I am another Victim of Yelp bullies. I recently I gave one cafe 2 stars. But a Yelp employee likes that cafe so he kept removing my ad and threatened me. When I reposted my 2 star opinion the clowns at yelp deleted my whole account. So I decided to make a website to help victims of Yelp to file complaints with the government like FTC and BBB and the Attorney Generals office.

www.Yelpcomplaints.wordpress.com/

http://www.Yelpcomplaints.wordpress.com/

I have a small deli opened not too long ago in S.F. I started getting many good comments from customers who were actually Yelping good reviews for my deli while having the conversation. And the next day, I could not find those reviews!!! I asked other biz owners if Yelp requires payments to get the reviews posted, no one really knows, or maybe there were hidden bribery that we were not aware of. I read Yelp reviews of other delis and restaurants in the area, and there seemed to be overly exaggerated reviews of some places by the same person! This is really not cool!
Recently they added the feature of the SFDPH information. My deli has a score of 93 and their comment on it was "High risk." I don't think there would be a score of 93 if that's the case. I called their rep to fix this problem, and no answer.
Yelp is inaccurate and overly exaggerated. For whatever reason they are doing this, they need to STOP!

Its time to take them down think about it there are companies that you can pay so they will put a review for you bad or good against any other company or its benefit which means that its not legitimate any more its not freedom of speech of real customers but an inside sabotage of companies against each other. I have a business i ask people to write good reviews if they are happy with my work and prices i see the review for a day or 2 and then its gone. but the bad ones are there to stay.They take down reviews of users that don't use then frequentley how many time do you call a plumber? locksmith? do you go to a restaurant every week or 2 weeks and write a review on each and one of them.I don't believe that 90% of the reviews are real customers unless there are people that are complaining about every little thing that happens in their life. I tried to change my information on yelp after a couple of days they put a phone number of a different locksmith company and dropped a letter from my company name so it doesn't go to my website.

All of you small business owners should flood the the Justice Department with your complaints. The more I read, the more I'm convinced Yelp is in violation of the Rico Laws....(Federal Laws regarding Organized Crime), in effect acting like a Protection Racket. All of you seem to be getting blackmailed into buying advertising or you get electronically stepped on. The Advertising sales people are their bagmen collecting your hard earned money or they will try to break your businesses until you see things their way....different methodology than traditional Protection Rackets with much the same result, you're business gets destroyed....

http://www.yelp-sucks.com

1)I am a small business owner and recently acquired my business. I have 99% 4+ reviews, however when you yelp my business the ONE review they show when you search for my business is the ONLY ONE bad review I have.
2) THE ONE bad review was written PRIOR to my acquiring the business. I have asked numerous times to have it taken down or at least not use it as the one blurb to show when searching my business. YELP has refused!!!

I had completed a positive review based on my experience with a SF Bay retail vendor and I indicated that this vendor met the same service standards of my previous vendors who were employed by the manufacturer of my product.

YELP responded with feedback indicating how my review did not meet their review/filter standards? What!!??!! Meanwhile, I'm looking at negative reviews towards this vendor by people with LITTLE or NO product knowledge. These incompetent reviews met their filter guidelines??!!?? Absurd and very damaging to a business of skilled and knowledgable professionals. I presented this case to YELP and of course they did not respond. I tried to repost again, but it seems as if they have blocked me based on my critical response. I also passed the word onto to the retailer about this matter. They were very hurt and frustrated. By the way, the vendor does have positive reviews, but why block a review based on industry standards?

YELP is a bully who may be doing good for some business, but irresponsibly can be a destructive force to many businesses out there without any stakeholder accountability.

They should be subject to a 'class action suit' for their bully tactics towards consumers and businesses as they have neglectfully devitalized the economic spirit of some of these small business 'family' operations during a difficult time in this country.

What a disgraceful organization. You should be liable for all the damage you have caused to small business in this country. As a consumer, I clearly have experienced your influence.

