Yelp.com review: Online scam 88

Our story is the same as everyone else's. We have devoted yet another website to help business owners and frustrated comsumers to leave their message - SaveUsFromYelp.com - Post your complaints (or compliments if you must) about Yelp

Having trouble with their review policy. They seem to filter reviews that are legitimate.

This site has consistently filtered or removed positive reviews on this business. Of course, it appears they have flagged this site for unknown reasons and it will automatically remove positive reviews. Please note that poster "Pokerbunny" states that she works for Google, and I can't help but wonder if this has anything to due with it. I wonder if Google is aware of what their employees are doing?

Well, there has been a lot of publicity, negative almost all of it lately, about Yelp and that the fix is in. If you advertise there, your reviews are good, if you decline, the magic filter makes you a hero. Well, before the bad publicity came to light, I trusted them on a stereo store that I threw a LOT of money at, based on the Yelp reviews. Well after getting the rig home, and after paying about 4k on digital upgrades, i went back to Yelp reviews to see why everybody was so thrilled, and after i looked at the all but hidden filter bar, i see that there were more negative reviews that were filtered out than there were positive that were posted. This is fraudulent and dishonest, and I will never visit Yelp again, and truly hope that somebody instigates a law suit. They say they have a secret algorithm that is proprietary and refuse to give their formula. Well, from a consumer standpoint, when there are 18 reviews, 5 positive, 12 negative and one rather neutral, all the positive show, along with the neutral, but the negatives are all hidden, or rather, filtered. SCAM, so the so called service is based on revenue, not consumer opinion. So yes, after I spent beaucoup dollars on electronics, I spent ample more to fix the f'ups that the inferior, recommended store provided, while the negatives that would have made me skeptical were hidden from view. Yelp is shi+ and dead to me, period. Never again will I even look.

My company has 7 5-star reviews. Every one of them is filtered out. Yelp sucks!

Yelp is extrosion. If you don't pay them (sponsor) they hide the positives reviews.

Yelp is truly the most biased and deceptive review company I have ever seen. They keep filtering my good reviews and leaving the negative up for all to see. Why? Yup, you guessed it, I don't pay their extortion fees.

Please join my fight against yelp and like my page at http://www.facebook.com/yelpisafraud

Together we just might be able to make a difference, even if it is a small difference.

I am complaining against YELP for filtering out my review about my physical therapist who I recently rated five stars and provided positive comments about him.

I just completed three months of physical therapy and was very pleased with his services. I highly recommended his services to anyone who wants or needs an outstanding physical therapist.

After a few days, my comments were removed from the business page and it was in the filtered section. I noticed that they filtered 9 positive reviews about the same physical therapist and these comments were posted this year. YELP’s website justified filtering these reviews, stating that they wanted to be sure that only real reviews remain on the business page. They further stated that this was their way of weeding out the fake reviews. My review was certainly not a fake one. It was based on my true experience of the services I received.

What gives YELP staff the right to decide which comments are real or fake and which comments should remain on the business page or filtered out. All of the comments that were filtered out appear to be honest and real comments. There was nothing in them that was disrespectful or nefarious.

The comments that people posted should not be removed from the business page unless they are very offensive. If that is the case, YELP should notify the reviewer and inform them of this.

I just, you know, read how Yelp works. I get it. You obviously don't.

In my experience they're deleting my 5-star reviews from businesses not willing to pay their extortion fees. I have yelped since 2006, with a family photo as my avatar. I have 10 reviews, ranging from 1 to 5 stars. The last review I wrote didn't show up on the business' page and though I couldn't get to any real human about WHY, I reviewed their cheesy video about why they filter. Today I went on to re-visit a review and follow-up review that I posted in 2010/2011. SUDDENLY this 2 year old review was removed from their page! I talked to the salon owner and she said they're contacted at least weekly if not twice a week by yelp reps trying to scam them to pay to make their good reviews show up. This business has 39 reviews showing when you pull up their page, with an aggregate 4 star rating. They now have 118 filtered reviews, all but 8 of which are 4 or 5 star reviews. I have yelped my last yelp. What a freaking mafia scam.

