r/Yelp

I have all of this in writing, from his company email. I’m not going to identify him (or myself) until I decide what to do with this — let me know what you think.

My “account executive” emailed me today to ask if I wanted to buy ads. I have already told him firmly that I’m not interested, specifically because I have a real problem with Yelp’s business practices. They also want an outrageous amount of money.

I have 7 legitimate reviews that are hidden; only one has ever stuck. So I asked him: “If I were to agree, can you get Yelp to stop hiding the rest of my reviews? They are all legitimate. A couple people created accounts just to post one.”

Mind you, I still had no intention of buying ads — I just wanted to see what he’d say.

His reply: “Yes, and I will help you out with reviews to [sic]. My team and I will leave several on your page. “

Not long after, a new glowing review appeared on my page. He sent me an email and left a voicemail confirming it was him. I have not responded.

What would you do? Keep in mind, I don’t care if Yelp retaliates and bans me. I don’t need them. I want to go about this ethically and effectively. I’m not out to get this guy fired, though I have to accept that’s a somewhat likely outcome. From what I know of Yelp, I suspect what he’s doing is condoned and encouraged. I would, however, love to embarrass Yelp. People need to know about this.

I know this will be a controversial subject that will get both side feedback. I made a post before about the hate Yelp get and people response were helpful to me. I had time to read past posts here by different people during my breaks. So my question is, if Yelp is a scam or extort business then why isn't there a CNN investigate special on it or Fox News or any local news investigate. I live in Vegas and our ABC13 KTNV will do special investigation into supposed claims or shady things. I also didn't find any lost lawsuit on this with the help of ChatGPT and Google searches.

When I asked people on here for their proofs when they said Yelp is a scam or extort businesses, they either don't respond .. verbally attack me or accuse me of being someone else. I just want to see the proof because I contribute to Yelp as a first year Yelp Elite and had the privilege on going to my first Elite event where everyone was nice.

You can have as many “Yelp Elites” sorry, let me laugh at that for a minute, “yelp Elite”

lol, it’s still funny. Elite…

What is an elite? an elite is a person that is used by Yelp as a way to extort a business.

Proof? Yeah, let’s play this pathetic game of the “unhinged business owner”

I used to pay for Yelp, in the beginning they would call me about 15 times a month. I finally gave in and trusted what they were saying

Next thing I know, they are charging me $2,500 a month and giving me nothing in leads

What they would do is take the customers that were asking a group of plumbing companies for an estimate and they would add that to my account as if the Cusotmer was asking me directly. They were not and most of the time the customer would not respond after the first message

It didn’t matter if I responded in the first 5 mins or the first hour

Now, to the absolute clowns that are loyal to Yelp because they send you “elites” to parties and other clown activities, it’s funny that you blame the “unhinged business owner”

Maybe they became unhinged after the absolute nightmare of having money stolen from their hardworking bank accounts

Yelp Elites are hilarious, you are being used by Yelp because they know that you are so low in the life you live, you need a corporation to tell you you’re special

You’re not

This is insane. I have no idea yet why , I sent them a request
My account is about 1-2 years old
I stated to actively post reviews fork places I’ve been too.
Because I want to post 300 reviews and get on the elite list
But all my reviews are placed I’ve been to and photos I have on my phone as I always take pics of my food
I left 15 reviews within 1 week and that’s it

The last review I posted was a 1 star review of a shi* bar where they treated very weird and literally pushed me to pay for a bottomless brunch when I do not drink alcohol
And they told me I’d I don’t do that - then not anyone at the table can’t have any drinks
That was insane !!!
And I live in New York and been to many places with my friends - never ever I had a treatment like this !
Normally I’d say - F you
But it was my Friends birthday so I said I’ll leave and wait for you at other spot.
So I assume they don’t like bad honest reviews ???
That’s after it . I didn’t even realize!
I haven’t opened yelp for few days and wanted to leave a new review , when I saw I was logged out and then can’t log in
This is insane !!!!
So yelp doesn’t let people leave honest reviews ???

Current and past Yelp employees: sales rep in training here. does the 80+ calls/day expectation go away after month 3 of training? i’m hitting quota and target during training but find the 80 calls unsustainable

I was wondering for the Yelp users, do you guys check-in to the business when you're there and before you write your reviews? I do it 99% of the time, by always uploading a picture with my check in and writing a little message.

For the users that keeps saying their reviews goes to the Not Recommended, I think this is one way to trick the algorithm to think you were actually there regardless if you have low review count or no default picture BUT I can't say with 100% accuracy. Someone would have to try it. I also know that new users or older generation users won't know about the check-in feature.

The system is intentionally designed on purpose to lower your rating so business owners panic and potentially buy stuff from yelp and their advertising services. There are literally thousands of posts in this subreddit about business owners feeling duped by yelp. It’s basically a racketeering scam that targets small business owners.

Here’s how it works; They slowly remove some of your 5 stars reviews to unrecommended, but the 1 stars stick to recommended forever. This phony algorithm intentionally manipulates & lowers the business rating.

