Yelp.com
Reviews and Complaints

I am posting this here, because whenever it is posted on Yelp, either the business page manager (who mentioned that he had never pulled a post (?) OR the person emailing and harassing others (likely Smoque-affiliated/employee) has repeatedly pulled it. Customer service IS a part of the business model, and how businesses treat customers are extremely important. Businesses should be transparent and address issues that exist, instead of hiding them. Customer should be allowed to share their unique experiences. If businesses do not value these experiences, then there is no way for a business to grow with their customers and make improvements, where necessary. Freedom of speech is extremely important, and businesses should value it, as well. — 1) My initial email:

I'm writing in regards to someone from the Smoque team sending extremely negative emails to those who give mediocre to negative reviews. I have posted their response to the Smoque page, and in response, either the Smoque business page manager or the Smoque employee has requested Yelp to take the post down, under grounds that his representation of the business and interaction with customers is "not a new firsthand experience with the business." Yes, what the employer was doing was representing the business by reaching out and qualifies as a firsthand experience with the business. Customer service and treatment IS a part of the business and experience with the business.

This has happened before with 1 other business, and when I contacted the manager, he dealt with it professionally, discovered which employee was representing the business in such a way, and did not act to limit free speech and a customer's expression of his/her experience with the business. Every customer can have an individual experience, and each experience is valid. It is unbelievable that a business would attack anyone who had a mediocre or negative experience and further begin to read all the person's other reviews and skew them negatively. The poster even found fault with a 5 star review posted for another restaurant.

Here is an email I received 1 month ago from one of your employees who chose to go by the name "Jake J," and who created a Yelp profile with the sole intent of harassing customers with negative experiences (they have 0 reviews and no Yelp friends).

"Dear Emma C.
Your reviews on Yelp are some of the most ridiculous I have ever read. I'm actually surprised they are even allowed to be posted as they come across as borderline racist. I have been a server for 15years and can handle a ton of criticism, it's part of the job. I cannot, however, tolerate your blatant # ramblings.

You also mention that Smoque BBQ is worth trying, but warn fellow Yelpers that if you drive a"nice car"you might think twice about trying this restaurant. Yes, parking is difficult in that"working class"neighborhood, but is it fair to scare people away from trying a local, independant, neighborhood bbq joint because you were uncomfortable where you parked? I don't think the price of the car you drive is relevant to a Yelp review. Speaking of the"working class", your review of Zed 51 refers to the servers as being"working class"and I cannot even fathom what you might be insinuating. You even mention in some review that your dining partner is some nyc account executive and is therefore an expert on fine dining. Really? You clearly try to come across as this" I tell it like it is"wanna be - foodie - personality - voice, but no one really is listening to you. It's so bad, it's"barfable"!" — 2) Here is how one of the owners has responded:

My name is Barry Sorkin and I am one of Smoque's owners. I am also the person who has managed our Yelp page for the entire time that we've been in business. I am the only person who has access to Smoque's Yelp account and the only person who is authorized to respond to a customer through Yelp or any other social media platform. So I can tell you a couple of things with absolute certainty:

1. I did not write or send the message that you received.
2. No Smoque employee was authorized to write or send a message to you under Smoque's user name or any other.
3. Smoque did not contact Yelp to have either your initial review or the update from a month ago removed. Yelp has its own methodology for scanning and filtering out certain reviews, but they don't share the algorithm with anyone.
4. If any employee of Smoque were found to have sent such a message, we would deal with them very severely.

We take great pride in how we treat and interact with our customers and it is not acceptable for any employee to undermine our service philosophy, even if they do it anonymously or under a pseudonym. So obviously, I would like to get to the bottom of this. I read the email text that you provided several times over looking for clues. Not only, did I not see anything that would suggest who it might be, I didn't see anything that indicated that this person had any past or present affiliation with Smoque at all. If there is some other piece of information you have that led you to believe that this was a Smoque employee, please let me know so that we can address it on our end. — 3) My response (shortened to fit)
Thank you for your response. I received a message from Yelp that detailed that someone insinuated that it "failed to reflect a unique new experience with the business."

