Yelp Bewertungen 101

My experience with Yelp Ads was extremely disappointing.

I originally signed up for Yelp Ads with a $300 promotional credit and set my budget at $10 per day. By October 27, I had used $291.60 of that credit and called to cancel my advertising.

During that call, a Yelp representative convinced me to keep the ads running and promised an additional $300 credit. I later received an email from Yelp Customer Success specifically confirming that a "$300 credit added" to my account.

The problem is that the credit was never actually applied.

On November 1, I was charged $36.69. On November 18, I was charged another $155.95. After canceling my ads, I was then charged an additional $5.09. Multiple representatives gave conflicting explanations for these charges.

One Yelp representative reviewed the account notes and confirmed I should have received the additional $300 credit. Another representative later confirmed the credit had never been added. Despite this, Yelp's Payment Inquiry Team repeatedly denied my refund requests and told me their decision was final, refusing further escalation.

After weeks of emails, phone calls, billing disputes, and being told different things by different representatives, I finally filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Only after that did Yelp suddenly approve a refund for part of the charges.

My issue was never with the advertising results. My issue was with being promised a credit, receiving written confirmation that it had been added, being charged anyway, and then spending weeks trying to get Yelp to acknowledge and correct the mistake.

Based on my experience, I would strongly recommend that any business owner carefully monitor their billing, save every email, and keep detailed records of every conversation with Yelp.

I’m so sick of getting “recommended” 1-star reviews from non-clients. Yelp will never make a 1-star review “unrecommended” but my business has at least 25 5-star reviews that are “unrecommended.” These 1-star reviews, sometimes even from anonymous sources, are not helpful in evaluating our representation as attorneys. I’m no longer going to pay Yelp for ads.

I was contacted by a yep representative whom offered me $300 in promotional ads. I signed up, 2 weeks later, I was charged $199.14 for ads that were supposed to be free.

I called to try to get a representative to resolve this, they refused to resolve it, and I had to call my bank to dispute the charge.

Their representatives call to offer you a promotional ad and they charge your card for the said promotion.
This is very highway robbery of small businesses whom are just trying to make a living.

0 Stars
I am extremely disappointed with my experience on Yelp.

Our company currently has 67 customer reviews on Yelp. Of those 67 reviews, 58 have been filtered out by Yelp's recommendation system and do not count toward our public rating. That means 86.6% of our customer reviews are hidden from public view. Only 9 reviews are currently visible, and 5 of those are 1-star reviews. That's an unusually striking statistic all by itself. As a result, our Yelp rating is displayed as 2.9 stars despite maintaining ratings of 4.5 stars or higher on Google, Facebook, and with the Better Business Bureau.

What makes this especially frustrating is the lack of consistency in Yelp's review filtering process. We have numerous 5-star reviews from real customers (some with established Yelp accounts, friends, and review histories) that have all been hidden. At the same time, several negative reviews from accounts with little or no activity remain publicly visible, which, according to their algorithm, should fall into the "not recommended" section. Every Yelp representative's explanation is always the same: "It's the algorithm." We are repeatedly told that no employee can review, override, or reconsider these decisions.

Adding to the frustration, we receive frequent sales calls encouraging us to spend $570+ per month on Yelp advertising. We have also been quoted additional fees simply to unlock basic profile features such as $180 per month just to add a profile picture. While Yelp representatives insist advertising has no impact on review visibility, it creates a troubling appearance when businesses are continually encouraged to spend money while legitimate customer reviews remain hidden with no meaningful appeal process available.

Yelp also discourages businesses from asking customers for reviews. In today's marketplace, nearly every reputable company asks customers for feedback. We simply include a thank-you letter with our completed projects informing customers where they can leave a review if they choose to do so. There is nothing deceptive or unethical about encouraging honest customer feedback.

My biggest concern is Yelp's influence beyond its own platform. Yelp ratings are prominently displayed within Apple Maps, meaning consumers searching for contractors and other local businesses may be forming opinions based on a small fraction of actual customer feedback. In our case, the public rating displayed to Apple users is based on only 9 visible reviews while 58 additional customer reviews remain hidden.

Yelp was once an innovative platform that helped consumers find quality local businesses. Today, it feels increasingly disconnected from the customer experiences it claims to represent. When 86.6% of a company's reviews are hidden, there is no transparent way to challenge those decisions, and businesses are simultaneously subjected to constant advertising pitches, it becomes difficult to have confidence in the fairness of the platform.

I believe consumers deserve to see a more complete picture of a business's reputation, and business owners deserve greater transparency regarding how reviews are filtered and why some reviews are excluded while others are not.

