who's "legitimate" review was removed from your profile.
3). False bad reviews sometimes remain and Yelp will do nothing.
4). Yelp offers paid advertisers the ability to hide competitors and manage reviews for a price (currently $3,000 to $12,000 a year) on
a contract with a $1,000 cancellation fee and automatic renewals.

Look up Morning Glory Bakery in Chicago who sued Yelp (and Yelp profile shows them CLOSED even though they are still in business).
Google Yelp scam, complaint, ripoff and there are thousands of postings about people who were wronged by Yelp.

In twenty years running a business, I have had real compliments removed, I have had reviews placed on my profile from people who never visited me or went to a competitor and then mistakenly placed the review on my profile. In the latter two cases, Yelp refused to assist.

Yelp review system is not perfect. It is easy for someone to place negative reviews about your business either as a means to get free things or simply that there are people who can never be pleased.

A complaint should be a cry for help from a consumer to fix a problem. Placing an anonymous review does not help the consumer and does not allow the business to make good on an error. A larger business has hundreds of people they will never know by name and it is easy to accumulate many bad reviews for minor infractions. This only serves to create friction between businesses and consumers.

In the Yelp system:
Good reviewers are unhappy.
Bad reviewers are unhappy.
Businesses who's good reviews are hidden and bad reviews are not are unhappy.

In the end, Yelp wants business to pay outrages sums to support them.
See "yelp advertising a ripoff for small businesses". It is a wonder that Yelp has not turned a profit and it's stock is down by 30%.

Yelp has potential to do good. It just hasn't arrived there yet.

[Arizonan]

Yelp.com are all Nazis they keep calling me to pay them so they can take negative comments that are absolute propaganda .. As a business owner they are just hurting small business by allowing such unorganized and unregulated company in harassing good self employees individuals that contribute to everyday society .. There are many complains filed with the Atturney Generals Office to have them get their act straight or disappear !!

[Chef Jason]

Yelp will control what reviews make it to the site depending if you pay them. Ask a business owner. Yelp is bias and untrustworthy

[Danny Antwi]

I'm really sorry about these complaints you all have because review sites like this are necessary for both consumer and businesses to gauge client satisfaction which is a mutually desirable end.

What have you done about it since learning about this, it can be frustrating but throw your support behind and honest and thought out start-up or even an existing service like it of your choosing. I'm sorry google hasn't developed that and faacebook is not a solution either.

This might appear self-serving but note this, I decided to start RaveOrBash because of my deep concerns for consumer issues being one.

This fall, we will change the face of consumer reviews, we'll tackle fraud and cliquey memberships among others.

i'll keep you posted but follow us on twitter for more updates and throw your support behind us now on facebook.com/raveorbash by liking us and sharing with your network.

A balanced consumer review site for all is on it's way to being your destination on the web for all consumer reviews.

Raveorbash.com
raveorbash.ca
raveorbash.co.uk

This Fall

[Tax Payer View]

Interesting complaint regarding review scams...found yelpscam.com and yelplosangeles.com to be helpful. Very similar to how the mafia works...when I saw the number of $300 plus per month and the use of intimidation I figured it will be heading to the supreme court soon to get everyone to pay for affordable review insurance.

[Tax Payer View]

metoo wrote:

Yelp is anti-business enterprise, but consumers are smarter than Yelp wants them to be. They know Yelp is a joke.

Extortion is not a joke.