I hope this email sent to Yelp today explains my ongoing situation. Thanks to this site I see more of what is really going on.

YELP- Ariana

NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO SAY IN THE FUTURE THAT I DID NOT EXPLAIN THE
SITUATION WITH DOCUMENTATION TO YOUR STAFF. THIS IS A FINAL ATTEMPT TO
DOCUMENT FALSE STATEMENTS DESIGNED TO HARM MY BUSINESS BY YOUR \"REVIEWER\".
YELP DOES NOT VERIFY REVIEWS, AND SO FAR IN THIS SITUATION CANNOT PROCESS
DOCUMENTATION CONTRARY TO FALSE REVIEWS. THIS REVIEWER DAMAGES YOUR
CREDIBILITY AS WELL AS MINE. MY ATTEMPTS TO USE YOUR WEBSITE WERE NOT TO
PROMOTE MY BUSINESS BUT RATHER TO CORRECT DAMAGES DONE BY YOUR WEBSITE. IN
RESPONSE TO YOUR LAST EMAIL WHICH SAYS YOU DO NOT REMOVE REVIEWS LIGHTLY,
POSTING UNVERIFIED DAMAGING \"REVIEWS\" SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN LIGHTLY. HERE IS
DOCUMENTATION THAT SHOULD GIVE A CLEAR PICTURE OF YOUR REVIEWER, HIS
CREDIBILITY, AND HIS MOTIVATIONS. CAN YOU PROCESS IT?

Your reviewer...\"Every surface in the store is covered in \"Do not touch\"
signs.\".

REPLY---I HAVE ATTACHED SEVERAL PHOTOS OF ENTIRE SECTIONS OF CAREFULLY
FINELY FINISHED HANDCRAFTED ITEMS WHICH DO NOT HAVE DO NOT TOUCH SIGNS,
SIGNS ARE PLACED ON A MINORITY OF SPECIFIC ITEMS IN SPECIFIC AREAS SUCH AS
THE PIECE THE REVIEWER,S WIFE DAMAGED AND LIES ABOUT. PLEASE REMEMBER I
DID NOT MAKE A BIG DEAL OUT OF IT, YOUR \"REVIEWER\" HAS WITH THE EXPRESS
INTENT OF DAMAGING MY BUSINESS WITH FALSE STATEMENTS.

Your reviewer... \"My wife went and touched one of the few things that
didn\'t have a sign, a jewelry box, and the lid fell halfway off\"

REPLY--ATTACHED IS A PHOTO OF THE $185 BOX, SINCE REFINISHED, TAKING ME
CONSIDERABLE TIME, AND THE EXACT SIGN WHICH ATTEMPTED TO AVOID WHAT THIS
CUSTOMER DAMAGED. IT WAS NOT \"TOUCHING\" BUT FLINGING OFF THE LID THAT WAS
THE ISSUE. THE TOP DID NOT COME \"HALFWAY OFF\" IT FLEW OFF AND LANDED
BEHIND THE DISPLAY ON SHARP ITEMS. MY ATTEMPT TO STOP HER BEFORE SHE
FURTHER DAMAGED THE TOP BY HURRIEDLY GRABBING FOR IT BEHIND THE DISPLAY
WAS WHAT THIS \"REVIEWER\" DESCRIBES...

Your reviewer \"He yelled to tell her to not touch, and then exclaimed that
he just had to refinish the piece in the last 30 days because of customers
touching it\".

REPLY--\"TOUCHING\'\' IS NOT THE ISSUE. OVER ANIMATED CARELESSNESS RESULTING
IN BADLY MARRED SURFACES IS.

Your reviewer.. \"Sorry, it\'s the only furniture/wood products store I\'ve
ever been in where you can\'t touch anything\".

REPLY--PLEASE AGAIN REFER TO PHOTOS WHICH DOCUMENT THAT THIS STATEMENT IS
FALSE AND DAMAGING TO MY BUSINESS, WHEN IN FACT THE MAJORITY OF ITEMS CAN
BE HANDLED, AND ARE, BY COURTEOUS CUSTOMERS.