I witnessed this algorithm target me in 2025. From February to july, my business rating went from 4.7 to 4.3 because they would literally start to move all the 1 star reviews to recommended & would hide random 5 stars one by one. Keep in mind my business hasn’t received a new review on yelp since 2023. That’s how sneaky & shady the algorithm is. They can lower your rating at any time.

Yelp is a complete joke and they’ve been on the way down for a while, so i wouldn’t worry about them too much. On google reviews, i still get a new review every few weeks. It’s been 3 years on yelp for me with no new reviews on my business.

P:S this subreddit is filled people that work or are associated with yelp and their only job is to do damage control. They’ll downvote the truth and upvote lies with their alt accounts

Extra P:S (any real business owner reading this)
do not bother wasting your time in here. until you realize how many people in here are associated with yelp doing damage control, this subreddit will feel very dystopian. They’ll give you vague answers and bully you with downvotes and other hostile tactics to make it seem like you’re the problem. It’s one of the fakest subreddits ever and just proves just how shady yelp is if they have to actively lie and bully to do damage control. Non of these people vouching for yelp even own businesses. It’s a waste of your time going back and forth with them.

Do any of you uses or did used Yelp waitlist? I used it yesterday for a place we took my mom and it was convenient since we didn't have to wait long for a table at Boiling Crab which gets very busy.

I saw some places don't advertise it on their Yelp page but when you get there, they have a check in tablet with Yelp to be put on the waitlist.

I got a sales call from yelp a couple weeks ago, trying to get me to buy ad space for my business. I said no, we didn’t need it, and I was asked to be taken off the call list. Suddenly, after that, the only two bad reviews we have (one of which was under “not recommended” until that point) were pushed to the top of all the reviews. We have almost a perfect 5 stars on average, but when you open our page, half the reviews you first see are bad.

Can’t help but feel this is retaliation based on the timing.

If you didn’t see my last post, yelp refused to let us cancel our account, we tried online, on the app, over email, and by calling support. They just ignore us and the app and online give us an error. So our bank blacklisted them. After they stopped getting payments, they started trying to charge my card several times a day. For various amounts ranging from $50 to $29000. Our bill is $600.

For the first time, got someone on the phone from their finances office. She claimed they could not find the charges and says that all she can do is mark that I refused payment, which will initiate a process to send our bill to collections.

Yelp doesn’t have my SSN or much personal information. So hopefully they can’t even find me. Just curious if anyone else has dealt with this and how to handle their illegal bill being sent to collections?

I don't like being punished for looking up places.

Do all regions host these - I follow various area Yelp pages due to travel but only see some post about the annual event? I’m curious about DFW in particular, seems like Austin has one but they don’t is it up to the Community Director’s discretion?

Do they do this to everyone that gets rejected or if they think you’re actually qualified? I’ve been laid off since January and really need a job. I know it’s crappy pay but it’s something

I just got payed today and they took my whole paycheck to go toward an outstanding balance I knew nothing about no way to get a refund or anything they keep offering payment plan for remaining balance I spent all my time at work just for this to happen on pay day they place a pre hold on my bank account no way to claim a dispute until it goes completely through I had not touched the yelp biz app since they got me to sign up for some type of free ad running thing constant call from my “representative” that stopped soon after
I guess the goal was to get me to get the loaned credit from them to eventually take it back with my card on file the ads did nothing for me no customers,calls,anything just a waste of time that’s why I uninstalled the app now I owe a balance they just took my $198 check and I still owe them $100 more dollars for nothing

I stupidly signed up for a free trial for yelp last year, there was absolutely no indication that this would be a permanent listing. My name and my phone number are on this listing. I keep seeing comments about how they don’t delete listings, but I refused to accept that. This is a violation of privacy and I will get my attorney involved if I need to.

Yelp is absolutely disgusting!!

I have already listed it as permanently closed, and was advised by Yelp customer service that eventually it would delete or drop off. Well it’s been over a year and it is still visible.

Someone tell me how to get this permanently deleted, and don’t say “it’s impossible.”

Thanks!!

*app idea alert*

I’ve seen a lot of frustration with Yelp around review bias, outdated information, and ranking/filtering issues. Some business owners feel like good reviews get buried or delayed, and that the system is inconsistent in what it shows.

I’m exploring whether there’s room for a different approach to local reviews.

The idea would focus on more recent and verified experiences, so older reviews naturally lose weight over time. It would also rely more on structured feedback across a few key dimensions (like food, service, experience) instead of long unstructured reviews where extreme opinions tend to control visibility. I just want something that is closer to how we dine as a society. The core of it being time-decay reviews. Forces restaurant owners to stay on top, and still gives us diners the ability to be served the truly best foods in the area.

Before going further, I want to sanity-check this with people who already dislike some food review apps. What specifically makes it frustrating for you, and do you think you’d actually switch to something else—or is the problem more that all review platforms end up similar?

What would realistically need to change for you to trust a platform like this?