YelpReviews 1,585

Yelp is actively damaging my IT support business, and I am certain I am not the only small business this is happening to.

I complete real IT jobs for real clients. After the work is done, I ask them for honest reviews. They leave them. Yelp's automated system then removes them — repeatedly — with no real explanation and no meaningful appeal process.

I called Yelp support today. Their answer was basically: "There's nothing we can do. It's the bot."
That is unacceptable. A bot should not have unchecked power to erase legitimate customer feedback and harm businesses, especially when there is no human department to review mistakes.

Yelp claims my reviews are removed because I provide the Yelp link to my clients. Of course I do. Yelp is not where my clients find me — because I have no Yelp reviews — because Yelp keeps removing them. This creates a self-inflicted loop that punishes small and newer businesses trying to build credibility.

The end result? My business looks unreviewed and unreliable online through no fault of my own. Potential customers don't know Yelp is deleting real reviews — they just move on. That directly affects calls, leads, and income.

If Yelp insists on using bots to control reviews, there needs to be a real human review team that can correct obvious errors. Until then, this platform is actively harmful to IT support businesses and many other service-based businesses trying to grow honestly.

One star is generous. Yelp has become an obstacle, not a resource.

Anita Balint
Computer Support Specialist | Computer Consultant
TaskAlign - Microsoft 365 & Tech Support
Website: TaskAlign.com

When you are a stranger in a strange town you have to expect the locals will steal from you. My car had broken down and the motel I was told to go to was a super 8 3086 220th st williams iowa near a mechanic in williams Iowa. At the front desk where I checked in was a menu for Leona pizza 643 2nd St Webster, Iowa. I called to order a pizza. I was quoted for a medium pizza 17.50. However, when the deliver comes I am charged 32.58. I was NOT told when I ordered that I would be charged double the price. The girl taking my order knew how far the address I was staying at was. A honest decent person would have said that there is a extra charge because of the distance.when I asked the lady delivering the pizza, why the pizza was so expensive, she answered the girl who took the order should have told you.Basically her attitude was "sucks to be you". I feel Leons pizza rips off people on a regular basis. I should have refused the pizza but I had not eaten all day. It seems that the people at the super 8 are in on the scam because when I mentioned it to the owner he said "it is a delivery charge". It would have been nice if the person taking the order had mentioned this. Leons pizza even gave a check which does not have the name or address of Leon's pizza. Very unprofessional and very suspect.Well, when you are a visitor in the state of Iowa you are someone to be stolen from. Do not go to Leons pizza!

This company is a total scam. They literally stole over $800 from my bank account — and their customer service? An absolute joke. No answers, no accountability, just silence and excuses. Yelp loves pretending to be a "trusted platform," but behind the scenes it's all smoke and mirrors: fake positive reviews, hidden real ones, and sneaky charges that somehow always benefit them. It's almost ironic — the site that claims to expose bad businesses has become one of the worst offenders itself. If you value your time, your money, or your sanity, stay far away from Yelp.

I have dealt with Yelp a couple of times already and in every interaction, they have been unfair & discriminatory. I explained to them in detail a negative review on my company, gave yelp precise details about the situation, and proof showing that the person reviewing my company flat out lied, not just once but multiple times. While it be difficult if not impossible to prove, I feel the false negative review hurt my company. Honestly after reviewing all of the reviews about yelp over the years I seriously do not know how the FTC and FCC have not brought lawsuits against them and shut them down.

I was cold-called by Yelp and sold on the idea that their lead impressions would generate meaningful business leads. I was reassured that even though Yelp has many residential users, they could specifically target business-to-business (B2B) customers. This turned out to be completely untrue. I gave it a shot—shame on me. I received a total of five leads, all of which were residential customers. I called to express my dissatisfaction and was told that my profile wasn't properly set up to target B2B. Robbie, the agent, made changes and extended a promotion for increased impressions, assuring me this would generate better results. After the changes, I received two additional leads (part of the five), and again, all were residential. I called back, got Robbie again, and told him I wanted to cancel. He launched into a retention script, but I made it clear I was done. He processed the cancellation, but informed me I'd still be charged for the first half of the month since I was canceling mid-cycle. This is egregious to me—I've spent hundreds of dollars with zero results. Robbie told me he would send a form to request a refund, but I neither have the time nor the desire to navigate bureaucratic purgatory. Instead, I emailed the CEO directly at Jeremy. It's been two days with no response. While I understand how busy a CEO can be, a dissatisfied paying customer should be a top priority. If you're a business owner targeting other businesses, do not be hustled into using Yelp.