Your reviewer...\"I\'m not going to spend thousands on a chair that I can\'t
be sure is comfy\".

REPLY--ATTACHED IS ALSO A PHOTO OF A CHAIR AND SIGN ASKING CUSTOMERS TO
CHECK WITH US BEFORE SITTING \"SO FUTURE OWNER GETS AN UNSCRATCHED CHAIR\'\'.
WE SELL THESE REGULARLY TO PEOPLE WHO WANT A NEW UNSCRATCHED CHAIR. YOUR
\"REVIEWER\" DISCREDITS HIMSELF AND YOU FOR POSTING SUCH A CHILDLIKE
ASSESSMENT OF A NECESSARY BUSINESS DECISION WHICH IS EASILY PROVEN FALSE.

Your reviewer \"Save your money, this is the great PNW - there\'s plenty of
rough-finish wood products stores around. They\'re all expensive. But this
is the only one that yells at all their customers like they\'re children
(he also yelled at some other customers while we were in there).

REPLY--I AM NOT A \'\'ROUGH FINISH\" BUT RATHER A FINE FINISH GALLERY,
WORKING WITH, BUT NOT EXCLUSIVELY, NATURAL EDGE WOODS. \"THEY ARE ALL
EXPENSIVE\'\' WOULD BE REFUTED BY MY CUSTOMERS WHO FEEL WE ARE AN
EXCEPTIONAL VALUE FOR VERY GOOD QUALITY. MY PRICES ARE FAR LESS THAN URBAN
HARDWOODS AND OTHER GALLERIES WHICH CARRY SIMILAR WORK.

THERE WAS ANOTHER COUPLE IN WITH YOUR REVIEWER. THEY WERE NO PROBLEM.
THERE WERE NO OTHER PEOPLE IN AT THE TIME YOUR REVIEWER AND HIS WIFE
RUINED THE PIECE THEY DID. NO ONE ELSE WAS \"YELLED AT.\" THIS IS ANOTHER
LIE AND CAUSE SPECIFIC DAMAGE TO MY REPUTATION. IS THIS WITHIN YOUR
GUIDELINES?

Your reviewer..\"Maybe they should hire someone with people skills and
stuff the gorilla in the back room so he can turn the lathe on some new
product and shut up\".

REPLY--THIS IS A PERSONAL ATTACK. IS IT WITHIN YOUR GUIDELINES? MY \"PEOPLE
SKILLS\" ARE TO MINIMIZE DAMAGES AND IGNORE INDIVIDUALS WHO APPEAR TO BE
INTOXICATED AND HAVE DONE DAMAGE. YOUR \"REVIEWER\" WAS ALLOWED TO LEAVE AND
NOT MADE OR ASKED TO PAY FOT THE DAMAGES THEY DID.

PLEASE ALSO KNOW THE THE OTHER REVIEW FOR MY BUSINESS WHICH IS FAVORABLE
HAS FALSE INFORMATION SUCH AS US HAVING A \"LOCALS\" SALE IN OCTOBER AND ME
HAVING A CUSTOMER LIST. I HAVE NO SUCH LIST AND ALSO MAKE NO SPECIAL
EFFORTS FOR HALLOWEEN. I WOULD RATHER NOT HAVE POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS BELIEVE
SOME ARE CHARGED MORE THAN OTHERS BASED ON TIME OF YEAR AND WHERE THEY ARE
FROM. (DISCRIMINATION AND OVERCHARGING TARGETED INDIVIDUALS)

PLEASE REMOVE THIS \"REVIEW\" BY \"KS\" AS I HAVE REPEATEDLY REQUESTED. THERE
IS NO FACTUAL INFORMATION IN IT AT ALL. IF YOU ELECT TO LEAVE IT POSTED
PLEASE ADVISE WHAT ASPECT OF THE \"REVIEW\" YOU BELIEVE IS CREDIBLE.

