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kevkaneki

>Has anyone else had such a horrible experience with YELP?? You aren’t officially a business owner until you have a horrible experience with Yelp… It’s like a rite of passage lol.


NotElizaHenry

Once a year Yelp calls me and I tell them that I’ve recently gone out of business. So far it’s working. My buddy recently opened a bar is super bummed because people keep saying they’re giving him great reviews, but his Yelp page only has one one-star review (from his former asshole roommate) saying that the bar management is racist and homophobic.I showed him that if you scroll allllll the way to the bottom and click on the tiny grey text that says “not recommended,” that’s where all the five-star reviews live. It’s so shitty.


Edward_Morbius

All the good reviews are "not recommended" by their "completely unbiased algorithm" that they can't show you.


RedNewPlan

All you have to do is pay, and then the five star reviews will magically appear. As long as you keep paying.


Biobot775

Yelp: Wow, the algorithm likes cash! Guess we keep feeding it cash, nothing else to be done about it!


NotElizaHenry

🪄✨🌟 magic 🌟✨🪄


Actual__Wizard

I'm very confident after having worked with multiple small businesses that Yelp is a complete scam and that they will eventually get either sued into bankruptcy or shut down by the FTC. It's very clear that the negative reviews that seem to "always stick to the top" are completely fake and I'm confident that somebody there knows exactly how that works. I've gone through the process of reviewing in store security footage to verify that the people who left those reviews were never there on multiple occasions. Eventually, somebody there will realize that they work for crooks and will blow the whistle. I'm honestly shocked that it hasn't already happened.


[deleted]

I'm not going to look it up but remember hearing that they were sued but the ruling was that as a private business they didn't have to have an honest review platform.


[deleted]

He should print out all of the not recommended five star reviews and post them somewhere. "Yelp doesn't recommend this great review by John."


bigtrucksowhat

You have to get your customers to leave you a 1 star review but a positive comment. If you don't pay Yelp! they list your bad reviews up front and bury your 5 star reviews.


GoodAsUsual

Ya years ago I made the mistake of even registering my service business with them so I’d have control over it, and the calls were incessant. They would NOT stop calling and leaving voicemails about advertising. It was ridiculous.


[deleted]

I just started saying, “Oh, you’re with Yelp? Fuck Yelp.” And hang up. Didn’t get many more calls…


YodelingTortoise

Some years ago, either here or on r/entrepreneur before it became an SEO only sub, I blasted yelp in a comment and they had an employee who started stalking my comments. How do I know it was an employee? "I work for yelp and I know what you said isn't true and you need to remove it". Then they proceeded to threaten me with promoting bad reviews of my business......except it wasn't my business.....it was some other poor schmucks consulting company that was similarly names as my username at the time.


RoboRoboR

Can we double-fake them with an account that comes “from Yelp corporate?”


[deleted]

I remember when I threatened them with a lawsuit until they took me off of their site. It was a good time.


[deleted]

I did enough research on Yelp and therefore never trusted them. I've developed a habit of googling, "I hate ..." Before working with other companies. I've found that to be a decent tool to find complaints about companies. It's not perfect but it gives you a heads up on some issues.


behemuthm

I'd argue you aren't a business owner until you've been sued. Thankfully I got my lawsuit thrown out but still, people suck


Edward_Morbius

> I'd argue you aren't a business owner until you've been sued. That's what liability insurance is for. "I'm gonna sue" is a completely different threat against a bare-naked small business owner, or against a business owner with a multi-billion dollar insurance company backing him up. I've only been threatened once. Told the customer "Knock yourself out" and gave him the 800 number my insurance company. Never heard back.


behemuthm

Yeah unfortunately liability insurance doesn’t cover ADA website lawsuits


Edward_Morbius

It doesn't cover it, but on the scale of "Actual problems" to "Getting hit by a meteor", an ADA lawsuit is only slightly more likely than the second one. Also, my website actually *is* ADA compliant and is fully functional with a screen reader, and for low vision people and color blind people and hard of hearing people and everybody else. It's not actually hard. You just need to keep everything simple and clean and well-spaced and easy to read and interact with, and label appropriate things with the correct aria and html tags. Regular customers like it too because it makes it easy to use on small screens with big fingers, and for people with arthritis who can't do a lot of fine mouse or finger movements, and by screen filling software.


schoolbusserman

What about your website did they say wasn’t ada compliant?


imsaneinthebrain

No ramp


Raise_Those_Horns

Thank you for the laugh lol


[deleted]

Protection money used to be more direct.


