Yelp.com review: Advertising

I signed up for a free account on Yelp. I have a small home-based business. After signing up I was inundated with calls and emails about running an ad. One salesperson who called me assured me that this was a win win deal. I would only have to pay $5.00 if a person clicked on my business name for more information, Of course, I have no proof of how many clicks there were, All the information about how to contact me, and where I am located is on the search page. So a customer doesn't really have to click for information. But I can assure you I never got a customer from it. I always ask how people find me and the answer is always Google. So, out of 23 clicks they say I got, not one person called me. Seems odd to me. The salesman assured me that I would get responses, but I didn't. Every day I would check my Yelp account for how much I owed, because the salesman said there would be a running tally and I could quit any time, and all month since the beginning of my ad run, it said .00. It said that until the last day of the run and suddenly it was $89.16. Ads are not taxable, so how 5.00 a click became 80.16 is beyond me. The ad was supposed to run from July 13 - Aug 12. However, they bill until the end of month and then continue. I cancelled on August 6th. This morning I got a bill for another $30.02 that was paid by my Visa debit card. Again, ads are not taxable so how is 30.02 $5.00 a click. and, once again I got zero calls from Yelp viewers. The bill doesn't state the number of clicks, the time of the click, and where the click originated from, so how can you tell if they are being truthful. I feel I have been scammed. I tried reaching out to the salesman who said, " if you have any problems blah blah blah, call me at (number). I called the number and it was not in service. I filed a complaint with Yelp and asked for a refund, but I was turned down. Most months I don't even generate $150.00 with my at-home business, so I lost a months' worth of income with the ad that produced absolutely nothing. I told the salesman that my business was very small and I didn't think an ad would really be beneficial, but he kept pressuring me. I thought I would try and if I wasn't happy, I could call him and have him cancel my ad, but it didn't work that way. I did ask him how I would know how much money I owed on a daily basis, and he told me there would be a daily running tally so I could see how much of a tab I was running. There wasn't. 23 clicks and not one customer? Sounds fishing to me. In the screen shot on my account it says there were:

179 impressions = Impressions count the total number of times your ad is shown. This includes search result appearances and messaging leads.

23 page visits = Page visits are the total number of times someone accessed or viewed your Yelp page.

4 leads = Leads are the total number of Directions & map views, Calls, Messages, and Website visits you get.

1 call. It's really hard to believe out of 179 impressions, 23 page clicks, 4 leads and a supposed 1 call... I got zero customers.

I had to fill out a refund form to ask for my money back and I was told I would get a response within 48 hours. I filed it on August 6th but didn't get a response until August 22nd. It was rejected. I'm sure I won't see any refund, but I feel better writing a complaint about it.

Thank you for your time.

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