I had a yelp saleman come and try to sell me ads. but I said no and then alll my good reviews were filtered and only bad review would be allowed to be posted. I only have 5 showing reviews and over 25 filtered 5 star reviews. many by people with many reviews. yelp is not fair. if you want a good yelp score buy their ads and you can get it.in the last picture you see the bad reviews and that 25 filtered reviews. yelp is full of bs. if you do not buy ads you get blacklisted

LOL Libbybstrd

Your handle says everything ;) Yelp are a scam company and their reps love telling you "either pay us or we will destroy your online reputation" The BBB won't do anything as in their words "you are actually told pay up or suffer the consequences" It seems that because Yelps reps tell the truth that it's OK to destroy any online company that won't pay their mafia protection money!

Yelp is the poorest reviews online site there is out there. they get paid to promote bigger pockets. while they eat up the little man by posting only the negative reviews about them and none of the positive. good reason they are being sued for fraud! yelp>com cant trust anything they post. they take buy outs and it all over the internet just look them up. say your jo blow auto motive and someone post 1 negative comment about you the next thing you see in valvoline's auto motive being sponsored on your ratings page. I feel they should be banned themselves for killing the little man.

YELP Own Review. Please Post Negative Review About YELP.So We The People Can Make The Change.

http://www.yelp.com/writeareview/biz/4kMBvIEWPxWkWKFN__8SxQ?return_url=%2Fbiz%2F4kMBvIEWPxWkWKFN__8SxQ

http://yelp-sucks.com/tell-your-yelp-story/#comment-1754

At my shop All the negative post are posted on the main web page and 47 positive post deleted into the Filter ? YELP discriminating ? My request to YELP is either post all post on the main page or move all post to the Filter either/or but not in between. YELP is damaging honest shop when competitors or someone else that never had any transaction with our shop can post negative review without YELP verifying the content if it is true ? Also YELP own review main page post doesn't have any Filter, why ? Hope YELP will correct all review to satisfy all shop owners and honest customers who had transactions with same shop. YELP should post time limit after one year YELP should delete older post due to changes in the economy and Industry employee which changed. I hope YELP will change their tactic.

Yelp.com an unreliable source for reviews.
Yelp.com would not post my good review about a prosthodontist who undertook my complicated dental case and restored the health of my jaw bone, teeth and gums. After the first time I asked for an explanation, they hide my review as a filtered one. When I emailed CEO Jeremy S. to ask why was my review hidden as a filter, and that I would send him my dental records to prove that I am the appreciated dentist’s patient. He ignored my inquiry, even after resending my email three more times. I reported this to my dentist. His response was, his other patients that have good reviews have the same complaint. Yelp.com only posted one good review to make it look fair in contrast to the one bad review that is posted, then their sales people call the doctor to sell advertising with the promise to delete the bad review.

I personnally listened to a conversation between my employer and someone from yelp who told him the if he paid $400.00 per month the bad reviews would be erased after 24 hours, likewise if he did not pay the good reviews would disappear after 24 hours. I have tested both of these threats.

Yelp this a question for you. I am not a member, your fees are to high price for me. I am a small business owner. My question is: when my customers post a review especially a good review, WHY do you filter ALL good recent reviews and keep all BAD, dated back as far as 2008 up front posts? I sometimes think that you do like some business and this why you do this? My business is a family, small operated business we have owned and operated for over 32 years. We take a lot of pride in our profession. I feel we are treated like ### on your site. Do you think you could post more recent reviews on our site? LOL I know the impact you have on big and small business's with your site and your site is not doing my business good what so ever! Thank You for your time
Respectfully Linda Ghilarducci Owner Italian Affair Restaurant, Santa Rosa, Ca

Yelp is a greedy, hateful business which is like a bunch of high school girls who are super mad because they didn't make cheerleader and can't get any dates. They choose businesses in industries that they hate (jealous of) and allow only negative reviewes in and no postive reviews. This company is hurting the economy because it is hurting many businesses. There needs to be many, many lawsuits against this company. Sue them if they have "filtered" out your positive reviews.

i was disappointed in la pensione hyotel in san diego, the rooms were small and therearent any amenities there, there was no coffeepot or iron and ironing board in the room, also there was no computer in the executive room to print your tickets for your trip home . disappointed traveler from indiana.

Yelp only leave bad reviews unless businesses paid them a lot of money to put only good review. People only have time to put review when they are upset. People doesn't know the some businesses paid them to only leave good review. Yelp is a bunch thief. They can ruin small businesses . They should have site where we can make complaint against them.

