Yelp.com

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because:
I heard the exact same line while on the phone with customer service. I am not disputing the bill, I am complaining that yelps ad space is no where near as valuable as they claim. Because of Yelps sales team continuously pursuing me and offering better deals, I folded. With 5 clicks to my website and a $500 bill, I had to pull out or I would loose everything, all because a multi-billion dollar company just had to put a one man show in the negative and put him at risk of loosing his licenses, certifications, and insurance.
When I bill a client I deliver on my product and performance. When I tried to talk to my sales rep, he didn't answer my calls. I left a message that I needed to end our agreement, he did not call back trying to fix the problem or offer advice. He emailed me that he would let someone from accounts know and they would be in touch. 4 days later I finally received the call. The point here is that the sales rep knew exactly what he was selling, an extremely overpriced and inaffective product. 
Yelp is a place to go to find out if others had a good experience with a company. I do everything in my power to ensure that my clients walk away happy and I can walk away not fearing a bad review. Yelp did nothing to work with me or offer any advice. They simply wanted money for doing nothing.
Sincerely,Derek[redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/09/28) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns.
We are unable to locate your account with the information you provided. Could you please reply to this message with a direct link to your Yelp...

user account? Could you also let us know what email address you used to create the account, and any other information that would help us verify that this is your account (such as your birthday or the date you tried to close your account), so that we can assist you further?
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/09/29) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
The link to my About Me is http://www.yelp.com/user_details?[redacted]. I signed up with the email address [redacted].com, which no longer exists. I had attempted to change it to an existing address, [redacted].net, which was rejected by the system. I then tried to delete the account on the same day, and when I could not, I filed the Revdex.com complaint. Therefore, the date of this complaint is the date I tried to delete it.
Since this may be publicly posted, I don't want to put my birthdate on this. I can state that I did once also have a Yelp business account with the same email address, which should be sufficient info so that you know it is me.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2015/10/05) */
Hi [redacted],
Thanks for writing back. We've gone ahead and closed your user account as requested.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/09/21) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns.
We first want to make sure you know that a business's decision whether or not to advertise on Yelp does not affect how the reviews on its...

listing are treated. Businesses are not punished if they don't advertise, nor are businesses awarded with preferential treatment with regards to their reviews if they do advertise. We understand there are some misconceptions about this, so we invite you to visit http://www.yelp.com/advertiser_faq and http://officialblog.yelp.com/2013/05/no-yelp-doesnt-extort-small-businesses-see-...⇄ to learn more.
We are unable to locate your business page with the information you provided. Please feel free to respond with a link to your business page so that we can better address your specific situation, but generally speaking, if a review is not appearing on the main Yelp listing of a business, it would be for one of three reasons: the review is currently not recommended by Yelp's automated recommendation software (which affects both positive and negative reviews); the review was found to be in violation of our Content Guidelines or Terms of Service and has been manually removed by the Yelp Support team; or the user elected to remove the review him/herself.
If a review is brought to the attention of the Yelp Support team and is found to fall outside our Content Guidelines, the Yelp Support team will take appropriate action, such as removing the review. That said, please note the action that the Yelp Support team takes is separate from actions taken by Yelp's automated recommendation software. If a review is not recommended, that does not necessarily mean it is in violation of our guidelines.
As you may have read, the goal of Yelp's recommendation software is to showcase more reliable content. The recommendation software establishes an objective standard against which every review can be measured, and looks at dozens of different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability, and activity on Yelp.
It's important to note that the software applies the same analysis to everyone, and that it affects both positive and negative reviews. Please also understand that the recommendation software is automated: we cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. However, the system is not static reviews may become recommended or not recommended over time as the system continues to make decisions based on a variety of factors.
To learn more about recommended reviews, please visit: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews?l=en_US
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/07/16) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page and advertising program for [redacted].
We first want to clarify that a business's decision whether or not to...