We are a small bookkeeping business in Edmonton. We have a special niche market that we are trying to break into. Dealing with -long distance truckers - compensation from the government for certain programs. We thought Yelp would be a way to help us expose this service. Well, quite the opposite. They take out monies for services not done. We are semi retired and monies we invest into advertising we hope to pay off. So far, nothing but problems to get our ad recognized and unauthorized payments being taken out of our accounts. Please think twice about these people- don't get involved with them. They are too big and they are dealing with foreign workers whom have an attitude to go with it. Again, another american company trying to exploit Canadians. Take care

After being on this site for 10 years, I'm not posting anymore. I see some people say it's not what it used to be. Last week, I wrote a review on a local plant nursery. It was honest and thorough, and at first it appeared under "newest". But today it is in the "not recommended" pile at the bottom for "violating terms of service". I don't know what I did wrong. I know it's not just me that ends up there, but the worst part is there are no icons for things like "helpful" or "thank you". So even if someone read it and wanted to say thank you, they can't. My profile isn't clickable either, so people can't see other reviews I wrote. What on earth is the point of a review site if everyone's reviews don't get counted? I'm aware there's bogus reviews out there, and I know companies can't pay to have negative reviews removed. Yet the overall rating should include all reviews. I don't know if people know to scroll to the bottom to see other reviews "not recommended" they might find helpful. I wasted my time for nothing. Google seems to be more accepting; my reviews stay put so far.

It's so interesting that you can't find anywhere reviews on yelp app easily, like from the point of view of businesses who use the app to promote and enroll with their services, even on the facebook page yelp don't have like a seccion for reviews, not even like google business reviews. I was contacted by a sales agent, he promises that they don't charge by advertinsing but just when the customer press the button to call (Lie), he also said I was going to have a free test trial for 2 weeks, in this time I was not supposed to be charge for that time the add were running and for the calls I received (Lie), he gave me $900 applicable to my account in 3 months (Lie). The second agent I talked to 2 days after, correct: 1. You're getting charge everytime people clicks on your add and the rates are like super high $23/ click they were charging me, and nobody called me or buy anything from the clicks I received from yelp. 2. there's not such a time as a free trial, i was getting charge for that "free trial" time that the first agent promised me. 3. the $900 bonus the fist agent gave me was just for addinitional adds, so I was still going to be charged, after the talk with the second agent I was going to cancel everything, but he convert the $900 bonus into a $300 credit for my first bill, so I was like, ok I will not lose for continue testing a couple of days, but then I found out that tehy were charging $28 for the following clicks and I was like, they must be crazy!, I called to cancel everything with them and the agent was very rude, she told me like "if you doooo some research then you'll know no company will charge you per call" like if I'm stupid, I was like " well that was what the first agent told me, so you should send him to research and train him", I also ask her like 3 times if I cancel the subscription I was still going to received the $300 credit, so at that time my bill was on "$214", so no money was going to be charged to my card, so she assured me in a really bad tone like "yes, you have a credit that will be automatically apply to your next bill like I told you befor", I just wanted to be clear on that as they said so many lies, I still haven't received the first bill, so I will see what the thruth will be as I hope not to have more surprises from yelp. I'm done with their agents. I took my time to post my experience so any business can understand more about what are you willing to expect if they're thinking on them. Personaly I think google adds, even fb works better. Thanks yelp, for making me lose my time...

Yelp controls the positive and negative reviews. The put many pistive reviews hidden under Not Recommended Reviews. How they get away with this is uncomprehendable..

Bad review poor performance
Avoid yelp
Scams
Very bad avoid yelp altogether
Avoid yelp
They give false reviews so you have to pay to take them down.fraud.

They stole my money. The $300 bonus is a scam. They gave me a bonus, I only spent half. However, at the beginning of the month they stole $200 from my card. Yelp is fraud company. And, they Take money, but delete reviews. Furthermore, I pay money, customers write to ME, but yelp send their messages to ANOTHER technicians!

If you even go into Yelp website they will call you 10 times a day and reps are rude and continue to call and harrass us if we hang up on them. It will not allow you to cancel or shut down your page. I have tried for YEARS. I will NEVER do business with Yelp. EVER.

