Yelp for Business OwnersReviews 653

Business owners need a class action lawsuit against Yelp to stop their signup scam!.

We had an experience almost identical to that experienced by Tammi A (1/24/20).
And to use her words, "Listen carefully to what they say... they will tell you that their free $300.00 will cover everything, encourage you to sign up for things they know is beyond the 300.00 and you will get stiffed for the bill. Hang up immediately if they call you! Do not fall for the free $300.00 scam."

And to top this off, Yelp does not distinguish between our business and another one with a similar name (and lousy ratings located in another state". They told us there was nothing they could do about this!

And as Tammi A. Has posted about your account, Yelp "will never remove it or allow you to mark it as closed or remove your contact information. Once you are on yelp, you are always on yelp."

2 of my employees were so proud after a customer left them an awesome review and called me to express how happy she was with their service. Being a long time business owner and knowing full well how yelp operates I told both employees to take a snap shot of the awesome 5 star review because in 3 days it will be put into the not recommended section! And you know what? I was correct. 72 hours later it was dumped into not recommended along with 29 other great reviews. I am a retired law enforcement officer and this is in my opinion should be looked into by the district attorney fraud division for each occurence.

1. On 7/24 I received an email for $300.00 in free Yelp Adds (see attached).
2. I signed up on 7/25, when I received a phone call from a woman in Sales. (See attached welcome letter). The conversation I detailed in the original complaint.
3. You can see that I signed up for a 15/day add campaign. I did not have a budge for $450/month, but I was assured I could adjust this after my $300.00 was used up, but I should make it 450/month so I get the max results of my free $300.00
4. On 10/1 I received an email that my debit card was declined for $373.05. Yes, that would be because I wasn't supposed to be charged. My business is just starting out and I don't have any funds in there yet. I wasn't supposed to be charged.
5. I immediately wen ton the website and closed my Yelp Business account
6. On 10/4 I received another email that my card was declined.
7. On 10/8 I received an email that they wanted to speak to me about my account.
8. I spoke to them on the phone and they said My ad was never cancelled, but they would go ahead and cancel it for me, and then I received another confirmation that it was closed. Ronni also said he would go back and review the phone call to see what I was told when I signed up. I never heard back.
9. Today, 1/23, I received an email that they are sending this to collection.

I ended up calling back and paying this bill with my credit card.
Listen carefully to what they say... they will tell you that their free $300.00 will cover everything, encourage you to sign up for things they know is beyond the 300.00 and you will get stiffed for the bill. Hang up immediately if they call you! Do not fall for the free $300.00 scam.

Also, you, as the business owner do not have the right to remove your business from their website. They will never remove it or allow you to mark it as closed or remove your contact information. Once you are on yelp, you are always on yelp.

6 yrs ago we advertised and it was bad, no good customers, Yelp blows my phone with soliciting calls every day, on august I said " will look into it" to a representative and 4 months later I get a collection letter of $1000, of course Yelp will take responsibility because we are the idiots who answered their call! Yelp does not know how customer service works, is not an enthusiastic agent on the other line, customer service is about getting things done and "care" about us, the "customers". Yelp will put you in a bad financial situation if you are not be careful!

I HAVE JUST HAD ANOTHER GREAT EXPERIENCE WITH THIS TEAM. I WANT TO GIVE A SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO RENEE C. "OFFICE MANAGER". SHE ALWAYS RESPONDS ENTHUSIASTICALLY ANY TIME THAT I MAY NEED ASSISTANCE WITH MY INSURANCE PLAN. IF RENEE DOES NOT KNOW THE ANSWER SHE WILL PROMISE TO GET THE ANSWER AND CONTACT ME ASAP. RENEE HAS GAVE ME THE TYPE OF ASSISTANCE THAT IS ALWAYS "OVER AND ABOVE MY EXPECTATIONS".

SHE WOULD BE A GREAT ASSET TO ANY INSURANCE COMPANY WHO WOULD NEED AN EXEMPLARY TEAM PLAYER. ALSO, DANIELLE L. AND SHERYL E. HAS NEVER LET ME OR MY HUSBAND DOWN WITH ANY ISSUES AS WELL. THEY ARE THE "GLUE" TO HELPING THIS AGENT JEFF SAMFORD IN BEING SUCCESSFUL.

SINCERELY,

TIUANA & HERMAN D.

At $30.00 per click with no conversion or customer call yelp is an absolute waste of money. Sales rep for will
Will have you to expect low cost advertising which is in my opinion is not the case. The business page is not easy to navigate and there are no updates that you see what you have spent until your bank account is charged. When notified what we received was not expected we were informed that no refund would be given.
Not recommended by Studenka and Associates for construction advertisement.

Their business website is opaque and difficult to navigate. They also do not send account updates; ie I did not get a statement, or even a notification of a statement for services. I thought I had only done a very low-dollar upgrade, only to be hit with a $420 debit to my business account, which YELP will not refund. For this $400+ bill, I got 13 link clinks. That works out to $30 dollars a lead, as compared to Facebook, where my CONVERTED leads average under $2 each. Yelp's business practices are sketchy af, and clearly advertising with them yields very little in the way of actually promoting the business or converting customers.