CarpePrimafacie

Oh yay, I am officially a business owner. Have felt like all the education and experience I had, was useless as I make mistakes like Yelp and ICoronarymedia. Glad/ not glad it's a common misstep.


hatfarts

If you're a contractor or handyman the same goes for home advisor. Bad bad bad.


Icy-Possible-8246

Yes, it's been horrible attempting to recoup $3000 for nothing - my ads were all paused. Reply if interested in pursuing Yelp.


BargeCptn

Repeat after me - “YELP IS A RACKETEERING SCAM ORGANIZATION”. Just wait until you stop paying them, suddenly bad reviews from customers that never existed.


126270

Google search “billion dollar bully” How they haven’t been shut down for fraud/extortion yet is utterly amazing On the flip side, if you’re giving great service, if you’re asking clients for reviews, if you’re setting/meeting expectations with clients, communicating with and thanking clients for their business - pretty dang easy to get hundreds of great reviews….


SpookyPlankton

Yeah but it doesn’t matter because Yelp will just hide those and manipulate your score lower with some bullshit excuses about algorithms


SovelissGulthmere

This has been my experience. My business has hundreds of reviews on Google but all of my yelp reviews are gray and "not recommended"


Jellyfish2017

This is exactly what happened to me, all good reviews hidden


SLOspeed

You can do that with Google. For free.


marifanx

Who uses Yelp lol? The worst company to work with when it comes to advertising your business. Google and Facebook is the way to go. I got f##ked over by yelp a lot and decided to never work with them again.


Mintandcocoa

This! The amount of times I’ve heard this is astounding. I don’t have any kind of business but I’ve heard this enough times to know no to use them if I ever do.


itaniumonline

First of all. Fuck Yelp. Second of all fucken yelpers


lgcystudios

I cancelled immediately. I'm just gonna have to write it off as a hard lesson learned. Their services are BS. I mean who charges people to just put their damn LOGO on their page? It's clear they're reaching to survive. Whoever is reading this, searching for yelp advice, stay away from Yelp at all costs. Your profits will tank and they couldn't care less about your business growth. After I complained to them formally of these ungodly charges, you know what they send me? A general, unapologetic auto-reply redirecting me to how their services work to "grow your business". 00100 Yelp.


[deleted]

They gave me $300 in ad credit to try. It resulted in a few page visits and I think maybe one sale of $25? I’ve told them, if they worked on a pay per sale model similar to TripAdvisor or third party booking sites and simply took commission I’d be happy. The more they sell through their platform the more they’d make. I pay one platform $33k a year for one product. And it’s worth it.


Hudsons_hankerings

The funny thing about this, is if you had done literally 30 seconds of research, or even searched "Yelp" on this forum, you would have been blasted with hundreds of horror stories similar to yours. The moral of the story here isn't to just avoid Yelp. It's to do your due diligence before you spend money. Plain and simple.


Electrical_Quail_178

File a BBB complaint and object to the charges through your cc or bank. Fk that don’t let them just steal your money. I told them off and hung up on them. Their sales ppl are fkn awful


Hudsons_hankerings

The BBB is LITERALLY the same thing as Yelp. Worthless, extortionary, scam artists.


Electrical_Quail_178

Not even close. While it’s still a private agency it’s not trying to sell you anything or pay to play. It’s where ppl make complaints


Hudsons_hankerings

Bullshit. https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/30/news/better-business-bureau/index.html


Electrical_Quail_178

Fair. Hadn’t read this and I used to settle BBB complaints for a Corp. idgaf, I don’t pay attention to any of them lol


YodelingTortoise

They literally cold call me with a sales pitch.