I understand that you have been running the Smoque page, but I am not sure if you are a Yelper yourself/familiar with the Yelp community. I have been a part of this community since 2010 and have written numerous reviews and connected with many Yelpers since. It is well-known in the community that Yelpers do not attack one another for their negative or positive reviews. Yelpers are here because they want to help one another and share their unique experiences. Whenever Yelpers have been attacked, it is by someone part of the business that received a negative review or sometimes, unfortunately, even by the owner itself.

As a Yelper, there are glaring holes that point to this person being affiliated with Smoque. This person has created a new account, has not posted any reviews prior to the attack or after, and has no Yelp friends. In sum, they have no Yelp footprint; they are not part of the Yelp community. Additionally, this user has tipped off that they are and have been deeply involved in the restaurant industry, by serving "15+ years as a server." I am confident that almost all Yelpers would agree that this person's message, information, and mannerism does not describe a Yelper. For those of us who have been attacked in this manner, it has always reflected someone who is affiliated with the business.

Here is a link to the message sender's page: http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=nC_uNMi84wwNo8z85EiLjw

Attorneys look to motive and incentive. Yelpers have no motive or incentive to attack one another for taking the time out of their day to help others by sharing their unique experiences. Further, in the message, the user sends very specific details about Smoque that a mere Yelp user — who already would not attack another user — would not likely include, such as: "is it fair to scare people away from trying a local, independant, neighborhood bbq joint."

Yelpers would not think that one mediocre review (it was not even a 1 star review) would "scare" others away, especially when Smoque maintains a high overall review. In addition, Yelpers DO NOT then continue to scour through other Yelpers history of reviews only to attack and twist them in a penultimate message.

Further, a former employee would have little to no incentive to defend Smoque vehemently. The bottom line is that neither a Yelper part of this community nor a former employee has any incentive to attack another Yelper. If a Yelper disagreed, they ignore the review or do not up-vote it. Yelpers do not attack one another for their experiences, and if you ask any Yelper, they will agree. Yelp has a strong community camaraderie.

I truly believe that Yelp is a non reliable company. I read some restaurant reviews as 5 star and the restaurant did not even deserve one star. I noticed that some reviews (good ones) are removed and other bad reviews are still posted even when they are from
fake names and unidentified persons. I truly believe that Yelp will deal with plenty of lawsuits and, no matter what they do, will become known as not reliable place, if it is not yet known like that.

I'm not entirely sure if Yelp.com qualifies as an outright scam, in the traditional sense, but at the very least they're not what they say they are and they do NOT do what they claim to do; not even close. For instance, if you were a first time, or casual user of Yelp.com, and you wished to see our Salon's reviews, you might come to believe that our business gets nothing but bad reviews, because that's what you are being shown when you first visit the Yelp.com site. However, do a bit of checking around and you'll find out a few more things. One, those "bad" reviews are all, over 2 years old, and yet they still feature on the first page; more than that, bad reviews are the only ones listed on the first page. Two, the good, positive reviews far, far outnumber the bad ones, but Yelp.com doesn't make it easy for consumers to find them: we are not clients of Yelp, so we get mistreated until we have no choice but to advertise with them. They are absolutely crooked and they're working very hard at making other, life-long crooks look decent by comparison. Yelp.com needs to be reported. If the FTC can't get them, I'm sure the feds can get them for racketeering.

THIS phone message, below, shows how dishonest YELP is! I have NO 'manager' on YELP ... and all my reviews are positive (including two that were removed as 'suspicious', even though all are from real and actual happy customers).

""Hi Lee this is Ida calling from yelp. I am managing your listing on yelp and wanted to talk to you about that contract issues on your five Star reviews due to recent reviews and also had some suggestions about your listing. Give me a call my number is [protected]. Again this is Howard at h-u-h(?) calling from yelp. My number is [protected]. Thank you." "

There is something very weird about YELP and how they do things. I had heard bad things about them ... and now I can see they are true. I wonder if one can leave a review on YELP about what we think OF YELP?

I never heard about the website www.guterman.yelp.ca before, but the owner started to charge me. I was furious and searched for the contact info, but the owner didn’t provide it on the website. I have no idea what to do now, but I want my money back. Also maybe someone has any ideas how to stop these fraudulent charges. Please, share your views and post comments. It will be really helpful for me.