advertise on Yelp does not affect how the reviews on its listing are treated. Businesses are not punished if they don't advertise, nor are businesses awarded with preferential treatment with regards to their reviews if they do advertise. We understand there are some misconceptions about this, so we invite you to visit http://www.yelp.com/advertiser_faq and http://officialblog.yelp.com/2013/05/no-yelp-doesnt-extort-small-businesses-see-...⇄ to learn more.
With regards to your concerns with the recommendation software, as you may have read, the goal of Yelp's recommendation software is to showcase more reliable content. The recommendation software establishes an objective standard against which every review can be measured. Even though it inevitably affects legitimate reviews from time to time and misses some fake ones, too, it helps protect the integrity of the site both for consumers (who will be less likely to be led astray by bogus reviews) and business owners (who will spend less time worrying about whether their competitors are writing negative reviews about them).
It's important to note that the software applies the same analysis to everyone, and that it affects both positive and negative reviews. Please also understand that the recommendation software is automated: we cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. However, the system is not static reviews may become recommended or not recommended over time as the system continues to make decisions based on a variety of factors.
To learn more about recommended reviews, please visit: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews?l=en_US
Finally, you wrote, "we have tried e-mailing our advertising agent that works with Yelp and we have tried contacting customer service and is goes nowhere." It looks like an account manager, [redacted], has recently spoken with and emailed your colleague Lucas.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/11/19) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your advertising program for [redacted].
Our records indicate that you signed up for a packaged Cost Per Click...

advertising program that began on October 15, 2015, with monthly fixed costs of $100 and monthly variable costs of up to $475. This advertising program is billed in arrears.
You then signed a new contract on October 22, 2015 to switch to an impressions-based advertising program with a service start date of November 1, 2015. As noted in your contract, this new advertising program is billed in advance.
You expressed concern with the amount you were charged on November 1. It looks like the $461.10 you were charged broke down into $350 for the 450 ad impressions that would be delivered in November and $111.10 for the ad clicks you received in October.
It appears you were in touch with our Account Management team after you filed this complaint with the Revdex.com. As you may recall, we have refunded you $111.10.
We are sorry to hear you were not satisfied with your advertising campaign. To be clear, while the goal of advertising on Yelp is to drive more traffic to the business page, which may ultimately result in more customers, it is important to keep in mind that results are not guaranteed. When advertising, you are either paying for the delivery of a certain number of targeted ad impressions (when doing an impression-based program), or you are electing to pay every time a user clicks on your ad impression (when doing a Cost Per Click program).
Your advertising program will be terminated as of November 30, 2015. As you have chosen to end your new program before the end of the 3-month term, an early termination fee of $350 will be assessed per the terms of your contract. Thanks for understanding.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: This is the same excuse I was given when I called Yelp customer service. I did everything they asked me to do. I reviewed their video, I asked my clients to have their children ( the one's who use Yelp all the time ) leave feedback for them since their reviews were blocked ( this was suggested by the customer service rep from Yelp ). Nothing has resolved the problem. If Yelp is no longer a website for customers to leave honest reviews about his or her experiences, Yelp needs to make this clear to it's members. None of our clients have been able to leave their feedback & one client in particular suggested I have Yelp contact him at home to verify his feedback.  We have received sales calls and email offers from Yelp yet we haven't received any support concerning our problem.  
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/12/21) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page for [redacted]
You expressed concern with Jenn P's review of your business. We wanted...

to let you know we've removed the review by [redacted] P because it falls outside our Content Guidelines.
With regards to your concerns with the recommendation software, as you may have read, the goal of Yelp's recommendation software is to showcase more reliable content. The recommendation software establishes an objective standard against which every review can be measured, and looks at dozens of different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability, and activity on Yelp.
It's important to note that the software applies the same analysis to everyone, and that it affects both positive and negative reviews. You asked that we recommend the reviews that are not currently recommended, but please also understand that the recommendation software is automated: we cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. However, the system is not static reviews may become recommended or not recommended over time as the system continues to make decisions based on a variety of factors.
To learn more about recommended reviews, please visit: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews?l=en_US
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Hi [redacted]Thank you for your response.It looks like a manager, [redacted] reached out to you on May 6, 2016 to discuss your concerns. As you may recall, we have waived the early termination fee of $700. However, you are responsible for the remaining balance of $1081.67 for advertising services delivered March 1, 2016 to April 29, 2016.Additionally, while we appreciate your feedback regarding the calls you received, we want to be clear that you were charged when someone clicked on your ad impression, not when someone called your business. While people who called your business may have found your business page through your Yelp ad, it's also possible that they found your business page through other means, such as our natural search results. The goal of advertising on Yelp is to drive more traffic to the business page, which may ultimately result in more customers, but we cannot guarantee a certain level of results, and we cannot guarantee that certain types of people will or won't click on your ads.Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.