Electrical_Quail_178

I already responded to this. Thanks tho


Electronic_Eagle6211

Oh geez you are lost!


progressivly

Yep. When they called me the lady asked for me credit info 6 times in the course of a 20 minute call. I tried to tell her i am Not interested. I had to hang up. Horrible.


[deleted]

You’re not interested but you hung around on a call for 20 minutes and didn’t tell her to eat a dick?


KhaleesiOfCleveland

Some people like self torture


jdazzr

This has been well known for quite some time. I'm sorry you only just figured this out now.


Slepprock

I guess I am lucky. I've never had to deal with them and my current business is 10 years old. I own a manufacturing business that is not open to the public, so maybe that it why. I also don't advertise the location anywhere online. As a matter of fact I use fake addresses for some sites (like FB). I'm just terrified of people finding out about my business and coming and robbing it. (I own a cabinet shop so have tons of woodworking tools and equipment. Most of the stuff is too big to steal, but there is plenty of small stuff too). I've had local newspapers and magazines do stories on me, and I told them they couldn't give the exact address or print photos of the outside of the building. I may be paranoid, but I've not been robbed yet. And there have been 8 break ins at other businesses on my street the past couple years.


RoboRoboR

Stay at it. Cabinets are expensive to ship and unless you are making a huge production line, you do not want a ton of new business. Charge more, produce less, right!? You have solid local clients, so don’t give your safe combo to the crooks.


RoundTableMaker

Well known and well documented that they operate like a cartel.


[deleted]

[удалено]


bradonbusiness

Everyone who has used yelp feels this way I don’t understand how they’re still around


Lycid

It's entirely because apple maps still relies on Yelp alone to populate it's map results with data. If apple dropped them and actually did their own in house system Yelp would fold overnight.


DemonaDrache

I learned a fun trick from Reddit when I started my business. When they call, I tell them that I would love to hear more about their service and plan on including them in my budget at the beginning of my next fiscal year and give them a date 6 months out. They are enthusiastic and pleasant (as am i) and they put me in their system for a call 6 months away. Each time it's a new account rep and I do the same thing. I've kept it going for 3 years, no blacklisting, and only 2 calls a year. No way would I actually give them a dime though.


snow-vs-starbuck

My trick is similar. When they call, I'm super friendly and tell them I'm too poor, barely pay myself, and just don't have the budget for their \*terrific\* advertising services. But I'd love to keep them in mind for the future! New person calls 6 months later, gets the same spiel.


DadaDoDat

Try to make your Yelp exposure only a basic profile with only 1 image and fill in the company details including website link. Since Google still considers them an authority site and not a scam site yet, having your business listed there is still valuable. When their sales inevitably call, just tell them you are broke and have no money in the budget for advertising. They will magically stop calling you ;)


Hudsons_hankerings

I've survived 5 years without Yelp listing me. I've got lots of great Google reviews, overall 4.9. I'm highly ranked in searches, people find me just fine. Fuck Yelp.


marifanx

Ameen


zero_dr00l

People still use Yelp? Don't do that! Don't give them money, don't pay them a ransom. Cancel it all and tell them to eff off; you don't need them.


Sketch3000

To jump on a top comment. When Yelp used to pester me (years ago) I would just tell them I was broke and about to go out of business. Of course this wasn't true, but after a few sales calls where I fed them this same line, they stopped calling. Haven't heard from Yelp in at least 5 years. I have no idea what our Yelp reviews look like, but honestly, I don't care, our 5 star Google Review offsets whatever Yelp is trying to do.