All of these reviews are spot on. The sales reps are persistent and aggressive. They will tell you anything to get you to sign up and they will lie about how you will be charged - before you know it you will have racked up a few hundred dollars with nothing to show for it. When you try to contact them to resolve the issue the billing reps will tell you it's all your fault, that it was either a "misunderstanding" or that you weren't listening closely enough and that their reps follow tight scripts. It's obvious the business reps deal with this all day long as they will shut you down before you even have a chance to begin - I even had one hang up on me. It seems clear to me the company lawyers attend training sessions to make sure the reps deny deny deny til they are blue in the face. It's just awful. And honestly dehumanizing as you realize you've been had and you are completely powerless to do anything about it but pay so they don't try to further ruin your life. Companies like this should 100% be held accountable for their indiscretions - they are not interested in costumer service or satisfaction whatsoever. At this point it truly is a scam marketing platform where they just take your money and run to their next mark. Shame on you Yelp.

I really can't believe this is legal. Sure its all in the fine print and you have to agree to everything, but damn if I didn't just get dragged for $1200 with no results. Only notifications you get after a $300 free trial is through the app, so if you forgot about it like me you won't otherwise know they are charging your card for $400/month for the next 3 months. Really bummed that they can't offer this service at a lower price and actually be able to back up their product with results.

They said that I was going to receive $150 in bonus ads prior to me giving them my credit card details. They lied and plan to bill me $170 next month for fraudulent clicks I received on my ad. I am not going to pay for this blatant fraud. They lie about how you are getting a bonus when in fact you are not. Total fraud. That is what Yelp is.

Reply to the commenter: I closed my debit card account and a new one was ordered for me by my bank. Yelp still managed to fraudulently charge the closed debit card account. Yelp did this through contacting Visa, not my main bank. My bank told me the Yelp cocksu**kers had presented an alleged agreement between Yelp and me to Visa so as to charge the closed debit card account. As soon as my bank found out that Yelp had stolen my money by fraud, it credited the money back into my account. Jay, close your debit/credit card account as "stolen/missing." Tell your bank or credit card company to add a "stop check" to your account too. That way, Yelp cannot charge your closed debit/credit card account like it did in my case. They'll then threaten you with a baseless collections letter. But you have a right not to be lied to in the form of false advertisement from Yelp. At that point, you may go to court to have any bull$#*! collections info removed from your credit history. If you gave them a false first name and last name when registering for your Business account, they may not charge any account in a different name. $#*! Yelp!
Yelp is a scam! Yelp needs to be sued and I'm looking for the company's head too.

Have you ever wondered why you can't use your logo on your business account? I asked a Yelp "customer service associate" and I use that phrase loosely, "Why do businesses like Starbucks, PF Changs, etc get to use their logos and small businesses don't?" He said, "because they are corporations!" So basically, one rule for the corporations and one rule for everyone else. Also, their customer service is abhorrent, if you can't already guess, the reps I've spoken to were defensive, argumentative, hostile and pushy. YELP SUCKS!

Yelp is a huge scam please do not support this business at all. They are very transparent in their practices, I have 42 great reviews all buried and not recommended including 9 great customer reviews in just 2 weeks one by one picked away and dumped into not recommended. They only leave negative reviews up and visible and also juggle reviews in and out of not recommended at their discretion. They are ripe for a class action lawsuit and they know it. If you dont pay your reviews are dumped into a non visible platform as not recommended to keep your rating very low

I have a package that was overnight delivery and to be signed for, I took time off work to receive this package. I've been outside this whole time waiting, hanging Christmas lights and yard work and no one showed up! Went online to check tracking number and this delivery driver lied and said no one was home! FedEx needs to hire workers that want to work and fire the ones that don't! I have video cameras on my house as well and no FedEx truck anywhere! I'm sure they have GPS on their trucks and should call the drivers bluff and get rid of the lazy one's! I'll never do business with FedEx EVER AGAIN.

The sales staff make promises that have nothing to do with reality. They even used me as a reference for another similar company saying what great success I was having with Yelp. Fortunately, the person actually called me personally and I was able to warn him that I hadn't received a SINGLE call or new client. I cancelled after only 3 weeks but still got charged over $300.00... for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! I called them to complain and they basically said "tough luck". I hope this helps someone else!

Have nothing to do with this company. It's a total scam. There's no contract, no invoice, no receipts or billing history. The business page is advertised as free, but then they charge you hundreds of dollars without notification. Be prepared for months of disputed fraudulent charges and having to change all your credit cards as a result of Yelp fraud.

Okay okay, desperate for extra business so I figured I'd place my business in the yelp business section. Got a call and then the person hung up. I called back and was then transferred to a salesperson who set me up with an ad free page and a tier position that was suppose to bring me business over a course of 7 days. No business, No calls, No nothing but 17 days and a waste of $165. I also had Google trying their hand at it, trying to set me up in their goggle search listings. Its all a scam. Get your page but don't waste your money. Its a scam!

I was giving $150.00 in free pay per clicks but in order to use that I needed to create an Acct and attached my credit card. So I did and I set my maximum budget at $5 per day max after only the first 30 days I'm charged $450.00 and I'm told the free $150.00 is ONLY after I spend my first month which is totally deceiving and out of that $450.00 they were charging me an extra $150.00 per month which was extra services they said I added which I had no clue of. Shame on the CEO of yelp allowing this to happen when there company was built of customer service and having happy customers which they could care less of me and told me there's nothing they can do and it's fine I'm never gonna use there services again.