Yelp for Business OwnersReviews 653

I was being charged about $6.40 per click for my photography business. Ad generated little results. The Yelp salesman did not fully explain the charge per click approach. Other photography competitors can simply click on your ad and drive up your ad cost. I closed my account and will never do business with Yelp biz again.

They use a software program that is suppose to keep things fair for small business. I have reviews from my customers that yelp's software originally deemed "Not recommended" because the clients that left the review weren't very active on Yelp. Today I received notification of a new review. That review was deemed, "Not recommended" because it claims I solicited the review. If I were soliciting reviews I'd have more than six! But the software will allow a bad review from someone I never did business with? What a joke!

Do NOT buy on their $300 ad credit. They promise you'll get leads and they also promise to remind you when the trial end is approaching - BS on both promises. Be aware, this is as useful as shredding your money. 8 website visits and one "attempt to call" in 9 months. Almost $1k burnt for nothing. F. k you very much, Yelp for business

Got hurt, closed my business and am in the middle of a social security appeal with lawyers on board.
Yelp decided they could reopen my page and restart my business hours as they saw fit.
3 calls it took to only manage a temporary close
Customer service was beyond AWFUL.
The first "representative" had the audacity to violate hippa law and ask why I had to close... what was my medical reason?
I was hung up on by the first 2 people I spoke to and told I could not shut down my page nor change my hours without showing them "proof" through social media that I was indeed closed.
This goes beyond illegal business practices.
This company is a fraud and a scam.
Seriously do NOT waste your money.
You would do better driving door to door and handing out business cards than ever thinking yelp is a good idea.

They post bad reviews on my HVAC business with customers I never service or ever seen! Then later asked by phone calls from yelp to pay yelp!

I am a one person Notary business who needed Yelp ads to get any traction for my business. I had received a concierge call with someone from Yelp who was not clear about how much I would be paying for ads. I told her I couldn't afford anything and she continued to sign me up for $30 a day plus more. I don't remember her telling me how much I would pay daily, but I do remember her giving me the impression of a $900 credit for ads that I actually never received. I ended up being charged $1000 over two months for ads that didn't amount to ANY business. I GOT NO CUSTOMERS for $1000. I requested a refund when I realized how much they were charging me and they refused. Yelp is a huge corporation taking advantage of small business owners like me. I can't afford this charge and its making my life so much harder. Yelp ads do not pay for themselves in the amount of business you will receive. They are deceptive with their community and are never straightforward about what you will be paying for. DO NOT SIGN UP FOR YELP ADS!

Where do I begin with ALL the issues of being detrimental to my business? If you pay to advertise they list you as #1 in your area, even though you have zero review because you are a new business. I got clients to write reviews and they allowed one to be published, stating that it was inorganic. They allowed some idiots review to be posted that was not a client yet advertising his service on my page. I had to ask to get this taken off! Then when I quit advertising with them they removed my one review that they allowed. This is the most detrimental and vindictive platform one could use!

This is clearly based on previous reviews what Yelp does. The salesman calls tells you you're getting free ads explains it in a way where you believe the first 3 months are free but in actuality its not. They tell you how the billing works on the call but its presented in a way that its after your trial then you look up 2 weeks later and you've got a bill. Called and they lied and said it was explained yet won't let you listen to the so call recorded call. It's all a scam and gimmick and they getting over on small business owners pretending they help startups with free credits.

YELP offers a free trial opportunity to advertise your business on their platform. During the free trial period, YELP shows you decent engagement with spiffy graphs, charts, etc.

Then, when it comes to the end of the trial period, the very expensive ad campaign (that you automatically enrolled in) has about an 80% reduction in engagement, and almost ZERO website clicks. $15 per engagement, $428. Lol what a joke! You will get more business if you hang a sign on a tree in the wilderness.

YELP for BIZ is a complete waste of money, time and energy.

I just opened a new business and customers left many good reviews on Yelp. Unfortunately, YELP software have them hidden and marked as an unrecommended review. When I call customer service, they said to place advertising so my business can show up in Yelp so Yelpers can try and review your business. If the reviewers are not active Yelp users, reviews will be hidden. What a twisted way of doing business!

They suppressed all our positive reviews and highlighted one malicious one from a person that was angry that we do not accept their insurance plan gimmick. We then tried to close our account in its entirety. Denied... We removed all our photos times of service address etc. Yelp put them all back! We tried to reduce our open time to an hour a day... Yelp put it back... We removed our discount coupons... YELP put them all back up!... We were told sign up for paid service helps rectify the issues namely removing the one dishonest review and they would review our good reviews. What a dishonest rip off way to run a business.

I was contacted by an individual from YELP stating they wanted tp help me increase my advertisement. I did inform him that I was a small business that could not accept anymore debt. We went over my free yelp account (that I do not use at all) and he informed me he was going to give me a $350.00 credit but he needed a card to apply the credit. I informed him that I did NOT want to be charged. He told me I would not be charged without notification. I NEVER received a notification and now have a $933.34 charge on my account from Yelp. I contacted a "customer success manager" and they stated that all notifications would have gone through my Yelp account (which I do not use). I informed him that that information was not what I was told. He continued to state there was nothing they could do and was rather non chalant about what I was stating. This is false advertising and manipulative business practices!