HARVEY WINDLE
FOREST GEMS GALLERY

http://forestgems.com

I have more than 50 5 star reviews on yelp, most of them "filtered". There are 2 terrible reviews from clients who came for a consultation but did not hire me.

Those 2 reviews have been at the top of my yelp page for almost a year, and no matter how many good reviews I have received since then those reviews do not move down.

I get calls from Yelp weekly asking me to buy adverts,contracting a year at at time. When I pointed out the negative reviews that never move down the page and asked how that could happen given Yelp's "unbiased" claim the sales rep actually yelled at me and said "WE HAVE GIVEN YOU FREE ADVERTISING FOR YEARS (meaning my listing) ISN'T IT TIME YOU PAY UP!"

If that is how they get you they will never get me.

We continue to have one negative, irrelevant review posted from 08/2011 with ALL of our positive reviews filtered for whatever made up reason they can come up with. We even tried the "if you can't beat em, join em" philosophy to no avail. We believe our business has been harmed due to their unfair practices and are just plain sickened by their ability to affect us in this way. We can find no way to get our listing removed and have asked them to do so. They refuse, saying it is a public directory. What gives them the right to do this to a hard-working legitimate business??? We cannot find any way to stop them from showing up in searches on Google or Bing even when we have gone with other SEOs. The one negative revew EVER from someone we never even did any work for continues to be the only one that shows. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE??!! Warning to all small businesses:DO NOT POST A FREE LISTING FOR YOUR BUSINESS-YELP WILL SHOW YOU NO MERCY & YOU WILL HAVE NO WAY TO CONTROL OR REMOVE IT (that is, unless Yelp drives you out of business)

http://www.villageplumbinglv.com

Small business hurting. positive reviews filtered after refusing to pay for advertising. received 3 bad reviews in one day then was contacted by yelp and asked to give them money to make the reviews disappear. people who don't understand the business commenting on asinine things that should not effect their experience.

Sadly this site is poor.
They apparently get funding from negatively reviewed sites in order to favor those sites.

I did 1 comment about a restaurant that had chicken that was no longer edible.
(I am also a restraunt reviews in SF) so I pretty much know food.

I submitted my opinion in a nice way to Yelp and they refused to print it, saying " your experiehce is unlike other comments we
ve received and will not be published-- unless we receive similar."

That does it for me. I simply wanted my thinking to be heard, not to blast the place. Yelp has other guidellnes.

YELP does not work.
What I do not see anyone stating is that it goes both ways. I am sure some businesses are not being treated fair by people posting lies and on the other side the customer is not having the truth seen or heard.
YELP does not work.
I did a test. I got thrown out of YELP by doing this but in the realm of things I now know that YELP does not work.
I posted a negative review on a business, which btw deserves to be known as a business who is scamming customers out of their money; this is another story. The negative review was filtered. This business still had many stars for all the negative reviews I could see (total 16 reviews, 2 positive the rest negative and had 4 stars I believe). That was a puzzlement to me. The negative reviews all had 1 star. Of course all the negative reviews were filtered, I found that odd. I read YELP's description that doesn't help describe how they filter. I saw a postive review pop up soon after my negative one and I would venture to guess that this was the business doing this. I do know that the businesses receive an alert when a review is left. Of course the positive response appeared not filtered. Still alot of stars. I then created another account and posted another negative review, very short and sweet and had nothing offensive, etc., something that the filter shouldn't have filtered (btw my first post was just long nothing the filter should have filtered). This post too was filtered and yet this business had all the stars. Hmmm....this would mean that YELP isn't adding 2 + 2 = 4. I then sent a message to YELP asking how this business could have 6 different names that they were trying to do business under. I get a response stating that their terms and conditions were violated and the accounts terminated. This is the part that you know YELP is doing something fishy. The post that you now see for this business is a negative one from 2010 and the business now has 1 star. Hmmmmmmmm.........

