YelpReviews 1,585

I am a former Mystery Shopper and I do detailed reviews on yelp.com out of 61 Reviews I have done, Maybe 3 of them have been filtered for unknown reasons. I do reviews without my own opinions getting in the way of the establishment, I list just the facts whether its good or bad experience. I report it as I see it. You can read my reviews here:

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=JY3RdJ2nHHA_txpb-fAxsg

Yelp can be very helpful for finding restaurants or hotels with Free WiFi or places open after-hours. Or if your vacationing at a Resort I get feedback before I set-up a reservation. Its one of the better review websites out there that are free.

Terrible - Scam - Ripoff

Those are the terms that come to mind when I think of yelp.com. They filter real reviews, decide for themselves when someone is "untrustworthy" and violate my constitutional right not to be censored and freedom of speech and expression of my opinion.

When I ask them about it, all I get is a canned response and being told that they can't manually review it and can't lift the filter. I hear they have a class action law suite as well, something about only showing good reviews on businesses that pay them $300 a month, something like that, extortion is it? :P

Yelp filtered out all the positive reviews I had written. When I asked a couple of the business owners about this, I found that Yelp had asked them to pay for expensive advertising. When they refused, their positive reviews were filtered out, leaving them with a negative rating. Having conducted more research online, I now realize that Yelp is basically running an extortion business. Companies that don't pay for Yelp advertising have their positive reviews filtered out, and many have alleged that those who do pay for it can have their negative reviews removed.

THE SITE
Yelp.com is a user generated review site whose aim is to provide real and genuine reviews of products and services of businesses around the globe. In theory the site works with only real reviews, negative or positive, being posted and business evaluated on there customers experience.

THE PRODUCT
Upon opening a business account with Yelp.com you are charge a monthly fee to unlock 2 benefits, you are allowed to respond to reviews (a features that is standard among many sites including FB and Google Places/ Plus) and your business is given a limited amount of impressions or to put it simply your business is placed top of the listing within your selected categories under the SPONSORED space. You are also allocated an Account Manager who you can deal with directly regarding your business.

THE PROBLEMS
- Yelps magical filter algorithm that negatively effects you businesses brand and profits. This filter which is "unexplainable" displays reviews it decides are worthy or "real" on your business listing. For us this meant it displayed a 5 year old review for our business, then trading under a different name, and a negative review written by "real user" called Disappointed M. With no profile. Totally unacceptable yet it gets worse, as we have in fact had a total of 9 reviews with four 5 star reviews filtered away from public view, each a one a genuine customer of our business!
- Account Managers unreachable
- No alternative support numbers provided online or via email
- No response to urgent issues (Over 24hrs)
- No call back even after calling sales team (US) and going through a lengthy transfer to leave a message
- Sponsored impressions and ROI is poor
- In house Yelp posters and stickers have still not been received - 2 months after requesting.

Overall we were very disappointed with the service we received and have cancelled our account 2 months into our 6 month contract. We are happy to pay the cancellation if it means we no longer having to fund a website that is negatively affecting our business. It makes no sense to use their services instead focus on Google Places and Facebook your money is better spent here.

I like it. I read every review with a grain of salt, but it is helpful to read how others have experienced a particular business. The ultimate judge in the formation of my opinion, of course, is personal experience. I also like being able to share my experiences with others, not to change their minds, but so that they know they are not alone if they experienced something similar. With some businesses, you see patterns start to develop, where everyone pretty much has a similar experience. It's great for consumers to have resources other than ads to rely on. A business will always speak wonders of itself, but it's great to know what customers are saying too.

I purchased a deal from Yelp for the business: Advanced Carpet Cleaning & Emergency Water Damage. When the company came out, they REFUSED to honor the deal. I had to then pay the full amount to the company, in order for the service to be done. I contacted Yelp, and advised them of what had happened. They basically did nothing. Even though the business refused to honor the deal, and it is clearing stated they MUST honor the deal, Yelp continues to allow them on their website, still running the deal as of this complaint. I had to dispute the charge on my credit card, and go through that process. Yelp SHOULD have either made the business honor their deal or Yelp should reimburse me for what I had to pay over the deal. They have made no effort.

My husband's business has been reviewed by yelp. He has many 5 star reviews and very few bad ones (which have been done for unsubstantiated reasons). Yelp called him to see if he wanted to pay for advertising on their website and called his office and left a message. When he didn't call them back, they filtered away the good ones and showed all the bad ones with just a few good ones which brought his rating down to 2 1/2 stars! Many people use yelp. I use yelp! This is unbelievable. What they are doing can ruin a business. I will never use their website again.

Yelp is a horrible site run by extortion artists! They filter real reviews, and allow people with one review in their history to place a vendetta against restaurants where they have had an issue. There is no way for a business to avoid the YELP HARD SELL. Many people write reviews like they think they are Frank Bruni from the NY Times. They know nothing about great food, and are arrogant self entitled morons that really needed a spanking from mommy. Now they take out their constant anger in a public form with the single goal to destroy another persons dream. Even BAD reviews are balanced with some good in them.

I have a passion but also hatred for Yelp. Here's why. When I am on the go, I use the mobile app to look for restaurants or other things in the area so I do see a lot of value in it. However, as a user of Yelp who has tried to post reviews of places I've been to, I quickly realized that their filter technology takes out many relevant reviews without giving a clear explanation as to why. So many reviews have been filtered out that it makes it really murky as to what is really going on with Yelp and what exactly they are doing in the name of keeping the reviews relevant. So it's a double edged sword and hopefully they will get a little bit clearer as to their review process for filtering.