DO NOT engage with these people. Complete scam. They use a play on words to "help" you set up your account and tell you there are no upfront charges and that you will have no charges today and even offer a $300 ad credit for when/if you decide to run an ad. Then 30 days down the road they try and charge you over and over for ads you never authorized. I have called "customer success" multiple times and they have all hung up on me as the call progresses. This site and team is a total scam and needs to be reported to the Attorney General.

My business was promised an ad campaign which would run alongside my paid ad campaign. The representative went in and opted into many more "additional features" which I did not authorize. I am now working to fix it and to much dismay, Yelp has no intent on fixing fraud that occurred within their company.

They are horrible to do business with, no real person to talk with. Our account rep Nicholas Misagal offers no assistance.
I just want to close the account

If you value your sanity, and your checkbook, you will hang up the minute Yelp contacts you... and carefully review any (oh, the many emails you will get) emails you receive from them to be 100% certain that you don't inadvertently fall for their come-ons and subscribe to an "advertising program". Their advertising program means nothing, and will produce no results, despite what they tell you.
BTW - - Their "free" offer is not free. You will give them your credit card number to secure your "free" advertising, and next thing you know, you have been billed for $500+/month is various programs and add-ons.
Never, ever do business with these people. If you try to get out of it, you will find it very difficult, and you will ultimately find yourself having paid $1000's of dollars (yes, as a sole proprietor) for nothing.
These folks PREY on small business owners being too busy to fully comprehend the trap that is Yelp for Business. Stay far away!

Very unhappy with Yelp. They charged me for ads that I didn't approve. They act like giving you a credit of $300 is such a wonderful thing. Yet what they don't tell you is the ad does not discontinue once you reach the amount. Instead it will continue to run it and they will charge your card without even giving you an invoice first. I called after it first happened the guy wouldn't refund me that first charge of over $220 instead he said all they can do is give me another credit of $300... And even though we were discussing what had just happened... he held back information and did not inform me that they were going to be charging me a second month in a row this time around $90! This was something he could have warned me about ahead of time instead I was blindsided (a second time!). I decided to go ahead and take advantage of the second $300 credit they gave me and was watching the ad very closely this time. I had stopped the ad but some how the ad was restarted without my knowledge and I was just charged another $50 which overdrew my personal account. I'm extremely frustrated with them and refuse to do anymore business with them... they are just going to scam you for every penny they can and will never give you a refund for the money they take from you. This should be illegal! On top of that you can't even post your logo without paying a daily fee... Who does that?!

I started my page about the same time I became LLC in my state. At first I didnt pay, just left it up for free. One day a sales person called me with slick talk talking about a $300 promo and how it would generate leads and I'd spend only $15 a day. I gave it a try, but the amount of clicks I got versus actual physical clients was poor. I decided to use pay per click as a side investment at my own discretion, throughout the year. After about 6-7 months, I noticed it wasn't worth the hype. Last time I paid them was April 2021.
In January 2022, another sales guy calls me and wastes 2 hours of my day talking talking talking about how his new $900 promo can test the waters and see if this ROI would be worth it. (I stayed on the phone because of my circumstances and thought it would be a way for me to go back full time to running my business by using their service). Im already struggling getting clients, let me take a risk and see if they can help (even though I'd made me conclusions last year). THATS HOW GOOD their SALES TEAM is. They keep insisting, pressuring, using technical jargon to sound smart. All of that is to sugar coat the truth (THEY DONT CARE ABOUT YOU.) The bottom-line is commission and $$$. They eat off the back of small business with their little $15 a day sales tactic which they bump to $20 for features. So I tell him we try 1 week. In just 4 days, I got charged $36, and ZERO calls. Despite this, he felt he needed to check "hot zones" (outside my service radius) so he wants me to modify my livelihood at the expense of driving futher out. I already knew Yelp was not worth the spend, but this man deceptively insisted on "reviewing some things." Now my bull$#*! meter was 10/10. For every dollar you spend, they only apply a tiny portion of their so called discounts. It is designed inherently to keep the owner spending more, not SAVE. LOL. Beware of the $300 promos and sometimes if you leave them for months they come back with a $900 3 month promo. I told the guy I cancelled cause I was not getting enough ACTUAL conversions and mostly clicks. He did not listen. Instead, he sold me on a fake dream which to my own responsibility I bought into, thinking things would magically change. Remember penny stocks in the 90s for you older folks? Their salesmen are slick talkers.
Back when I had just signed up, one month I let the website do its thing and got charged $700,41 clicks, and had 3 customers I serviced.
Imagine there are millions of small businesses in America. Now imagine yelp scraping $15 a day from each. Yeah, thats how they stay in business. They sell a fake dream with shady tactics to impressionable small business. If you want to advertise, save your hard earned money for other ad ventures OFF Yelp.