YELP is a SCAM

Also if you are writing reviews you are providing Yelp free content, yet you can be sued for libel by the business (and lose) but Yelp has so far has been protected by the courts.

Heard this on a news story out of California today.

I just realized something I'm going to do. Instead of food reviews I'm going to be dropping this information in the reviews instead.

This is bullshit and unacceptable practice. Fuggum.

OP, we had the same thing happen. In fact, Yelp gave us a little "ringy dingy" as well, we were told that if we paid and advertised, those "reviews" that were distasteful, (2 of 28) they could, quick, disappear) .

M H told the Yelp caller to go ..... well, he said no thank you. So, the 2 bad reviews sit, while mysteriously the others are not there/harder to find.

YELP should be shamed. They are a SCAM, indeed.

I had the same issue. Me and my wife opened a auto repair shop beginning of last year and immediately got alot of 5 star reviews on google because were honest with people and not out to get rich (which apparently hardly keeps the lights on but I'd still rather just be honest with people). Anyways we were solicited by yelp to try their service out with a free $350 worth of advertising. I figured that should last a month and what do I have to lose! The salesman also told me that yelp is to iphone what google is to android so I thought I'd be reaching a whole new group of potential customers. Well within 15 days that $350 was used up by all these clicks and not 1 phone call. Not only that, but after I cancelled, 3 reviews that were left by customers before I even had a yelp account were deleted or hidden from public so now I have no reviews at all. Glad google still displays our reviews!

Sorry to hear they got you too OP.

Just like RipOffReport.com. A complete extortion/blackmail operation ("pay us thousands of $ and we can fix your record") that has been ruining businesses (including mine) for more than 10 years. The ex-con who owns and runs it is still living the high life, untouchable.

The fact that this extortion is allowed to continue, and lawsuits against these companies never work, is just one more sign that justice in America is DEAD.

Yelp and tripadvisor are both somewhat scams from the user end. I have had multiple occasions where I was offered free shit from an establishment for a positive review on either site.

For instance, a restaurant had a card on the table offering us a free appetizer if we showed our waitress our submitted 5 star review on yelp.. ?? So, we had not even started our experience and were asked to write a glowing review of the establishment? No thanks. Fake ass shit.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a San Francisco attorney’s request Tuesday to order Yelp to take down an online denunciation by a former client, leaving intact a California Supreme Court ruling that said the online review company can’t be ordered to remove libelous or offensive content.

A judge had found the client’s attack on San Francisco attorney Dawn Hassell to be libelous and ordered Yelp to remove it. But the state’s high court ruled in July that the removal order conflicted with a federal law that shields internet service providers from legal responsibility for statements posted by others.

[link to www.sfchronicle.com (secure)]

Oh wow! So I'm not the only one who has come across this trash then. Yay! I too have come across similar BS in real life at more than a few restaurants over the years. The freebies offered for a five star glowing review doesn't matter to me since I haven't used Yelp since the collapse of the Hostess corporation and it's parent corporation too. I was barely using Yelp back then to try to drum up some more business for the local Hostess/Wonder Bread Thrift Store my mom was working at. I haven't undone what I did on Yelp since I have long since forgotten my Yelp credentials.

Whatever you do, don’t say no to them. Try to avoid them and just keep putting them off. Otherwise they will screw you.

Yep, it’s hard to be a small business owner these days.

I tried adding this info to my business page and it lasted a day. They promptly sent me an email with this:

Hello,

We're writing to you today to let you know that some of the content you've added to the 'From the Business' section for (my business name) has been removed for violating our Content Guidelines. You can learn more about the guidelines for these sections in our Support Center:

So they can add/delete whatever they want to your business.

OP, you are right on - I had the very same experience - word needs to get out that YELP is a HUGE FRAUD!

Oh yeah, the old ‘free advertising’ bit. They’ve gotten a lot of other people with that lie too.

Yeah, a lot of us are in the same boat. I hope somehow people will find out and stop using Yelp. I have to be honest, I had no idea they were shady until this happened to me. I’d check Yelp reviews often when I was looking for something. I know most people have no idea the information there is fake.

