Yelp for Business OwnersReviews 653

I have a premium account for 3 of my business locations and pay per click on another for ads. Overall, customers are using Yelp. My beef is with the review screening software. It's a joke. Just an excuse to say "it's out of our hands".

One of our competitors is reporting all our reviews and non get through the screener now. They don't care about fixing the system, just getting your money. Very sad since it could be so much better...

Yelp is not customer centric nor are they clear and consistent with the cost per click or any promotional opportunities that they offer to business owners. The whole thing is a rip off. The categories were not specific enough to get the right customers to my page and their advertising strategy is misleading.

I had to call Yelp multiple times for assistance and clarification only to get the run-around. When I finally cancelled, all I asked for was refund for the few days in July that they plan on charging me and they refuse to do it. I was under the impression I still had a promotional credit and therefore was not anticipating a bill. I was even willing to meet them in the middle and eat part of the cost myself if they just split the difference with me, but they refused. They wasted an hour of my time on the telephone, repeating why they refused to give me a credit and they refuse to transfer me to a supervisor or manager because "that is not the way they do things."

I do not recommend advertising on Yelp because they refuse to work their customers and find a happy medium where everyone is satisfied. They just want your money.

I took them up on their offer of a $300 first month credit toward advertising. Within 2 weeks they had blown thru this "amount" and started to use money from my credit card -- without any notification! At around $5.00 per click, it added up to $130.00 fast, before I caught it on a bank statement. I called and got it stopped -- I thought. They took another $93.00 after that call.
I have told my CC company to fight it. They have gotten full refunds on both charges! Thank you, US BANK!

Those are the only 2 ways in which this business can be described!
I've received the same ridiculous email rejecting my profile photo because I have glasses with transition lenses (that I wear 24/7). Called and explained, the CSR said she'll get the photo approved, 2 days later back to square1 with same email!
Awesome 5-star reviews have been hidden, supposedly 'just by the algorithm' without ANY ability for CSR intervention. How f'ing STUPID is that! If this were a bank or credit card company, they would be closed by now. The CSR was more intent on getting me to sign up for ads, than even hear about my issue!
A waste of 3 weeks, with real stress and sleepless nights only to make peace with the ridiculous situation.

And after placing this review, I get this seemingly caring call that turns into a nightmare while driving! This utter i*iota calls me saying he wanted to address my concerns, then starts arguing that every concern I have is not really a concern, and that he is 'calling me out on it!'. I couldn't even understand what he thinks he is calling me out on! These people take advantage of common human decency to force people into agreeing to advertise. I even warned him that I'd not continue with the argument and just put down the phone, but m being courteous to end this conversation on a decent note. This mor-on couldn't even get that!

Horrible experience. Charged me $18 to NOT get my flowers delivered to the funeral! Supervisor in customer service promised me it would be done... not to worry... told her I had to take my husband to Houston medical center today. Got home with urgent message wanting an "alternate address" because florist couldn't deliver to funeral home in time! Who wants a large funeral spray brought to their home after a funeral?! I don't even know an alternate address anyway. Never use this company! Most of their customer service people barely speak English. You can't understand much of what they say. In addition, they claim they will send you an email of the invoice so any errors can be corrected, but I never received any invoice on either of the two sprays that ultimately were ordered! No invoice, but still charged a service fee of $18. No flowers for the funeral. No customer service. If you really want flowers and service, find a florist in that town and call them directly.

They kept calling my business trying to get me to sign up, and finally I agreed to start a free business page. The lady on the phone said if I do it I'll get a $300 ad credit. I told them our brand/website are being redone so I'm not ready to use it, but she said I could turn it off until I was ready and then turn it on. So I signed up and claimed the credit, then 3 months later I was given a bill for over $800! I called Yelp to resolve it, and they told me I knew what I was doing and still owed them every penny. I explained the agreement I made with their operator, and how I told her my situation, but it didn't sway them. They said the ads ran and drove business to me, even though my site was offline and there was nothing to drive business to. I see why Yelp is struggling- I'll never work with them again in any of my business endeavors!

My daughter passed away 2 years ago and someone wrote a false review on yelp saying we serviced their home on the exact day we were burying our daughter and the office was closed. We offered to present death certificate and proof of date or burial demonstrating it was a false review and yelp chose to ignore this and leave this false review posted still for all to see. This is NOT an honest company, Yelp presents itself as above board and honest but this is the farthest thing from the truth. We are NOT paid advertisers on yelp and would never consider it

I too as most reviews here was conned into their advertising program but was promised that it worked similar to Homeadvisor or Thumbtack where you pay per lead. I did not receive any leads nor invoice so I just figured the ad was not generating any leads. It was however generating revenue for YELP to the tune of $1000. When I received my bank statement, I almost had a heart attack! I called customer service to be conned some more about the great exposure they were providing my company at the low low rate of $47 per click! If they come calling on you, you have been warned.