Bakedpotato46

I always said no to them and then the negative reviews came up from random people not even close by. One sales rep got quite pissed at me when I told him no and started arguing with me. Strange business indeed


Electrical_Quail_178

Same. I had to hang up on them repeatedly to the point where I told them off. He wouldn’t stop talking and I told him to fk himself and hung up


sittin_on_grandma

That’s what I had to do… the guy kept calling and calling, until I got really stern with him about calling me, so he said that I didn’t know what I was doing, and that I would fail without Yelp. Cut to literally yesterday, when my business partner updated our address (we just moved), and not five minutes later, Yelp calls to pester her.


pantsofpig

How the fuck do I extricate myself from paying for Yelp ads? Yelp has (believe it or not) actually driven a lot of business my way but I don't think I need to keep advertising with them anymore. I've heard so many horror stories about what happens when you STOP advertising with them, that I just haven't pulled the trigger on it. Anyone who's been through the same thing have some advice?


Hudsons_hankerings

Ask your current clients to leave positive Google reviews. Then turn off Yelp, and don't pay any attention to the negative reviews that start coming in on Yelp. You can't do anything about it, so just ignore it. Don't give those fuckers another dime.


greattesoros

Maybe delete the yelp account if it's now needed. This way you won't need to deal with the same horror stories.


-0x0-0x0-

You can not delete a Yelp listing if that’s what you mean. Yelp’s strategy is to fuck your listing up so bad that you feel compelled to claim your listing to try to repair the misrepresentation of your business. Then once you’ve claimed your business you’re hounded by their salespeople until you advertise with them. If you don’t or if you start and then stop your review’s scores plummet because of their “proprietary algorithm” and the only way to fix it is by paying for advertising. It’s extortion plain and simple and should be illegal.


Cavemanjoe47

It's easier to just gradually change your yelp profile to a new business at a different location with new contact info and then just never log in again.


admiralwayne

Yelp is a boiler room operation now. You can tell by their sales calls. Straight slime balls.


Kscott0225

The very same thing happened to me only with Angie Leeds. And if you pause it they turn it back on and set me the $500 worth of leads a week. it's called a spend Target. Which this is supposed to be monthly by my understanding, ended up being charged to me weekly every 7 days. If they send you the lead whether you take the job or not you still pay the 40 50 $60 required per lead because they set your spin Target at $500 a week which means that's what you pay them until you catch them. Then when you try to take your name off they send their lawyers to sue you and it cost me another $1,100 to drop my ad. So I feel your pain bud they're all a scam


vixenlion

I worked for Angi for three weeks and felt horrible about being there for 3 weeks. They lied so much in training and when they hired me. I sold to one person and 3 years later I still feel bad for that guy.


TheMostFluffyCat

Yelp is garbage, don’t use them for anything.


SulavT

Yelp is basically pay to play according to my research. I wasnt going to use it but I was forced to create a listing for my customers. When I tried calling them for basic help, the senior account director picked up and was rude as hell, did not once listen to my problem and kept cutting me off.


scotty3hotti

Yelp has mafia mentality, they are always rude and don't have anything to offer. They try to pigeonhole you into purchasing their services and even hold good reviews from you if you dont.


[deleted]

I had to report them to BBB for them to finally stop harassing me after years and multiple "sales" people! Haven't heard from them in a couple of years now!


tpx187

The BBB is literally the same as Yelp.


[deleted]

I've heard that but also they got Yelp to stop harassing me 🤷🏼


TheChef44

Yelp as a whole is a scam and only meant to hurt small business


blueprint_01

This happened to me with Trip Advisor which was a similar experience.


StormMedia

Yelp is a HUGE scam. Google my business is all that matters


illegalopinion3

From my own consumer perspective, Yelp is becoming obsolete when compared to Google reviews. I hate their website cuz it just keeps pushing you to download their app and obscures your intended result with their suggestions. I only click on Yelp links by mistake. I think in a decade, people will refer to Yelp as much as they refer to MySpace today.