Yelp reviews
Respectfully i like yelp.com - but what they do is ridiculous. Missleading and fake reviews click on the 15 filtered reviews and see all the 5 star reviews. The people that leave 1 star reviews click on their name and see how many stores they visit and how many of them are 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 reviews and you will notice that these people are never thankful for anything.
And yelp contacted us 3 times asking for money to pay for their website and than they will remove the 1 star reviews and if the company does not pay them they will display only the 1 star reviews.. How typical... If you cannot make money for real than why you will display only the one star reviews.
Run real websites and not be beggars of money because you guys look like donkeys..
This comment will be displayed on all the websites about yelp.com

The first and only review that I ever posted to Yelp was one on a terrible auto repair company that did work on my car. My review was immediately filtered and when I contacted Yelp by email to inquire about the filtering process they only gave me that lame excuse about automatic filtering. I can definitely see how Yelp's way of doing business can hurt an honest businessman, but one consolation for me is that the nasty auto repair owner whom I did business with possibly had to pay $300. to have my negative review of his company filtered out...so in the long run his bad service still cost him. As for me, now that I clearly see that Yelp is a fraud I will never click on to read their reviews or allow them to send me emails..they get nothing from me!

Yelp is extorsion! we have had 13 legit reviews from real customers of our business. once the yelp advertising guy started calling and looking for our monthly $320.00 our reviews went to 1 star! for years we have had a a+ rating with bbb and have thousands of happy customers!

We are having our attourney wirte a cease and assist letter to have our company removed from yelp and to get them to stop harassing phone calls!

Yelp is a scam!

They are putting honest family companies out of business with their online illegal extortion scam!

I used a Great Mobile detail (My Detail Guy's)service in the Dallas area, I posted a good review saying that they were awesome. I also posted a good restaurant as well as a motorcycle shop that took my money and ran. My reviews were not posted, and worse yet they were flagged as not recommended as reliable. The same detail service had a bad review that I now know after using the service 3 separate times had to be some sort of personal grudge. I found none of what they complained about to be valid. They have an automated system for making appointments as well as sending email confirmations and reminders. The bad review said:they forgot to write it down and showed up on the wrong day? Did they not get the automatic emails and reminders like I did all 3 times I used the service? The bad review said many things that simply were in no way valid. I used the service 3 times in 3 months. They were professional and did a great job. they were on time and kept in contact with me both on phone as well as email regarding my service. I was sent a Christmas card with a coupon inside for 20 off my next service. I am upset my good reviews don't make the cut. Good and bad the public needs to know all that is said, not just what they feel they want to post. I bet the bad review about the bike shop did not make the cut either. Makes you wonder if it is like the BBB and they pay for a good rating. I will use this service and find it a sham that others may pass them by due to a bad review. I figure it is some personal grudge or one of the business owners Ex employees or ex girlfriends. How does yelp stop that practice.

That is fantastic news! I was wondering if a lawsuit was going on. Do you know how to join the suit or support it? I hope a good lawsuit will encourage Yelp to become a legitimate and helpful service (which they definitely could be if they were operating with that goal in mind).

Dr. Joshua McAdams that works at Dr. Miles eye center in Showlow, Arizona already knew about my previous eye surgeries, 6 in all. But for some mysterious reason he pressed very hard on that same eye 2 times damaging it to the point of having to have surgery again to correct what he damaged and he would NOT take responsibility for it. Also, he provides incorrect medical information.

http://www.marinatimes.com/2014/04/with-extortion-style-ad-sales-yelp-is-barking-up-the-wrong-tree/

So, why do Yelp hide some reviews and doesn't take some ratings into account? The reviews are "less trustworthy"
Why some reviews seem less trustworthy to Yelp? They might have invented their own blah logic to fool people. But it seems very very very (I could add a few more) possible that money is involved.

I took a sample of 80 businesses, 20 of them real big ones and the others medium to small businesses. (All data as of May 13, 2014 12 noon EST)
for the 20 big businesses, there are a total of 1552 reviews that got removed and only 35 of them were 4* or 5*, only 93 of the are 3* or better. That means 94% of the removed reviews were the so-called bad reviews.

Now, talking about level of activity. Out of the 93 'good' reviews (3* or better), 40 of them were written by a reviewer with just 1 review. So, understandable that they might be one-time trolls. Now, out of the 1459 'bad' reviews, 1307 reviews were by reviewers with more than 15 reviews. Level of activity, huh? Now, take the level of activity in the 'good' reviews that did not get removed - only about 30% reviewers had more than 5 reviews

Yelp may keep on bulls**ting some people, but they will not be able to fool everyone.