I'm not surprised this company's market value has fallen substantially over the past few years. I cannot recommend Yelp to other small business owners and I will not give one cent to this company so long as they continue to operate as they currently are.

I signed up for Yelp Ads after being offered what I understood to be a $400 promotional credit to try the service. However, after only a little over a week, I was charged approximately $300.

When I reached out to my Yelp representative for clarification and assistance, my emails were ignored, and I did not feel there was any genuine effort to resolve the issue or explain the charges. The lack of communication and customer support was more frustrating than the charge itself.

Because I was unable to get a response, I ultimately had to dispute the charge through my credit card company. Between the time spent trying to get answers, following up, and handling the dispute process, I estimate this situation has cost me around $250 in lost time and productivity.

I’m hopeful the dispute will result in a refund, but overall this was a disappointing experience. Transparency around promotional credits and responsive customer service would have gone a long way toward preventing this situation.

DO NOT GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER FOR ANY REASON. CITIBANK WiLL SiDE WITH THEM EVERY TIME . ONCE YOU GIVE TGE CARD AND SIGN YOU CANNOT CANCEL. It $450 per month and CitiBank paid Then 9 times agsinst 9 disputes. For NO SERVICE = $4050until I closed the card.

Yelp should be ban in the USA. Doing business in the USA should always require to follow some standard ethical bindings that benefits the Americans. Any online or in person platform that established for the public in the world always put the public first, not the making money or profit first. Yelp requires to pay $1 a day (there is no other options available for this) just to add a logo to the business profile on their platform which is in ridiculously expensive, unethical and non existent. I am humbly requesting the public and all companies to fully avoid using Yelp and deleting their account. Just boycott them until they come up with some built in (added) benefits for free with their basic accounts. There are so many companies out there, much better customer service with tons of free added benefits, they are not pushing public to buy their service.

Beware of giving Yelp your credit card, even for a "free trial."
In early March, I signed up for a trial and canceled it just 3 days later because their reps spam-called me non-stop. I never picked up, never spoke to anyone, and completely canceled the service.
Three months later, I checked my bank statements and was shocked to find Yelp had been quietly stealing my money. They automatically activated Ads budget and a monthly fee without my knowledge or consent.
It looks like desperate sales reps forcing activations just to meet their internal KPIs.
Check your bank accounts immediately if you’ve ever given Yelp your card. Absolute scam!

I registered for Yelp Biz a year ago, but my business account still hasn't been verified. I really hope it gets sorted out soon, because if not, I might consider switching over to TripAdvisor.

As a business owner starting off getting a $15.00 dollar a week promo offer seemed great. But injury caused me to rethink business and I cancelled after four days. One month later was charged $295.00. Scam website . Had to change banks.

I got a call out of the blue from a Yelp rep. We'd been with Yelp for 3 months in the past and ended it because after spending almost $5k in that span of time, we got a total of 1 job out of it. The rep told me that our marketing rep who we had been helping us, had missed several opportunities within the platform and that there are sooo many leads right now needing our specific services and projected to be very high volume in the next couple months. He told me what things could supposedly help, that our marketing rep had not done (which consisted of nothing significantly different). I was still unsure about coming back to Yelp and told him that in order for this to be worth it for us at all, we'd need to obtain at least one standard job per month. He told me we'd get $1200 in credits for the first month so I decided to give it one more shot. It was my understanding that these credits would basically cover us for that first month. He also told me to call customer service in a week to schedule an appointment with client success. Well after one week, I knew it was a mistake. Same thing as last time, with terrible "leads". Most of them weren't people actually requesting quotes from us. There were no phone numbers to reach them, which indicates these people are probably just out there fishing for ideas on costs etc. I'd still leave messages on Yelp, but of course no responses came. Some were also completely useless, no money to be made requests. Example: A single broken drawer. A request for a picture frame. So at week one, I attempted to call Customer Service to tell them I wanted to end this. Conveniently, after waiting over an hour, nobody ever came on the line! I had to hang up. A few days later I tried again and AGAIN I waited almost an hour with NO answer. I had no choice but to send a request for help, to which I received an email stating someone would respond in 3-5 days!! What?! After well over a week, I never got a call or email! Then I check my account and see that Yelp took $1130 from me. The next day I got 3 different auto emails basically confirming they ended my account. One of the emails said, " It was a pleasure talking to you, we're sorry to see you leave". Funny because I never spoke to ANYONE. I am completely dumbfounded by Yelp. They managed to essentially scam $1130 from me. What were the $1200 credits for? Does this mean that Yelp considers the "leads" I received in the course of 1 month worth the equivalent of over $2300? Unbelievable! What really gets me is how there is no way to reach them. I find it laughable that I was told to make an appointment with client success when nobody is available to even take customer calls. My advice is steer clear of this platform. I am out another $1130 with absolutely nothing to show for. By the way, I also have Angi ads. We pay $650 a month and it's a life line. Not all leads are great but we get 2-3 jobs a month off of it.