Reviews or complaints are filtered and removed if the business owner don't like.
The excuse is violations of their guidelines but I cut and pasted a review from Odana Hills Dental and posted it on Dr. Zietz page and it was rejected. Question: How can this review be within the guidelines for one dentist but not for Dr. Zietz?

I have been attempting to get Yelp to remove the Guitarsmith Custom Guitar site, to no avail. Guitarsmith has moved 2 years ago, all the information is incorrect, and you might think that a company like Yelp might check to see if there's a business there, or try calling the phone number. If a client were to use the info on the site, they would find an empty building, or another business there. Also, I have requested that they remove a libelous, slanderous review that was posted almost 2 years AFTER Guitarsmith had moved, not to mention the fact they Guitarsmith does not engage in any retail or public services, so this site shouldn't even be listed... to make it simple Yelp, you are giving out bad info to people about a business that doesn't even exist. And allow reviews that never happened, from people that can't be contacted or for that matter, even exist. I'm starting to see why people hate Yelp, and maybe it's time for a class action lawsuit.

I am listed on Yelp as small retail business. I had all five star reviews for atleast one year besides 2 bad ones and thats when Sales rep from Yelp.com called me to buy their advertising package for $ 300 a month. I refused to pay as that is too much for a small business.
After a month I see few more 5 star reviews which were filtered by yelp but those 2 bad ones still stayed there.
Every time I get a 5 star, next day it would get filtered out. Now its so bad, I see one of my 5 star review which was there for atleast 1 year also got filtered out.
They are running a scam out there, if you dont pay, you dont see 5 stars on ur page..

Yelp advertising promised to display reviews from our customers. They lied. Yelp has displayed only one good review, and one bad review. Ten excellent reviews had been "filtered" (their term for not displaying customer comments). With 10 excellent, 1 good reviews and only one bad we would have been rated 5 stars. Instead they are rating us at 2 stars. This is hurting our business.
I have written to the management and no one replied.

Isaac Oak, CEO
Designed to Fit Kitchen & Bath
Fremont, CA

Yelp contacted me to advertise I said no. Within three months my reviews were all filtered and what few negative reviews here were are left on. Every time a customer puts a good review on my business they remove it to the filtered area. They called again to ask about advertising I expressed my concerns the woman told me maybe I should advertise and see what happens. This company is trying to extort money for leaving good reviews. They need to be stopped. I will be contacting an attorney it as a small business money iSight I ope this will help

Yelp claims that it is "real people, real reviews" — they are only true when Yelp likes them, or Yelp has gotten advertisement income. When a friend complained to me that yelp filtered / picked and chose reviews it liked, I was skeptical. Turned out he was truthful.

We found this 5 star rated electrician in Sacramento. He is on the top of the list. Turned out he was overpriced and not that great. We gave up working with him. But while searching further, I found another electrician who has probably 10+ genuine, good reviews. All of them got filtered out. I guessed he refused to advertise on Yelp.

I recently am fighting the plastic bags bans and bag fee throughout California. There is a witch hunt going on making these thin plastic bags the greatest evil on earth, though they were cheap to make; hence take less resources. Many of us use them as trash bags which are thinner than the "formal" trash bags, and for doggie waste. Many were brought back to stores to be recycled. And the 10c per bag fee imposed on ALL retailers turned customers away. Folks like me have boycott shopping (discretionary shopping) since SF imposed the fee on 10/1/12. Yelp did not like my "talk / discussion", and my blog "repealbagfee. blogspot.com". So it suspended my "talk privilege".

I thought this country guarantees free speech. The greenies can write all kind of nasty comments on me. Yelp was okay with that. But when I called for civic activism in a civil manner, Yelp was not happy, for I stood on the way of law makers and greenies, the politically correct side.

Actually, Tripadvisor has the same problem, too. Tripadvisor deleted reviewers comments on bed bugs (!) in some hotel. And Tripadvisor's major source of income is from advertising. No wonder. Checked out reviews on Yelp on Tripadvisor.