I'm a fair business practices attorney and have been reading about the complaints against Yelp and Groupon for a while now. As I thought about the best way to help small businesses who felt injured by their practices it seemed that the best way to help small businesses was to make a competitor and so I founded Local Scene to create an alternative.

The goal is to create a low cost online directory which gives businesses the ability to control their image while also offering features which consumers find appealing. First we plan on allowing our members to list as many deals or specials as they want on their accounts for no charge beyond the membership fee. We also plan on allowing businesses to post professional reviews on their business listing and any other review data they wish, including twitter followers, facebook likes, and if you like your Yelp number, you could even list that. Additionally we are developing a short review system base more on business attributes rather than a arbitrary number. Also, members would be able to post messages to any customers who were following the business. Finally, we are working on a rewards system to reward consumers for shopping at small businesses rather than chains.

The primary goal of site is to promote small business and local communities to level the playing field between them and large chains. We would love to hear from small businesses owners about what they would like out of an online directory.

We have a blog at http://localscene-net.blogspot.com/. You can check it out to see what we are all about. If you like the idea, we are also running an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds and evaluate interest in the idea. http://igg.me/at/localscene/x/2589626.

I hope that I can make a site to help business who feel disaffected with Yelp or Groupon. Please let me know your feedback and if you think this is a good idea, get the word out.

http://www.localscene.net

I was forced to pay a reviewer over $1000 to get an exceptionally bad and untrue review removed. YELP would not help! Its only a matter of time before someone with an assault weapon goes postal I think. It's just not right what YELP is doing and how they're doing it! The 1st amendment never meant us to be hurt by slander and the legal system makes it prohibitively expensive to get justice.

There really aren't enough bad things that I could say about Yelp so I'll drop a brief explanation:

As a few individuals know here, I own my own business. After a good amount of debating as to whether or not to create a Yelp account due to the negative way the site has started working I decided to chance it. I log into my shit today to find out that all the reviews that were left for my business (all were 5 star positive reviews) had somehow been fucking filtered/hidden from the site.

The little video Yelps puts up to "help" you decipher what the fuck happened to your shit is an utter complete waste of time. Not only that, when I posted my URL for my business WordPress, then paid the extrea moolah to get a .com, I was told that my URL was locked and that it couldn't be changed. Good thing WordPress at least redirects to your site after you get an actual .com through them.

Nice to know this site is completely unreliable and now the equivalent to dog shit.

http://lakeshorepetclub.com

Yelp removed two separate reviews of mine. I wrote them and asked who authorized them to remove my reviews ultimately changing the opinion of the parties being reviewed and they don' t even respond to my request. I view this as a violation of my freedom of speech, especially when their web site presents them as a way to review businesses we use. This was about a Chiropractor I see while traveling through CA.

Http://Yelp.com/johnethomasdc,visalia

Yelp removed two separate reviews of mine. I wrote them and asked who authorized them to remove my reviews ultimately changing the opinion of the parties being reviewed and they don' t even respond to my request. I view this as a violation of my freedom of speech, especially when their web site presents them as a way to review businesses we use. This was about a Chiropractor I see while traveling through CA.

Http://Yelp.com/johnethomasdc,visalia

Poor engineering-no know how/lack of experience

Unleash Solar engineered and got a permit for an installation that was a wind catcher. I did a review for design errors, omissions, and code violations of which there were many. I had an second engineer review the proposed installation and there was concurrence. I contacted the building department and after much ado the building permit was revoked. The installation, if built, would have taken my roof of during a Santa Ana Wind. Much damage would have occurred to adjacent structures. The proposed construction posed an imminent threat of injury to people.

Yelp was once a respected company, but now they are charging for advertising and then filtering results in such a way that it drives the advertiser to spend more. The system is untenable and this is just the beginning of my complaint. Very disappointing Yelp!

Small business owner here. We have all 5 star (non-filtered) reviews, but Yelp is doing everything they can to keep our business at the bottom of the listings. Why?? Because we won't PAY to advertise with them! It's such a scam - wish people would STOP using this site.