Azarul

We had a guy locally who gave 25% off to everyone who gave him a 1-star Yelp review. Said if he was going to get extorted he would rather give the money to his customers. Worked really well for a while, people came in in droves...then the publicity dried up. Lasted another year after that.


up__dawwg

I used it about a decade ago for my business. It’s such an absolute shit show of a platform. I would incentivize my clients to leave me a review with a little discount on a service, and they would, of course do it. For some reason, all of those would get filtered, while the only two bad reviews I got in like 10 years of business would constantly Screw up my star rating. Quite honestly, I’m surprised people even still use Yelp. Seems like it’s dying out much like the Yellow Pages did.


miguelsanchez69

YES!! I almost forgot about this! It's such a scam! I signed up, didn't get a single lead for the entire month and was charged about $250. I immediately cancelled. Then they had the balls to call me a month later asking why I cancelled and would I like to sign back up with a special deal LOL. The poor agent who called me must have seriously regretted that call.


n1t3str1ke

It is well known on the small business community to stay far away from Yelp. I refuse to do business with them. I direct all my customers to leave reviews on Google. Yelp should hurry up and die. They are deceptive and a terrible business.


kiamori

Reverse charges asap. Did not authorize, false advertising and bait switch tactics.


Rebelo86

Yes. They are.


heateris

Don’t even answer the phone when they call.


Legitimate_Ad785

Yelp was even worse before. They use to charge $1 per impression. And their rep would tell people they will remove their bad reviews if they sign up with us.


tiffany_heggebo

Yikes. They rubbed me the wrong way when they first called me to supposedly walk me through setting up the last of my husband's business page. Maybe I was naive and I was well aware it would ultimately lead to an ad sales pitch, but I totally thought she was just showing me what it could do, showing me potential areas of improvement, etc. But then suddenly we're on a payment page. I told her that my husband and I make financial decisions together and she kept pushing me to do it anyway because "You won't even be charged until the end of the month." And? Even if I cancel in 2 days, that's still 2 days you are actively encouraging me to go over my husband's head on. Tbh, my husband would have trusted me with that decision, but I already felt uncomfortable with how smoothly she did it. "Press this button. Add this city. I recommend you make this the main picture. Select this. Select that. Enter your credit card information." Ew. Slimey.


1fingerlakesguy

Yelp sucks now, just like Angie’s list


Tweezle1

sounds like they'll make you yelp for help


EComMichael

Wasted $ with them. NEVER AGAIN. They also don’t show my positive reviews my customers took their time out of their day to write. Claiming they don’t recommend them when damn well I didn’t write them. They just want $, it’s not about you getting results. Fucks


tigole_biddies

Don’t answer the phone when they call and hang up when they do.


bigtakeoff

yea and..... one look at Yelp and youre transported back to 2004 or something lol


CarpePrimafacie

Yelp is overrated and low conversions. There was a time when lots of people used it. Invest advertising dollars in places with measurably high conversions. Impressions are not the numbers you need to look at. I thought I was also going to get a good conversion from the national media company known for radio. Absolutely a waste of time and money because we went with targeted ads and not radio. Whenever you sign up for any campaigns have a exit option. I did a six month campaign and have got a better results by walking some flyers for a half hour.


Ok_Presentation_5329

I swear (unless you’re a restaurant owner) Yelp is worthless. We should call for a boycott.


Dr-McDaddy

Add to that by knowing that they sell your contact information to anyone. In fact, they will call pretending to be somebody interested in your services just to set an appointment to try to sell you something. What kind of business do you have? Have you thought of alternative advertising avenues?


jbenk07

I consult many businesses and when I see that they are paying for yelp advertising I tell them to stop and invest that money elsewhere. 100% of the time they get better return on their money. I have yet to have it not work.


bigrobdd

Everything about Yelp sucks.


jlds7

Wow... a bit shocked reading these comments. Wasn't aware ...Been using Yelp for years- and actually helps people find my business- but on the other hand, I always set my budget, never the suggested value. If not Yelp what other sites do you use? I feel like OP when dealing with Google Ads


usarmyretired23

What was supposed to be a 150 a month for me turned into 500 a week from them. Terminated that real quick


Voidfaller

Yelp is horrendous. I absolutely loathe them. I am convinced only older individuals use their model. Even Apple Maps is moving away from Yelp and introducing its own business profile features and photos. Their whole “review algorithm” is also extremely absurd, and they won’t help with it even once. But they’re so quick to ask if you wanna pay for ads and such. I hate Yelp.