I guess all this is understandable — they are all corporations. And law makers — aren't any better.
So, take what you read on Yelp and Tripadvisor with a grain of salt, and cross-check on each other website that the hotels are free of bed bugs... Our friends stayed in one in Japan. It was — full of bed bugs. When they complained to the inn keeper, she said "that room too..."

Small Business Owner here and I'm here to tell you Yelp is the worst! ONLINE EXTORTION! Had a couple good reviews on yelp months back but the yelp listings was on the 9th or 10th page on google organically. Got a negative review and then all my good reviews... about 29 got somehow "filtered" so that my potenial customers only see the negative review... this negative review is now on the FIRST page of google in searching our particular catagory online... once that review went live the sales folks at yelp kept calling and implied if I paid that somehow my good reviews may re-apper. They tell me that a customer has the right to say negative things which is true but my clients that have posted good reviews have a right to have them seen as well! Yelp tells me that they have no control over the "filter" seems odd that none of my good reviews can be seen and the only bad one can... NOT FAIR!
YELP IS A COMPLETE RIP OFF... no other review site filters... you get the good with the bad... google local... angies list, service majic, home pro they all post both the good and the bad... IF you are a small business owner... never register with yelp.

Something consumers should know about the yelp extortion: the lawsuits made to yelp.com are they back again in 2013? Beware of false yelp reviews! On small businesses. Go to pixsym.com/yelp-extortion for your self a disclaimer, on this post contains quite a bit of personal conjecture. Online reputation management for small businesses is one of my personal passions. Managing a company that helps businesses utilize new media successfully is something I really take pride in. The thought of review sites taking advantage of user generated content to eek extra cash out of already-tapped small businesses really (And I mean really) irks me.

October of 2011 a class-action lawsuit against yelp claiming that they were removing negative reviews in exchange for advertising was dismissed with prejudice (Meaning they cannot be sued again for the same reason). It s now january of 2012 and already it seems the complaints of extortion are not going away; in 2013 instead they appear to be growing more frequent in numbers as awareness has risen that something fishy could be going on at yelp.
As I come across blogs that talk about yelp, a quick scroll down the page to the comment area brings forth a slew of business owners claiming that yelp is still filtering reviews based on whether they advertise. Here are a few places to read recent comments:

An article that started out talking about yelp s review filter lives on in the comments with many angry small business owners.

The we hate yelp facebook group exposes concerns from users and business owners alike
If yelp, is in fact, doing everything on the up and up, they are still facing quite a predicament. On one hand they don t want fake reviews to cause consumers to distrust them and on the other hand they don t want businesses and their reviewers to distrust how they handle their reviews. And in the mean time... Thousands of people each day are making buying decisions based upon the visible reviews on yelp.
As a business owner, what has been your experience with yelp? Good? Bad? Indifferent?
Let s talk about it in the comments below...
I received one bad review on yelp. From a customer that kept demanding a $500 item they did not pay for (After I had already given them several free gifts.) subsequently, yelp removed every single good review I have... But left this nasty review. According to their supposed filter system... This bad reviewer with no other reviews, no friends, and no image... Should also be removed, eh? Several of the positive reviews I received were from verified yelp members... Who even posted pictures of the events I photographed! Yelp still removed them. So now, rather than 12 good reviews and 1 bad... I have this one hovering nasty review with 1 star. When my good reviews started disappearing is when they started calling twice a week to hit me up for advertising. Again, the claim that they could have my filtered reviews looked at to make sure they were valid and restored. This is how they extort money out of us?!
Samara hart

Jessica, your frustrations mimic that of so many. Your story is yet further proof that yelp s review filter is hurting far more than it s helping. Whether yelp is manually or algorithmically hiding reviews, it s a disgrace.
Daniel negrea

Same story for me.. Refused their advertising and in 2 weeks
All my reviews are gone..:)

Untrue statements made on http://yelp.com toward jd lawn care service by joe kristufek from westmont, il. Only to bash and slander their business becouse of a late fee charge that was issued to joe k. For not paying his bill on time by the due date.

This site is a joke.. This is
Exactly what I posted on my yelp business page:
Let s forget about me for a second and talk about the site
You viewing right now. Just do a search any search engine for yelp
Extortion before you decide what business should you go with.