I can tell you one thing about yelp.com if they allow misleading and or lies about a business by someone who makes a comment to hurt a business they are liable and from my own experience of a mean and nasty customer I can say that customer went to yelp, trip adviser and anywhere else he could write to try to hurt that business, as my experience and the managers experience was to contact yelp.com and make a complaint as we had 3 witness re this lunitic and what he was saying in his comment re the business and employees were a lie and its sad that someone like him could get away with degrading good employees and a business over him not being able to bully anyone into giving him anything free. This is what a lot of people do in order to try to get something free, vent, etc. If yelp.com allows such, then Yelp.com should be liable for their part in allowing what they dont know is or false statements and at some point someone is going to challenge this and land them in multiple lawsuits.

They hide positive reviews and redirect search to paying client

This is exactly the experience that I have had with Yelp. I would love it if Yelp would let people write reviews about THEIR business - after all, fair is fair. However I notice the cowards conveniently block any access to find and review them. I would give them 0 stars based on their practice of hiding positive reviews and only displaying negative reviews. In my mind this comes very close to libel and slander. Every person in the world knows that you can't please everyone all of the time - and there are those people if they were given a million dollars would complain that it came in a paper sack! THOSE are the types of people who write reviews on Yelp, and Yelp has promoted itself as giving honest reviews about businesses. Yelp, you are NOT doing your job, and you should be held accountable.

t am the direct sufferer of the biased false revues of some people who tries to harm my business specially the guy who has similar business like mine tells his customers to put very bad revues about my business it ruined my reputation even after doing this, these yelp people calls me and tells me that if I pay them they can hide these

I agree 100% with this comment I am the exact sufferer of this crappy yelp site they ruined my business my customers after seeing these negative comments they post their comments but this yelp wont post it on their website and you cant complain to them

this is the exact experience I have my rival next door tries to run me out of business and this yelp helps them all the sufferer should get together and sue this yelp

I had a bar and grill and was contacted by Yelp. They told me that if I advertised with then, they could make my reviews look better and delete the bad ones.
I told them to get lost. Yelp is a scam

Yelp is advertising my real business website under a different business name opened by a fraudulent person. The business is not remotely related and has not been in business in years, the name of the businesses are nothing alike in company or activities and they have my website and first and last name advertised under this other company.
I have only gotten them to remove my home address and phone number from the site but they continue to attach my full name and and my companies website to this fake page.

The irony is that I have written, true, honest and thorough reviews of an old apt buildings management style, a retail store and a printing company which followed the Yelp.com guidelines and they have all been removed/hidden from yelp. Yes, they do get paid for this, THEY call it yelp "advertising" with them and I know this first had as my aunt is an CPA and one of her clients is a restaurant where even when doing badly would not take her advice to cut the $600 expense for yelp and they explained they cannot because it is how the only way to keep good reviews visible. Another irony is that the restaurant is AMAZING. Yelp is living off trolls doing their job and business owners being fearful. Caching!$

I have read, like many others, the complaints against Yelp.com and am well aware that its because of these practices that yelp has become one of the top two least credible large-scale .coms on the internet today. Incredibly they ignore this due to the substantial traffic they had which is basically related to food, which is where they should be - food only.

Since my personal issue I have discussed this with all of my close firings and I can honestly say NOT A SINGLE PERSON considered it a credible site and most don't use it for anything anymore with exception of a restaurant they cant find on OpenTable. B

Basically Yelp.com is Pinterest of food pics. Sad they have let it get this bad.

Today discovered YELP not fair. Kept continuously making me verify myself until had to give up without posting. Hid another of my reviews citing "not important." The only purpose I see is to control ratings. I have relied on & attributed to yelp for a very long time. Feeling like a fool now. Yelp won't let you rate them. Weird

Yelp is about advertising for their businesses, if you unsubscribe to spam, they kill you off. My recommendation, avoid Yelp. I was even threatened with retaliatory actions by Yelp and employees against my business.

Used yelp a very long, today discovered not fair. Kept continuously making me verify myself until had to give up without posting. Hid another of my reviews citing "not important." The only purpose I see is to control ratings. I have relied on & attributed to yelp for a very long time. Feeling like a fool now. Yelp won't let you rate them. Weird.

"YELP" should be put in jail!