Yelp.com review: Yelp is extorting business owners 15

Yelp has removed at least 4 reviews of me, a hair stylist, that appeared on my company's yelp page. The clients who reviewed me were legitimate customers. They had active accounts for the most part (I think one of my clients only posted a review for me...which was not even solicited by the way), and other reviews, friends on yelp, etc. I believe Yelp is randomly removing reviews from "less established users", but the problem is... how f-ing active does one have to be on yelp to get their reviews to actually show to the public? I set up an account, just to test this out. I set it up with my real email address, a real photo, and I posted at least 10 reviews of businesses I have been using for years in the Bay Area. I logged in and out several times over the next week, and even made a couple of friends using that service...STILL THEY NEVER POSTED A SINGLE REVIEW! I emailed them but got the same form letter response that they send everyone. Basically, no explanation as to why a person is considered "less established". Sometimes I see reviews from individuals who only have one review posted, or no friends, or no profile photo, and THEY don't get removed...so what is the real story here? Yelp should start providing responses to people or I foresee a lawsuit...it seems like discrimination, especially if they have a hush hush policy regarding who's reviews are being hidden, and whose are not.

Thank you for sharing your bad experience. This business practices EXTORTION! I am filing a suit against them. They will spend a lot of money Flying their lawyers to N Texas to answer my defamation and Extortion small claims lawsuit. If we all do it, they will be spending more money defending their bad practices than they can shake down out of businesses to " remove" the malicious reviews for payment! Pls contact me if you would like. Mdcaperton@gmail.com.
It only costs us about $60.00 to file a small claims suit against yelp.com and Yelp.com will have to FLY an attorney to your city or small town to Answer to the suit or else You Will Get a Default Judgement Against them and be able to moveforward and collect your awarded damages. Then you file a Writ of Attachment for about $40.00 and the Sheriff executes it against Yelp.com and returns with a Check for you! Yelp.com will get to spend more money on Salary, airfare, and hotel for their attorney than they can shake down out of you and will probably be wise to never allow postings against you again.

Disclaimer: the above information is from personal experience in collectng from wrong doers and is only meant for sharing purposes only and Not for legal advice. I am Not an attorney and all states' laws vary. Thank you and best wishes in your pursuits!

I too have had a similar experince with the yelp site which we now refer to as the Mafia site. They are the modern day version of the mafia and need to be turned over to the federal governement. I did not even know what yelp was until one day someone mentioned the name. I went to look at it and found that my business had a negative review from some stranger who is not even one of our customers. This person told this whole big story which is/was a total and complete lie about service she or he received. Soon after that I began getting calls from yelp "offering" their service to us. I said, no way, I would never do buisness with a site that lets anyone post anything about any business WITHOUT KNOWING IF IT IS INFACT TRUE. I contacted them and aksed that it be removed since it was false and gives my otherwise good standing business a huge black mark. They would not remove it. How in the world can this happen? I checked a few months later and two of our customers had posted positive reviews. Guess what...a few months later...they vanished. This is illegal and needs to stop. They are blackmailing business into joining their site for a fee or else. I plan on contacting my local congress person, but have not had time. I will however follow thru on this. My business has an A+ rating with the BBB and those folks are the only ones who count.

I have a small business in great standing for 15 years that is currently experiencing Yelp's questionable business practices. At this point, they have removed perfectly great reviews from former clients and introduced a 10 month old negative post, no doubt, posted by a prospect that could not be pleased regardless. Of course, like so many others, it appeared only after I did not respond to their phone solicitation. Okay, lets just pretend I do not have this great business that I claim to have, why is this negative review (10 months old) just being introduced to our account of 2 months new and in conjuction with Yelp phone solicitations. All I can say, if it smells fishy..it is fishy! The truth always comes out and no one is above it.