Thanks so much for letting us know! I'm a small business owner myself and I'm furious they do this! Hope your business becomes so successful that this just becomes a distant memory!

Looks like I got a 1star from a Yelper, you POS!

Thank you, I wish you much success too!

I’m just trying to get the word out and maybe help some others.

They probably have search engines automatically scanning for particular words. Upload a pic that is of a sign: "DON'T TRUST YELP!". See how fast they pic up on that one.

From the consumer side, Yelp has been useful because they have both negative and positive reviews.

I know Yelp is more critical, so if a business looks good on Yelp and the negative reviews seem like things I don't mind or that shouldn't result in such bad reviews, I am fairly confident I've found someone I want to do business with. (To give you another example of my thinking, when I read about a product on Amazon, I go to the 1* and 2* reviews, there are always some, and decide if they're substantive or if they're fluff, like the shipping took an extra day or the credit card was declined. So I look at negative reviews but I read them independently.)

This doesn't mean Yelp is fair. But it seems there's more information content on Yelp than on most other places, in other words some other review sites are close to useless.

Last Edited by oniongrass on 01/24/2019 11:22 PM

And someone gave me red karma and called me a liar for this thread.

I’d like to tell that POS I’m not lying, and there are many on this thread with the same complaints. You calling them liars too?

You probably are a lowlife loser that works for Yelp. That’s the only kind of people that would work for a place like that. Snakes, all of them.

Gave you a Green Karma point to help counter that Red Karma point, OP.

.

Last Edited by oniongrass on 01/24/2019 11:21 PM

Did you see the response on this thread from the guy looking for a good contractor and went with one with many 5 star reviews and they were horrible?? Their bad reviews were buried because they were a paid advertiser. Now how is that good for consumers?

Yes Yelp solicits small businesses.

At my last job they called and harassed us for like a month asking us to sign up for a paid account...

I had fun fucking with the lady on the phone, everytime I'd act all interested and then 'something just came up' and have to run call back tomorrow.

Over & over & over.

Nope!! I have a picture that calls them a fraud and they haven’t flagged it yet LOL. We will see how long it stays up there.

Now that's some quality trolling. Especially from the sound of it that the Yelp caller seemed to never catch onto your trolling, DrStrangerLove69.

It's not, but also I scroll thru lots of the reviews so I probably would have seen them.

I'm just describing my own experience, and I am a more analytical user than most.

LOL!!

This is a good thing to do, oniongrass, if you have the time to do so. Not everyone has the time and/or willingness to sift through seeming thousands upon thousands of reviews that could be less than a sentence long all the way to seeming book long and exhaustive reviews.

It is infact a scam.

We tried a lot of advertising and most all of them yielded some kind of solid lead that followed through.

ALL of our prospecting customers getting ahold of us through yelp flake out and it's just a waste of time and at times, gas. They've removed our very best reviews from the most reliable sources and they did try a few times to get our money.

This and adwords are much, much too expensive anyway!

The best thing is to go out on foot with some flyers or door hangers. People like passive communication and soliciting by knocking on doors is also a waste of time and can piss off even the nicest person.

I've always had a passion in graphic design and even delved into coding my own website which is going to be up very soon. Made a logo, make some nice flyers... This all works ten times better, is cheaper, is more empowering and fulfilling.

I know it's not easy but there are so many ways. How did people do it before? Even before yellow pages lol

EIG is running all kinds of scams too. Started by a convicted stock scammer. Smart idea from a scammer invovled in stock fraud. Buying up all the hosting, raising prices and downgrading services. Cheating customers. Owning a malware removal company called Sitelock and placing malware on accounts and then charging $300 to clean.

Part of the swamp. Owners considering selling just in the last few months. Lots of dishonest business practices and fraud they've probably are scared may come up.

The swamp is all across the board. Lots of crimes in all industries i bet. Whoever is buddies with these demolib shit eaters.