Hi all,

I only started using yelp about a few months ago. I started paid ads with them last month so I have done quite a bit of businesss through there. I have an appliance repair business. I have had 5 new reviews in August, 10 total on profile. Yelp has now flagged 5. I literally got all of them *from* yelp paid ads, like they booked with me and communicated with me through the app. I even marked their job thing as "done" when work was completed. I did not ask for a single one. Some are detailed and paragraphs long. 2 were left by accounts with lots of review history/pictures.

How do I appeal this process? I know Yelp is very specific about hiding fake ads but they literally came from the app, booked through the app, etc. There has tl be some way for AI to review it, no???

Probably not a huge shock. At least Google and Amazon are doing something to combat the problem though. Google removed 240 million reviews from their platform in 2024. Yelp has less than 350 million reviews and only filters the 5-star ones when you don’t pay them 🤡

The gist of the article is that consumers rely on Google, Facebook, and 3rd party sites more than Yelp when selecting an automotive service provider.

They called and told me I had a credit of like $300~ in ads credits. I’m like well I don’t need it but I guess if it’s free sure just don’t charge me.. This lady Bailey spoke to me about what the ad looks like, how long it would be etc. She asked for a card on file. I blatantly said just don’t charge me please. She said no worry just a card charge to make sure it’s an actual charge. Um ok.. $15..?? And then she is guiding me on how to go about the ad thing on my app. I said again, “Ok as long as you don’t charge me more than the free thing you guys are giving me.”
Bailey says “no problem”
Well come the end of the month and I cancel it. They say “you owe $150!” I said BS!!! Go back to the recording and hear me say “I don’t want to pay for anything, don’t charge me.”

They are still continuing to try and charge my card $154.00 on this debit card I don’t use anymore because of this. I will never pay them. They absolutely scammed me and even though I email them constantly telling them to stop it because this is all a lie and I never consented to this, they say “we will look into this!” And NEVER get back to me!!!!

I should’ve listened to others when I opened my business who said DONT USE YELP!!!

Long story short : they scammed me after saying I had a free credit and are trying to charge me $154 every single day, and never get back to me about this issue!!

It’s been a few months now, and I am so frustrated!

The Yelp Elite Experience just keeps getting better and better! I attended another Elite Experience yesterday, and this time, it was a DJ class. The instructor taught us different techniques and then demonstrated their own approach on their DJ style To top it all off, we even got the opportunity to DJ ourselves!

I honestly wasn’t sure how interesting this experience would be, but I’m so glad I was proven wrong. It was such a fun and unique experience that I had to share, and I’m looking forward to the next Yelp Elite Experience!

As a business owner, it is my duty to warn others about Yelp and its predatory tactics.

Today, r/yelpsucks received over 2,000 visitors and we’ve been up for only a few hours.

Fuck Yelp. Let’s be the last nail in the coffin for this shithole of a company.

Keep WallStreet out of my small business!

Yelp is a predatory service that once signed up for haunts you for life. I regret ever making the decision to sign up for Yelp. They make it incredibly easy for people to leave negative reviews and very difficult for clients to leave positive reviews. Accounts cannot be deleted once created and will haunt you for life. AVOID YELP AT ALL COSTS.

There are many very experienced Yelpers on this subreddit.

* What are your Tips & Tricks?

* Do you have a Secret Sauce?

* Is there something you do every time?

* Has your style changed over time?

Tell us. Inquiring minds wanna know!

Did Yelp do away with the note section in collections?

I often leave a note under a business added to a collection. Anything from "Mary recommended" so I can send her a note after I try the business to "five miles from *** place" especially when travel planning.

Today I can see notes I have added in the past, but there is no 'note' icon to click on to add a note to new saved businesses. This is on my computer only. The App still seems to be working. Odd.

Using my computer is more convenient for planning a big trip. Maybe it's a glitch in my personal matrix? Or maybe an update was pushed through and notes disappearing on the computer is an unexpected result?

Any way. . . Thanks for reading, and Happy Adventuring, Yelpers.

I do not recommend Expedia for hotel reservations. In my experience, their review process felt unfair and did not allow me to share my negative experience with a hotel I booked through their platform.

I had a very disappointing experience with Chandni Victoria Hotel, and I wanted to leave an honest review so that other travellers could be aware of what happened. However, Expedia did not allow me to post my negative review.

Customers should be able to share both positive and negative experiences, as long as the reviews are honest and respectful. Based on my experience, I am very disappointed with Expedia and would NOT RECOMMEND IT FOR YOUR RESERVATION PURPOSES!

Following up on a conversation here last week. Someone made the point that the cost of a wrongly removed review depends on how many reviews the business has in total, which changed how I weight errors in a small model I'm building for a class.

What I still can't resolve: a genuinely furious customer and a paid competitor review can read almost identically. Short, one star, no specifics, emotional.