Yelp Business is horrible. When I started my auto detailing business, I reasoned that since 60% of Americans have iPhones and the Maps App on iPhone is directly linked to Yelp, displaying information and reviews about a business directly from Yelp, that it would be wise to utilize Yelp to promote my business. As soon as I opened my account a Yelp salesman began calling my phone 7-8 times a day. Every time he would leave a voicemail. I finally answer and decided to sign up for paid ads for the reasons I mentioned above. I spent an hour on the phone with the salesman asking questions so I knew EXACTLY what I was getting for my money and how much I was spending. It took an hour because the fees are structured in a way that’s intentionally deceptive and they do not disclose all the fees until after they start billing you. I chose to have it capped at $450/month to start. The salesman told me that I’d be charged that $450 as a one-time payment at the end of the month. To my surprise, Yelp immediately started withdrawing money from my account the next day. Within a week Yelp had taken nearly $200 from my account… on track to far exceed the $450/month I agreed to. So I checked, and there’s about 8 other line-items that charge an additional amount for each one, bringing my total to over $600. As I suspected, advertising my business on Yelp did prove effective, as my first week in business I landed 4 jobs via Yelp. All of them posted 5 star reviews after I finished the job. I was on a roll… BUT, once I saw how Yelp was billing me, I canceled my paid ads. (This is where it gets slimy!) After I suspended paid ads, Yelp took my 5 star reviews and marked them ALL “not-recommended…” so now, even though i booked the jobs THROUGH Yelp, and the customers were happy enough to post thorough 5 star reviews… the reviews don’t even show up on my page. Not only that, but Yelp is still attempting to draw money from my checking account every single day. If there’s $52, they take $52. If there’s $0.52, they take $0.52. They take every penny that’s in that checking account, and they run the payment everyday. First they hit for the full amount, and when that is declined, there must be some sort of data transfer that tells Yelp how much money is in the account, because afterwards they proceed to charge the exact amount that’s in the account. This is straight up fraud. That sales guy has NEVER ONCE called again after he signed me up initially. He moved on to the next victim. SCREW YELP

I strongly advise any small business owner to avoid Yelp’s so‑called “free” ad credit offer.

Long-story short it's a scam, i seriously think it's a scam.

Once you give them your card and activate the promotion,

it’s incredibly easy to get stuck in their advertising system and end up being charged, even when you believe you’re just using the free credit.

In my experience, there was no real value from the paid ads I ended up being billed for. The leads were low quality, and the way the promotion and billing were communicated felt misleading and confusing, similar to what many other business owners have reported in complaints and reviews.

Do not enter your credit card details just to “try” their ads, and ignore the constant sales and “lead reactivation” emails pushing you to turn ads back on or spend more. Once you’re in their system, the pressure to keep paying ramps up, while results stay disappointing.

If you want to use Yelp at all, in my opinion it’s only worth it for the free, organic profile so customers can at least find your business and leave reviews.

Pay attention to the many complaints from other business owners about ad credits and billing before you agree to spend a single dollar on their ad

Just terrible terrible experience

It's a scam! They have u sign up for all these services that are not guaranteed leads. And add bogus charges!

I tested Yelp Ads for a furniture assembly service and the results were extremely disappointing.

Out of all the “leads” received:

* Most were messages that never responded after initial contact
* Several profiles had no real activity or history
* One user even claimed to have used our service before, under a name we have never operated under

There were zero real customers generated despite spending on ads.

This raises serious concerns about the quality and verification of leads on the platform.

If you are considering Yelp Ads for a service-based business, I strongly recommend testing with a very small budget first and tracking every interaction carefully.

what isnt wrong. they put you on customer service for hours. They bill your account even when you cancelled you account months ago. I have had 3 payments taken out that was not approved. I have seen nothing but bad reviews for this company. They try to rip off people. Now my credit card company is going after them again for two more charges

This is the worst service I have ever dealt with. All they want is your money. They have aggressive marketing — they were calling me nonstop during the first months trying to sell their useless services. I regret that I ever signed up here. I didn’t even use this platform, and after a few months I logged in and saw a 1-star review on my company SAM Service LLC. The person claimed they worked with me and that I replaced their furnace, but I have no idea who that is. I checked my records and found no proof that I ever worked with this client — this could easily be a fake review from competitors.