The yelp sales agent wanted to show me what my page would look like, but the only way he could demonstrate that was to get my credit card information, but that I would not be billed until I agreed.
I told him that I do not want to start the yelp page any time soon, but would consider it when I have the money.
He also threw in a $300 credit.
2 weeks later I get a bill.
I called to cancel the subscription, but it seems the 1st idiot made 2 yelp pages for my business. One got cancelled, but the other wasn't.
Then I started getting spam calls from web developers asking to improve my yelp page. I told them my yelp page was cancelled, and they said it was still active.
I logged into yelp and found the page.
WTF?
So I'm getting bills from yelp.
I'm now on a call with the 4th yelp agent hoping to resolve this BS.
Do not subscribe to this service.
You pay for every click,and with the millions of people surfing the net, you're going to get massivebills for net surfing

Team of people writing fake bad reviews for businesses so that their sales team can approach and onboard for ridiculous fees to contest these same reviews. ABSOLUTE SCAM

I have had Yelp directory listings for many years and have received periodic calls from Yelp trying to get me to advertise - I never have. Their advertising rates are exorbitant and are the least cost affective method of trying to drum up business. I have long marveled at how Yelp selectively publishes negative reviews on my companies, yet hides my positive reviews in their "Not Recommended" section.

My biggest objection to Yelp happened 2 months ago, wherein a pushy account manager called me and induced me into trying a free $350 advertising credit. I didn't want to do it, but she kept telling me what a waste it would be not to try it. I even told her I had no intent of continuing advertising after the credit was exhausted. She did not relent, so I let her set me up. After 10 days, I received notification from my credit card that I had been charged $135.72. I looked into my Yelp account and the $350 had been used up and Yelp was now into me $135.72. The data indicated that I had 4 people look at my page; I received 1 phone call (no sale). So, for $485.72 I received 10 days worth of advertising. This extrapolates to $17,728.78 for a year.

I called up yelp, told them that I was surprised that Yelp would resort to an old scam like this...baiting you in with something free and gouging you for superfluous charges once they got you. I gave them a choice of either crediting my credit card or receiving a back charge and complaint. They made me dance through some hoops, where I had to submit details of why I deserved my money back and I had to wait a week while they investigated my complaint. I got my money back.

My advise to anyone considering advertising with Yelp is, DONT. Spend your money on your website, the value of your website will exceed anything that Yelp could possible provide you. I am surprised that such a sleezy company is still in business.

This mother $#*!ers are nothing but thieves, just as bad ad India's $#*!es. They will ruin your business if you
Do not oay tjem. $#*! you Yelp!

Yelp takes down hard earned reviews they claim it's there AI software they have no control over. You will get way better results from nextdoor.com and other social media groups so don't waste your time with this

Honda dealership in Enterprise Al. Great disparity in treatment according to Race. Chocolate women seem to have to wait twice as long as others. We are dealt with dishonestly, told the most outrageous lies. My truck was damaged and painted over and I was never told. I was Never told! When I asked what happened I was told "that is overcast paint". However, there are clear paint brush marks on the truck, They tell one lie after the other. They act as though you are suppose to accept this type of treatment because you are of a different race. Chocolate people Beware Nothing good at this dealership! Don't stop there! Best to keep it Moving!

First of all, we are receiving jobs from the leads, we set a minimal amount of advertising dollars on this.
Secondly, they do not help our company grow or flourish due to their AI review software and their new platform of Nearby Jobs. We have had so many of our reviews moved to not recommended, in 2 years we only have 14 reviews on yelp but 152 on Google(we pay no money on Google and we receive free leads). Now they have added a section called Nearby Jobs that we have to pay extra to correspond to the leads, when the leads are just down the street from us. The Yelp sales people try to BS you and say that is to fill days that you may want to fill in a job with, my question is why are they just not normal leads, who and how is it decided that they are Nearby Jobs that we have to pay extra for. WE HAVE NEVER GOTTEN A JOB OFF OF IT EITHER.

When I went to make an account, they provided a message about how there is misinformation circulating about businesses paying Yelp for removing negative reviews. I then submitted my horrible experience at the dealership and waited for it to show. Instead, Yelp blocked my review and terminated my account. No cursing in the review, nothing nsfw. No explanation. Just trying to tell folks about dishonest mechanics, and suddenly my account is gone, and Yelp spreading more gospel about how unshakable their ethics are.