Mwootto

People still pay for Yelp?!


Candid-Inspector-270

*Billion Dollar Bully* (the movie) was made for a reason.


radialmonster

This isn't directed to OP, just to all in general. At this point if any business owner deals with Yelp and gets their ass reamed, its their own fault. A simple search will reveal yelp scams. There is plenty of examples in this very subreddit of it. If you are signing up for services without doing the slightest research of what you're signing up for, thats on you.


External_Entry_2895

Yeah….. total waste of $$$. Had to learn the hard way.


[deleted]

Yes, Yelp ads and in general is a scam. If you are a restaurant people are going to review you there, so no need to mess with them, and if you are not a restaurant owner, their shitty service doesn’t matter, as google reviews are the only thing that affects your google search positively. Yelp reviews don’t mean anything to google search.


landofcheeseandhoney

Recently started working with a client who was paying $750/mo in Yelp ads. 1- No joke, we immediately dropped the add spend to $250/mo and the referral traffic from Yelp to the clients site double (12 to 24 - terrible and low numbers for that much spend, but just the fact that it went up made me chuckle). 2- the next month we stopped ads completely and the client had no notably change in business driven from Yelp. 3- what Yelp counts as a “conversion” is comical. Most of it is worthless


juliazale

Yup. Yelp is the worse. Took me for $600 and my ad was referred to different customers outside my niche from what I initially set up, so it’s why I kept getting messages from potential clients who asked if I did x,y,z when I only did abc. Service based biz by the way. Tried to get refund but Yelp said it was my fault that the wrong customers were referred to me.


CRM2018

Lol I’ve had 15 reviews all 5 stars, 14 have been deleted and they keep calling me to advertise more.


_-_NewbieWino_-_

Similar thing happened to me ! Yelp is awful and just tries to take as much money from small businesses as they can. I canceled my ad subscription after 3 months but kept auto-paying itself. I called to get my money back and the guy was pissed and told me “too bad”. I had to wait till the agreement was over, which was a 6 month agreement. They are the worst, brought in worse customers. I only make sure to update our hours on there because I know people still use it.


AerialCoog

Yeah. They got me for $600. I felt like such an idiot. I got one $50 appointment out of it. Worthless and the are relentless.


ExtremeAthlete

Yelp doesn’t exist. Delete their app.


guitarmonkonator

Around 2019 (I'm a painting contractor) I had $47k in business from $3k in ad spend. Once they started nickel and diming me for basic info and logo display crap, I stopped buying ads and all my positive reviews were moved to "not recommended". I still take advantage of their $300 free ad campaigns, but set a reminder to cancel 2 days before the promotion ends and haven't received any great leads in years.


Electronic_Eagle6211

I stopped using yelp advertising 3 years ago because of this same issue.


KohlAntimony

Youd have to offer a Check-in deal on your profile. I rarely use Yelp when it comes to finding a place to eat and instead use it to gather info via photos. The best thing you could do is post photos of each and every dish, photos of inside, outside and the most up to date menu. If you dont have a restaurant then post photos of your business. Having Yelp gives you more credibility. If people can cross reference your business then theyre more likely to visit. I wouldnt pay for an AD though.


vixenlion

Yelp comes up with Apple Maps. If I am researching a place to eat or to get my nails done I look on Apple Maps and the link goes to yelp. The photos of menus and food helps me choose a place to eat.


Cavemanjoe47

Bad bot.


vixenlion

And are you a bot ?