But the most interesting part started after that. Since people see that 1-star rating when searching my company, I tried to fix the situation and asked clients to leave reviews. Around 3 clients left 5-star reviews, and then I logged in and saw that Yelp removed them, saying they were “too good.” Later another client left a review, and after some time Yelp removed that one too.

I tried to change my company name and just forget about this service, but they didn’t even allow that. You can’t delete your business from their site — it will stay there with a 1-star rating, just marked as closed.

This company is like a racketeer who tries to squeeze money out of you and follows you everywhere, not letting you live your life — you walk out of your house in the morning and it’s already there, waiting for you and following you.

This is a service of low ratings — they think 1 star is fair for you, but 5 stars are not, and they will remove those reviews. Do not make my mistake — do not deal with this scam company.

Yelp is a fully and completely scam based website. You post your pictures, pay for adds and you get maybe 1 real lead a month at most. The phone number is plastered all over your page, but then no one calls, they message you as if anyone has time to check more messages on more platforms. I am a plumber, if I dont respond in minutes I the clients moved on, the ones we do catch wont have you come out without a firm $# over the phone, which in Plumbing is nearly impossible to do. Every situation is different. Furthermore would only get these messages in droves when I would tell Yelp, I wanted to discontinue my advertising, I would get a litany of messages with either no response or unreasonable responses, leading to no work, leading me to believe it's just people they pay to message you.. cause if the phone number is right there in front of your face , why would you message them on some platform that small businesses don't have the time to check all the time. Someone can just be irritated and leave you a bad review and you can't do anything about it , even if it's completely unbased , completely unfounded , even if the person never even called your business and you can prove it. I asked for my advertising to stop once i've found the literal golden key to Google. I stopped all my advertising on next door another terrible business platform , their horrible to some people and decent to others. They suspend for no reason anyways.This is about yelp. I used to get all my business from facebook and next door but I was really trying yelp and paying a six hundred dollars a month for an advertisement. I called 3 × 2 cancel the last time.The guy offered me 2 months of free advertising.No strings attached and then my service would end for my bad experience with the business. Months later, I get sent to $1200 bill.I talked that manager we review the audio recording of the conversation of him saying no strings attached. She tells me well.You still have to call on cancel the service. I replied, I did call and cancel the service.But your person insisted you guys give me 2 months free from my bad experience.What I have to call and cancel again.Cancel a free service? To which I was told there would be an investigation , and I would be updated. No.Update was ever given only at twelve hundred dollar bill on my credit report from a collection agency! I could resolve the issue right away for a meer five hundred dollars which I was forced to do because i'm in the process of buying a house and I can't take any heads to my credit. This is a scam site.Nobody cares about it.You will get no business from it.I would encourage any small business to pursue licensed google contractors , not Yelp, Facebook, nor Nextdoor especially if you're in the trades. Over and out. No one thing f*** y** yelp! And one last thing , the people who used these apps are boomers , and they're very first line before they even tell you what they're calling for is , i'm old and on a fixed income , so I can't afford a lot! I never get those calls from Google. These people aren't serious buyers.They don't want to license contractors.They only say that on their post to look good.But when a licensed contractor who knows what they're doing comes out and gives a fair price , they find it atrocious , because they're the generation of hippies , who believe in me me me me! They want us to pay higher taxes so they can have better benefits. They don't care at all about the generations that are getting gutted, like Gen.Z and the millennials. Go to google find a good contractor, stay away from SEO, in certainly , if the company doesn't have a customer service line, that is answered by English-speaking.Americans hang the phone up immediately.

They eat any positive review, but promote negative ones from people who were never customers from outside our country entirely.

You've heard this tale from tons of small buisnesses.

In the fall of 2024 Yelp allowed a a person to go on my business profile leave a negative review that had absolutely nothing to do with business performance within your home that one of my vehicles tailgated them before passing them in what they deemed an unsafe passing zone.. even though I have probably over 2 million miles under my belt with zero infractions I disputed it cuz again it had absolutely nothing to do with my business performance they removed it then some months later they allowed the same person to come back on the platform and leave another negative review because I had it removed naming me personally they say you can't remove your business profile because it's public record it's not public record it's called my private business this is the worst way to advertise your business on the internet I strongly would not recommend this company to anybody!! They will take your money no problem but they have zero accountability for policing regular people Karen's if you will from putting negative crap that is damaging to a business profile on a one-sided email then you have to take hours and hours of time out of your personal life to defend yourself against the liar to start with!! I personally live in Vermont and I am personally going to have a conversation with the AG's office in Vermont about this company and their business practices