Same story here. We were in positive standing until the phone call i received from Nate at yelp. I told them we were not interested at this time. Ever since then, all negative reviews (questionable) stuck and most of the positive reviews were "filtered". One of the negative reviews names the owner as Pete and complains about the installation. We don't have any Pete's, and we don't install. We are strictly retailers! As soon as i have some funds set aside, i plan to file a suit against them.

So I am hearing everyone complain but what can we do about it. I have experienced the same issues that everyone else has. Has anyone contacted a lawyer or consumer affairs in your state and asked what can be done? I would really like to see if a class action lawsuit could be filed representing all the business that have been harmed by Yelp but do not know if there may already be one or someone is working on it. I will tell you that there would be 100's if not 1000's of businesses that would join us.

I want to file a law suit I have been in a modern day witch hunt, I have 2 employees that were fired due to theft caught red handed, in return they are spreading lies on top of lies complete slander! and it's not stopping, I closed my Bistro do to the landlords death! and his foreclosures it was forced on me, in return these idiots are still slandering me, they have no idea we are not in business any longer but they are still at it. They remove my great reviews and put up there crap! and then Yelp calls and wants me to advertise with them. We all need to hire an Attorney and file a class action suit. e-mail me if your in California lynamup@aol.com

Yelp has ruined my reputation as a small business owner, disgruntle employees use Yelp as a tool to get back at you for there bad behavior as an employee and you cannot defend yourself. When you open a business you have to have great credit, knowledge and experience, great marketing and salesmen ship, courage and drive. We put up our homes and sacrifice so much to be a part of the community Yelp comes in and with out a fair trial let's "employees" your "competition " or guests (very few) that may have a something to say Slade you, how is this fair? Yelp is hurting the economy as a whole, Yelp is hurting owners of businesses, Yelp is hurting families for what? it's okay to ruin someones life? loose everything you own? go bankrupt? this needs to stop! NOW..you can tell they are employees, the labor board that is there for employees rights is not being used, at lest the labor board set's up a meeting and works this out..YELP is dangerous and I will be filing a suit today.

Yelp has posted a complaint at the very top of my page. The complaint is clearly in violation of 4 of the 6 compliance requirements yet they refuse to remove it. They did remove it one time, then when I declined to advertise they put it back.

This company, YELP, forces a business to pay for a year of service to remove incorrect information from all their partnered sites. - That's EXTORTION, pure and simple, because the links to fix it go to them, instead of the actual site the incorrect info shows on. - And YELP doesn't give you control to change the info unless you pay them - They have three links on their partnered sites, for creating, changing, and claiming a website listing. - If you don't PAY for a years worth of their "service" you are NOT allowed to change or remove any of the incorrect info. - I never put anything on any of the sites they partner with, but my incorrect business phone number showed, and I can't remove it, and YELP says they can't either, unless I buy an account, instead of just asking their "partner site" to remove it free - Their partner, YellowMoxie . com doesn't want to remove it either, when I asked them. I have an abuse complaint pending, with their ISP providers. ... I'll next go to the FCC, ... The BBB . org site rates YELP "C minus"... Not surprising.! ... :-) ... This is a BAD company, and very unethical... So, it seems, YellowMoxie . com is too ... Stay away...! ... Maybe ALL the YELP partnered sites are as bad too, if they let this happen.

I am still experiencing the extortion tactics from YELP and I am looking for any means of salvaging our reputation due to their fake reviews because we refuse to advertise with them. Has anyone been successful in filing charges? removing the reviews? or moving the not recommended? thank you for any help you can provide. crystal@buddysroofing.com

All of our positive reviews were removed. They were honest reviews from homeowners we worked for that found us by using yelp. We are a new business and couldn’t afford to pay for advertising at this time. As soon as we canceled our paid advertisement with yelp our reviews were removed. We planned on advertising again once we had the budget too but now we don’t trust Yelp and believe we are be targeted by them with our lively hood on the line we don’t know what we can do to defend ourselves against bullies like Yelp