Yelp for Business Owners

I too as most reviews here was conned into their advertising program but was promised that it worked similar to Homeadvisor or Thumbtack where you pay per lead. I did not receive any leads nor invoice so I just figured the ad was not generating any leads. It was however generating revenue for YELP to the tune of $1000. When I received my bank statement, I almost had a heart attack! I called customer service to be conned some more about the great exposure they were providing my company at the low low rate of $47 per click! If they come calling on you, you have been warned.

6 yrs ago we advertised and it was bad, no good customers, Yelp blows my phone with soliciting calls every day, on august I said " will look into it" to a representative and 4 months later I get a collection letter of $1000, of course Yelp will take responsibility because we are the idiots who answered their call! Yelp does not know how customer service works, is not an enthusiastic agent on the other line, customer service is about getting things done and "care" about us, the "customers". Yelp will put you in a bad financial situation if you are not be careful!

It is sad that anyone would make things worse than they already are for small business owners. They have some sort of "algorithm" that they won't disclose to anyone and can't explain how it works. But it magically highlights your negative reviews and hides your positive ones until you spend money with them. This behavior is disgusting. With their high-paid lawyers they even won a class-action law suit. Look it up. Please don't feed the internet mafia and let's put them out of business.

In a summary, Yelp business ad manager had called me and while on the phone signed me up for my company and my fathers company for the "free ad spends". Yelp sales people hounded me for many months so I thought if it was really free trial why not give it a try. I asked the manager several times if it was truly free and he assured me several times throughout the call / sign up process that they will not charge my card! Well you can guess what happened. They charged me a month after i cancelled. I am not just saying this, but i really believe the manager and their sales peoples are knowingly misleading people to sign up. There are so many similar complaints! Something needs to be done with Yelp!

I was repeatedly called by Freddy from Yelp and he left me repeated messages. When I finally answered so that I could tell him to quick calling me he was SO aggressive and persistent it was apparent they would never quit calling me. So, I signed up for a whopping 14 days and paid $275 for like 5 clicks. I asked when does the free ad money actually kick in and they said it is being used simultaneously as my ads increasing the impressions and so will basically never cover any part of your selected budget. You will always pay your selected budget. If you want to pay about $40 a click go ahead but I advise that you stay away.

Full face photo, no exception, in order to respond to reviews of our business. Most of the employees at our hotel are female, including our clerk in charge of PR. We have had instances in the past when unhappy guests have taken it too far, one girl got stalked by a man who said she overcharged him on purpose and another harassed via phone. We live in a small town, it's not hard to find out where someone lives. The response? Full photo, no exceptions. This business has no care in the world for employee safety.

My Company paid for over $250 worth of ads we got 0 calls 0 emails but on their reports for "leads" they put anyone who visited your website or used yelp to find your directions as leads 4 visits and 1 map search is not worth over 250! Do not recommend.

Yelp has a very aggressive promotion staff that never rests down from trying to convince business owners to upgrade and pay more. They wont take a "No" for an answer. But that's not the worst thing:
Anyone who want to sabotage any business can simply make up a phony profile and write a negative review on the business. They won't remove it no matter how ridiculous and unreasonable it is and you cannot do nothing but "reply" with a comment. Happened to me. It is not fair and not professional!
I seriously consider moving out of this App!

I signed up to yelp thinking it would help my business grow. They charged me 300 hundred dollars to sign up but they only produced 1 lead. The funny thing is that the lead was a free. So in reality they produced no leads for me. Now had I not been on other sites they would have got me but I'm producing a full time income off of that same 300 from other sites. Then I call them and they say that's not how we do it. If you don't deliver then you should not get paid point black. I so can't stand yelp. I will not use it nor will I be doing anymore marketing with them.

Yelp stole $397 of my money without my knowledge. I signed up for a trial after being harassed by one of their representatives who called me everyday for weeks. I agreed only to try a temporary service, discuss if I liked the service then make a decision. This was made more than clear. I'm a notary. I haven't even made $397. I charge $2 for service. These are criminals taking hard working people's money. Please do not use Yelp for any services. Google is a much better search engine. Yelp should be Called NOPE!

My business was promised an ad campaign which would run alongside my paid ad campaign. The representative went in and opted into many more "additional features" which I did not authorize. I am now working to fix it and to much dismay, Yelp has no intent on fixing fraud that occurred within their company.

Yelp for Business is a scam, IMO! They fleeced me $800 for two months. Setting an ad campaign, their rep showed no concern for my stated budget. I clearly told them I could not afford even $100/month in advertising; then I foolishly depended on them to guide me. I was a babe in the woods. If you use this service, understand very clearly what charges will be, and follow your reports closely. I paid $7 per up to fifteen clicks per day, with the clicks most often not pertaining to my specific service. Stay away from Yelp for Business ad campaigns if you are on a small budget!

I initially came to Yelp because I assumed (wrongly) that they were as reputable as other well known internet companies that shall remain anonymous. They touted their $300 in free ads, but then proceeded to (simply) charge my card $376 (a common dollar figure in reviews), and refused (after a few attempts to request) to refund the money paid for something that was not clearly explained. I was also overcharged for services I didn't authorize. STAY AWAY from yelp for paid advertising... just do their freebie!

I was tenaciously contacted by their rep, a very persuasive young lady who told me I could expect a return of $5 for every dollar spent. After accruing over $200.00 in charges, the only lead I had gotten from Yelp was a nigerian scammer. I emailed the account rep and support department to end the campaign, and they did not end it. They make you figure out how to cancel yourself. Just Plain crooks and thieves.

As a new realtor I have decided to run an ad on yelp business. In my gut, I felt this may be a bad move because it is solely based on how many "clicks and leads" your page gets. I had given the sales person a maximum of $250. After one week, I had watched barely any clicks come through and both messages I received as a "lead" were scams. After nine days of being on yelp business I had canceled only to discover they had already billed me $200 for those days. They said that the clicks were what I had paid for. There is no way to track where these clicks are coming from and it's a pure scam. I plan to tell everyone about this because it was a complete scam that drain $200 within nine days. Do not waste your money, SCAM!
I had contacted yelp to have a manager call me and it's been over a week, and I haven't heard anything. That's because they know this entire scenario is nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Ran a 8 day ad got 6 clicks cancelled the ads, at the beginning of the month they get charged my card 136 then sent my account into the negative added another 35 dollars on top of the 136! $#*! yelp small business killer

If you get a call from a Yelp agent offering a free trial of their new marketing program that will get you leades/clicks to your website beware. They make it sound like free but then the costs quickly grow to thousands in a month. I reached out to their Customer Success and was told because the services are "self managed" they cannot help. So disappointing to see a company like this with deceptive practices that take advantage of customers.

Yelp is a total scam! They are the most UN-honest review company i have ever dealt with. I asked why only bad reviews were being shown on my yelp page and they responded by saying "i have to pay to allow the good ones to appear". They say they take pride in giving customers a fair opinion on business but force the business owners to pay so that customers can get a true incite on them. What a shady business model yelp runs! I hope someone important looks into this one day.