Thank you

Related posts
How yelp s review filter plays games with business reputations

Business owners you shouldn't pay for this site. You can get a free listing and your clients can still leave you a review. Don't sign a contract! They got me, my contract is almost up thank goodness! You can pretty much get the same results without paying them!

Here's the thing about yelp - great user experience and great, honest reviews. I used to live by them. Then, I tried to help my mom set up an account for her business. She got a bunch of 5-star reviews from her clients. As a business owner, she was thrilled to see her yelp page (And thus website) showing super high in google searches for offers in her area. Thrilled, of course, until yelp filtered every single review. Not just 1 or 2, but all 6 of the 5-star reviews her diligent customers left. : (Try contacting their support to ask them questions about this kind of thing. First, try *finding* their support! It doesn't really exist. They'll give you a canned response talking about why they filter reviews. Yes, I know that scammers will try anything to get their businesses up high in the ranks. But 6 different reviews from real people my mom shakes hands with every day? I don't think so.

I've since learned that is a pretty common and very sleazy yelp practice to make you pay for additional services. My mom can't afford that and why should she? With word of mouth, her business was doing great. Just wish yelp would help me fix her page, and it makes me wonder how many other businesses have low or non-existent reviews because of all this.

So yeah. Long story short, I don't trust their review filter process at all anymore. : (sad, because I know I personally put a lot of time and effort into my reviews.

I think too much of the time, Yelp is more about the reviewer than the business being reviewed. While it can be helpful for gathering info on a restaurant, I leave it at that, and then use additional sites to supplement Yelp. I just don't find it very helpful.

We believe that Yelp is rigging their system to filter out great reviews on businesses that do not advertise through them.  The salsesperson calls us everyday to advertise but since we did not advertise with Yelp, we noticed all of our 5 stars reviews were filtered out.  We wrote to them to inquire about the only negative review and ask that they remove it since it was an attempt from a questionable legitimate client.  We expressed our concerns about the truthfulness of this review since we never had such a client.
We have flagged this questionable review and asked that Yelp investigate and after a week we got no response.  We e-mailed the company again to inquire about removing this fraudulent negative review.   We got no response from them, however we got 5 calls from their advertisement department asking us to advertise with them and we can get our company to top spot.  

We logged into Yelp and now found that all our 5 Stars  were filtered out.  Since we can't get a hold of the people at Yelp,  we expressed our concerns with the advertising person from Yelp.  She told us it's not her department but she believed that Yelp has any algorithm that filters out certain reviews.  We believe that Yelp is using their service to force businesses to advertise with them and filter out 5 Star reviews on businesses that don't advertise with Yelp.  It is fraud and we urge all victims to report to BBB or call FTC [protected].

Yelp.com deletes legitimate reviews 4 a fee. Yelp is a disservice to consumers because U can't trust the legitimacy of any review. Bad reviews R deleted if a company pays a fee, even if the reviews R honest and real. Apparently Companies that pay a protecting service don't have to worry about getting bad reviews. So whats the point of using Yelp if U can never know whats real or not be able to see what has been blocked?

As an elite member of yelp from April 2011 to March 2012, the website encouraged me to post my real first name and real photos.
When I was being harassed by a gang of yelpers and wrote to yelps headquarters, I was sent a no reply email, that the yelp community polices itself.
Later yelp closed my account because obviously I complained too much about the people that were harassing me.
I never violated yelps terms of service, and yet, yelp sent me a letter claiming that I had 2 accounts and that was a TOS violation and they were closing my account with 200 reviews.
Marvin and Felix, obviously made up names of yelp headquarters employees, never really checked into the validity of this and simply push buttons with no due diligence to what is really taking place on this website.
A month later my photos and name were place on a tmblr page in a very negative way.
See below proof of harassment.
The member has been flagged more than any member I have seen. Yet her account is not closed.
I have never even had a facebook page, for the reason that I do not want my full legal name and photos on the internet
This can impact my career and I am not sure where my photos, and name, which were obviously stolen from yelp, will end up next.
Yelp does not consider this, nor take responsibility.
Felix and Marvin from HQ, are the most incompetent employees.