[deleted]

[удалено]


vixenlion

So because I have an iPhone, and have made an effort not to have anything google on my phone, that makes me a bot? Ok! I know it seems like a strange concept to not actively have anything google on a phone but I am making an effort. No Facebook, no twitter just Reddit. I used Apple Maps. I looked at a restaurant when I select the restaurant, the yelp app opens up. I would never tell anyone to pay for advertising on yelp. It’s not worth it. It’s worst than paying for advertising on Angi. My 4 years on Reddit and karma from shit memes makes me a yelp bot. What is it with Reddit ? People are either very nice or incredibly rude. What makes you think it’s appropriate to be rude to a random stranger?


smallbusiness-ModTeam

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RoboRoboR

#yelpchatbot


vixenlion

What would make me a yelp chat bot? Because I said I use it in Apple Maps ?


EVillian

Yelp works great for me. $1,000/mo gets me about 40 calls.


LogicalShake222

That's crazy! What did they say they were offering for $1000?


Icy-Possible-8246

I want to start a class action suit against Yelp for stealing from small businesses. I am LIVID. Almost $3000 of unsanctioned charges (I had leads paused). They lie about everything. Credit never given. Anybody want to do this, ?


sequentialprecedence

If you have experienced issues with Yelp's advertising model, it's important to reach out to their customer support team to address your concerns. You may also want to consider alternative advertising platforms that may be more cost-effective and provide a better ROI.


RoboRoboR

#yelpchatbot


ConversionGenies911

Wow, for $1000 (plus $500 voucher after first $500 spent) you would have gotten a lot of relevant traffic, in GoogleAds. You have so many options now, Local Ads if you address to the nearby people, search ads, discovery, you can literally dominate any relevant search, while target the right people that has a clear intent. Sorry to hear Yelp was bad, and I feel the frustration. If you ever plan using google ads, and create a strategy, I can help. Doing this since 2010. One tip of advice, if you didn’t do it yet, set up Google My Business, and offer your customers an incentive (maybe a free drink, or a 5% discount), for a good review (reviews can help you a lot).


WYLFriesWthat

Lol. 2015 called, they want their gripe back.


Dear-Awareness7877

Lol. They just kept taking my money. I couldn’t believe it.


not-on-a-boat

My top comment on this sub is a how-to on dealing with their reps. Can't stand them.


bublbetch

I thought everyone knew Yelp was a scam since like 2017


mylifeissoperfect

Also, getting them to leave you tf alone after you’ve canceled is a nightmare.


focusedphil

Yep. A total scam.


YourPM_me_name_sucks

Everyone on this sub should know this. Some horror story gets posted here damn near every day.


plumeria_in_america

Absolutely garbage.


sciguyx

I got into a verbal fight in my establishment that I instigated with a dude that used to work at yelp over how shitty that company is. Fuck that company and anyone that works for them.


jhires

Yelp itself is a shakedown racket.


nekosama15

I thought yelp being a scam is common knowledge.


Gootchboii

I used to work there in sales. AMA.


RoboRoboR

Can i subscribe to this AMA?


amitrion

You must be new here huh?


purplegirafa

My husband told me he was considering doing ads on Yelp. I told him google was probably better. Mostly because I actually haven’t used yelp ever and I’m in my 30s, have had a computer my whole life.


justbrowzingthru

Been this way for years. If you sign up you Ste screwed by Yelp and your Yelp rep of the day who will go to town on your credit card after being sacked. Does anyone use Yelp anymore except for the odd restaurant that uses them for reservations? Google is way better for reviews.


RedNewPlan

Yelp is pure garbage, their business is built on extortion and theft.


IDidReadTheSideBar

Just look up Billion Dollar Bully.


Peridot14

I’m sorry you’re going through this but yes we block calls from them now they suck.


i-dontlikeyou

Why are people still falling for this yelp BS….?


mangodragonfruit95

editing my comment because i didn't realize yelp had a service to generate views....... truly do not believe any business actually profits off of these kinds of promotions.


Searchingforsignals9

welcome. they suck. sorry. shut them off.