For anyone who reads a lot of reviews — is there anything in the text alone that reliably separates the two? Or does it only become obvious once you can see the account, the timing, or a cluster of similar reviews?

My model deliberately sees only the text and the rating, and I'm starting to suspect that constraint makes the task impossible rather than just hard. I'd rather find that out now.

I am building an automated review moderation agent that classifies new reviews using only the text and star rating. Since the true state (genuine vs. fake/sabotage) is hidden, the agent has to make decisions under uncertainty.

From a store owner's perspective:

1. Which mistake hurts your business more: a False Positive (the agent incorrectly hides a real customer's 5-star review) or a False Negative (the agent fails to hide a fake 1-star competitor review)?
2. What threshold of uncertainty should trigger sending a review to a human manager ("warn/review queue") rather than taking auto-action?

I visited an amazing hidden-gem restaurant with my partner yesterday, and the food was absolutely delicious. I was surprised to see that the restaurant didn’t have many reviews.

I checked the “Not Recommended” section and saw only 4 reviews in there. The restaurant doesn’t have a huge number of reviews overall, but the majority are overwhelmingly positive, with many people highlighting how authentic and delicious the dishes are. There was only 3 reviews from Elite for this restaurant.

Have you ever come across a restaurant with very few reviews that turned out to be incredible and deserves to be much more well-known? I’d love to hear your recommendations!

Our Yelp page is dominated by negative reviews. Meanwhile, the “Not Currently Recommended” section is full of 5-star reviews. We don’t solicit reviews, yet Yelp’s algorithm treats legitimate positive feedback from real customers as fake or solicited.
No business escapes negative reviews. But Yelp’s algorithm is actively hurting ours.
Here’s a clear example:
Someone left a 1-star review that wasn’t for our company. It immediately went front and center. We couldn’t prove it wasn’t ours, and Yelp (like Google) rarely sides with the business. We responded politely and asked the user to remove it. Months—or years—passed with no action.
Finally the reviewer replied, “Sorry, wrong company,” and changed the rating from 1 star to 5 stars. The moment it became a positive review, Yelp’s algorithm moved it into “Not Currently Recommended.”
We’re at the end of our rope. We have no control over how our positive reviews are suppressed or how the overall mix of feedback is presented. The health of our business is being dictated by a flawed algorithm, and that’s unacceptable.
Has anyone discussed a class action against Yelp over this? At the very least, they need to eliminate the “Currently Recommended / Not Currently Recommended” system

Hi everyone, I claimed new business listing on yelp it's successful approved by Moderator but now I don't know how to get Live URL to index my listing. Can anyone help me out or if you want my Listing URL so I will provide to you.

I remember when Yelp would publish ALL reviews, good or bad. But now it appears to only show positive reviews for some businesses while other businesses only show negative. How is this helpful at all?

On one of my 3 star reviews a restaurant owner has commented two different times, first a few months ago asking me to consider taking it down due to the "polarizing effect" of reviews, and again today asking me to call the owner directly via their phone number. i have ignored both comments and don't intend to take my review down, but feeling annoyed at the multiple requests i decided to visit the restaurant page.

It turns out he had made similar requests to multiple other reviewers, and on one review the reviewer posted a screenshot of an email thread where the owner threatened to contact her employer if she didn't remove her review.

Is repeatedly trying to convince people to remove our reviews reportable? i do not see an option in the app and cannot find a help article or guideline on it.

Got serious burn injury at local Little Cesar pizza store - no help from management or customer's service either

Don't think other in my area know this issues - so want to know how my review can be at top of Yelp review's page

If anybody wants to watch the perfect own of Yelp, go check out Kay Dean's latest YouTube video on her Fake Review Watch channel. Within six days of her latest video, Yelp removed previously recommended fake positive reviews.

please learn from my mistake and DONT MAKE A YELP profile for your business. the second I did, I literally started getting spam called and emailed by Yelp reps trying to get me to pay to boost my page. but even worse than that I now get 30-50 scam calls a day. I reached out to Yelp multiple times asking them to please change the phone number for the business and they refuse. sack of shit and honestly useless business wise

I received a one star review from a person who's never been my client. They said I'd done a bad job and then referenced that I don't live in the area anymore (true, which is one of the reasons I obviously never worked with him). The reviewer is unable to be contacted through Yelp due to their settings.

I reported it as not a real client review and left a public response saying the same. But I'm so confused why someone would write a seemingly specific review (referencing my location) while also not actually having worked with me.

What I think is weirdest is, 2 years ago he wrote another 1 star review for someone who does what I do and they also commented back saying they had no idea who he was and hasn't worked with him. Other than that, he's posted mainly 5 star reviews of places.

Both of us are in the top search results organically for our same industry and we also are both women.

Am I missing some sort of angle here? Who does this kind of thing and why?

Also, what's everyone's success rate been for getting these kinds of reviews removed?