I thought i was running an ad that was going to be $50 per month, turned out to be $500 and the ad sucked! No traffic at all, and the customer service afterword was completely worthless when i told them i didnt expect such a big charge. Don't even think about advertising with them unless you own a restaurant (which in my opinion is the only type of business people really use yelp for) and even then i would be hesitant because they are scumbags.

I was also a victim of the $300 credit offer. I was contacted by an account manager who set up my business for me, with the caveat that I would only participate if I was guaranteed that I wouldn't be charged above the $300 credit. We schedule a follow up call, she didn't call, I called her and left a voicemail. No return call. I finally reach someone in customer service that tells me there will be a $188 fee because I didn't end the campaign soon enough. They also said there's not way to tell when the $300 will be used up. I was promised that I would not be charged and they deceivingly found a way to avoid keeping the promises they made so they could get my money. They are very unethical and terrible to work with.

Just like everyone else here, I agreed to the $300 free trial because that obviously meant you get $300 of free ads before paying, right? This also seemed conveyed to me when yelp called me to pitch the scam. Obviously they aren't going out of their way to tell you how the scam really works: In actuality you get your free $300 over time while you actually pay tons. If this were an honest company their pitch would be something like "get $1 in free ads for every $10 spent", which would be much closer to what they're actually offering. But instead they very willfully deceive customers by just saying "$300 in free ads", which is a terrible mischaracterization of their actual offer that sets up customers to be blindsided.

Added to this, when you check your ad spend all you see at the top of the page is your slow progress toward your $300 credit. In much smaller font below this is the hundreds you're actually spending. So if you sign up thinking that you get $300 free to try out Yelp ads, as they lead you to believe, and then you try to monitor your progress toward the $300 so that you don't go over, you will likely be misled into thinking you haven't hit the $300 while in fact you've spent hundreds. It's a textbook con.

By the time I saw my credit card statement I'd spent nearly $1000 and they charged $750. I quickly cancelled the card and reported the charges as credit card fraud. It truly is fraud to mislead people into accruing large charges that they don't intend to accrue, while obscuring any reporting of the accrued charges. It really is shameful.

I encourage anyone affected by this company to report any charges as fraudulent and file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov/complaint) so that hopefully something can be done to hold this company accountable.

Don't advertise on YELP. They are such liars. I did not order advertising I just wanted an enhanced profile, next thing I know I'm stuck in a 6 month program, getting charged $9.00 a click. I didn't need advertising, didn't order it, because I'm the first one on the list. When I called Customer Service and asked for the contract I signed, they couldn't provide one. There was no email confirmation... nothing that I said. I agree to this. Customer Service wouldn't even let me talk to a manger, then didn't care. SHAME ON YOU YELP.

I too fell for the free ad campaign. After I specifically told Micheal Gotham I was not interested, he said well in order to take advantage of the $300.00 of free ads I would have to give my CC information and that once the $300.00 was exhausted it would be a limit. Nothing would be charged. Well guess what? I was charged $803.00 for a product I did not want. THIS IS HIGH PRESSURE TACTICS AND USE A SCRIPT TO MAKE IT SEEM THEY ARE DOING YOU A FAVOR. DON'T TAKE THEIR CALLS. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED. Also, you cannot delete your payment information. Do what I did. I used another credit card. One that was ready to expire. Put that in, called my CC company and had a new one sent. LET THEM TRY TO CHARGE MY CARD NOW!

Yelp is a business that works for other businesses and yet will dictate when the business can reply to reviews, let me explain, it is yelps business practice that in order to reply to reviews that the owner of the business has to put a very specific type of picture of the owner themselves on the site, stating that their research shows that customers feel more comfortable when they can see the owner,... a bit hypocritical since i am fairly confident that the owner of yelp is not a red flowery logo like what is on their site, i understand their plan but to refuse to allow the companies that pay them for their service to determine for themselves what is the best practice for their company is nothing short of dictatorship, i have spent many hours trying to have them address the issue, and at one point could reply with my company logo as the picture of my company but now they are denying that and i can no longer reply, which puts my company at a disadvantage, i can no longer thank my customers on line or reply to a bad review whether true or malicious, i believe a company i pay should allow me to determine how i do business not demand, dictate and punish for not doing things the way they want. Please think twice about this company and make sure you want them running your business for you before you sign any contracts or advertise with them. Yelps policies are costing my company business and stress. Be careful