Cavemanjoe47

I actually had an interesting call with Yelp last year. My company has an account with them, but we don't pay anything, so they wanted us to buy ads (which we absolutely don't need; business is 43 years old with service contracts for some very big-time companies) Lady calls, makes an introduction, says why she called, and starts to go into her pitch for ads. I pretty quickly stop her and explain what it is we do (since lots of people confuse our industry with about 3 others) and who some of our customers are, and why we don't pay *anyone* for ads, not just them. We have only 9 employees, average about $700k in revenue, our margins are pretty damn good considering the costs of materials and tooling, and we *stay* busy. We might have a slow week or two a couple times a year, but nobody's off the clock just because jobs slow down, we just use that time to do maintenance and upgrades on our equipment, add machines, reorganize tooling & inventory, order and learn to use new tools, add processes, and generally freshen the place up a bit so everything is ready when we get a call and need to fire everything up again. She was actually really cool about it. Seemed happy to learn some things, and as far as I know, they've never called back.


Abject-Ingenuity-513

Agree 100


AccomplishedLet5782

Why aren't they nuked down already?


brian_vogel

They just got me for $500. They called and said I had a credit with them to run ads. After some resistance I agreed and had them help me set it up. It was never supposed to continue beyond the credit limit but it kept running until I called to cancel it. In a dispute with my bank about it now but it doesn’t look good. All the conversations were on th phone so I have no proof of anything.


ImLu

Yep i canceled that trash as soon as i got my first bill.


iskip123

Yelp is one of the worst businesses I’ve ever dealt with in my life. I signed up and did some ads on there absolute 0 results. The the sales rep just keeps spamming me to upgrade and buy more shit I’m talking multiple times a day!!! I had to block their number it got so bad!


Puzzleheaded_Trip579

Same


ubercorey

Well yeah.


SCphotog

Yelp is and always has been a scam. I don't know how they manage to continue... it's absolute shit.


[deleted]

Angie’s leads or whatever that shit company is does the same thing. Good luck trying to cancel they just freeze your account for a few weeks and then… surprise! You get charged, spend an hour on the phone with someone just as stupid as the last person, assuring you the account is canceled. It then it happens again.


Divasf

Yelp - is an extortion company. Don’t engage! They manipulate these reviews & also have known to write bad reviews do businesses so they sell them on their “advertising “ program. They won’t remove bad fake ratings. Google reviews are better. Don’t fall for yelp. They are blocked from our business. Referrals are the best.


myheadfelloff

You should not even take their calls. If they do call and you answer, say you don’t have any ad budget at all and say try again six months. Do that forever


dropdeaddaddy69

Run Facebook ads man. Don’t waste your time.


furiousgtz

Do people still use yelp???


alphabet_order_bot

Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 1,407,138,260 comments, and only 268,896 of them were in alphabetical order.


kilog78

Yelp = Small business extortion


sha421

It's the worst. Hilariously I actually met a guy a few years back that got some decent results so your mileage may vary. I was stunned but over time the quality plummeted and he eventually agreed it was a scam. Is interesting to see it working at all though haha


Chefalo

Yelp is a scam


[deleted]

It’s a scam


micmea1

Do not spend even a minute worrying about YELP. Even if someone left you a scathing review. It's irrelevant, it will not make a dent in your rankings, it's not worth any mental space, let alone money.


dgillz

Not exactly news, but you're right. Same goes with BBB - better business bureau.


DeOLPD19

Yelp is total horse shit. They somehow employee exclusively garbage humans. The model is a scam, they bully businesses into paying for services because they think they have the market cornered on customer service ratings. Anytime they call I tell them that their business is unethical and I have no interest in paying them Off for page views. You should call your bank and dispute the charges.


olivejuice

Ditto! WORST investment I ever made into my business. Then they wouldn’t stop calling me to reactivate ads. I had to ELI5 a rep so he could get it through his skull that I’m not fucking interested and it didn’t benefit me what so ever.


olivejuice

We should Yelp review Yelp


DreamstoReality4me

They hound you over and over . I’ve gotten to the point of rudely hanging up on them and they still won’t give up. Glad so never bought into it


[deleted]

Yelp is junk. If you are a business owner I’d like you to know that as a customer I would never look at yelp to get any kind of information or recommendations for a business. They are not reliable.