Hi Mr. [redacted]Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your advertising program for the [redacted].We appreciate your feedback, and have forwarded your message to the appropriate parties. It looks like a manager, [redacted], has...

reached out to discuss your concerns.We are sorry to hear you were not satisfied with your advertising campaign. To be clear, while the goal of advertising on Yelp is to drive more traffic to the business page, which may ultimately result in more customers, it is important to keep in mind that results are not guaranteed. When advertising with a Cost Per Click program, you were electing to pay every time a user clicks on your ad impression. You were also paying for a featured video, call tracking, and an enhanced profile (which included features such as competitor ad removal and a photo slideshow).It also sounds as though you may be concerned about possible click fraud. We employ a variety of industry-standard measures to detect and prevent invalid traffic and click fraud. For example, we monitor our clicks and impressions for fraudulent activity, and frequently update our filters to exclude activity from known offenders. We also subscribe to the Internet Advertising Bureau's bot list, which gives us an industry-standard filter in addition to our own more rigorous ones.Our records indicate you signed up for a cost-per-click auction-based auto-bidding program, which means that Yelp delivered a variable and unguaranteed number of ad impressions, and that you elected to pay every time a user clicked on your ad impression. As noted in your contract, you agreed to allow Yelp to set the bid price per click price to keep you competitive in the market. While your sales representative may have given you an estimated price per click, it's important to keep in mind that the price will fluctuate up or down depending on competition, relevance, and other factors. However, it will always be the lowest price possible to win the click.We also want to address your comment, "As a side note, I had an accident in late April, which required me to undergo surgical repair of a ruptured achilles tendon. This rendered me practically unable to work until the end of May, also, something we informed Yelp of." According to our records, it appears your colleague [redacted] brought this to [redacted] attention on April 25, 2016, and that she decided to go forward with lowering the monthly click budget. It looks like she signed a new advertising agreement on April 25, 2016, which became effective May 1, 2016, to lower the click budget to $475.Please note that per the terms of your advertising agreement, we require 30 days written notice to your account management contact if you wish to terminate your advertising program. It appears you provided your cancellation request on May 11, 2016, and your advertising program was terminated on June 11, 2016.Finally, we wanted to let you know that the remaining balance of $192.51 for advertising services delivered June 1, 2016 to June 11, 2016 has been waived, so you will not incur further charges. If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to [redacted] to discuss.Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.

Hi Derek,Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your advertising program for Full Scope Property Inspections.We are sorry to hear you were not satisfied with your advertising campaign. To be clear, while the goal of advertising on Yelp is to...

drive more traffic to the business page, which may ultimately result in more customers, it is important to keep in mind that results are not guaranteed.Our records indicate you signed up for an advertising program with a $275 per month Yelp Ads budget plus $50 per month page upgrades, for a monthly maximum of $325. The $50 per month page upgrades included features such as a Call To Action button, a photo slideshow, and competitor ad removal. Your advertising package included a cost per click (CPC) program and your ads budget was set at $275, which means you were charged when someone clicked on your ad and you agreed to pay up to $275 a month for those ad clicks. While your sales representative may have given you an estimate of the number of ad clicks you might receive, it is important to keep in mind that the number of clicks will vary because the cost of a click will fluctuate based on competition and relevance. However, you'll always pay the least amount needed to win the click. We aim to maximize the number of clicks you get for your budget over the course of the month, and you should plan to have 100% of your budget fulfilled. Occasionally competitive demand prevents this, but you'll only be billed for the cost of the clicks you received in that monthly billing period.We also want to clarify that ad clicks, user views, and Customer Leads are separate entities of information.An ad click is when a person clicks on your business's Yelp ad. When a user is searching on Yelp for a business in a certain area, we do our best to provide that user with a Yelp Ad applicable to their search. Yelp Ads appear above the natural search results, on your competitors' business pages, and in various other places around the website. The Yelp Ad has the notation "Ad" in next to the business name. Clicking on your ad impression will take the user to your business page on Yelp, and you were being charged when someone clicked on your ad. You can view a breakdown the number of ad clicks you received by logging in to your Business Account at[redacted] and clicking on the "Yelp Ads" tab.User Views is a measure of how many times your Yelp page was accessed or viewed on the Yelp website, mobile website, and mobile apps. Once a user is on your business page (regardless of whether they found it through an ad impression or through another means, such as our natural search results), additional actions they take while on your page may appear in the Customer Leads and Activity Feed sections of your Business Account. Customer Leads are intended to show you how our users are adding and accessing information located in your Yelp business page after they've landed on the page. For example, Customer Leads activity shows clicks to your website. Please note that you were not paying based on the number of users that clicked through to your website. We appreciate your feedback, and have forwarded to the appropriate parties. Your advertising program has been terminated as of January 16, 2018, and the early termination fee of $325.00 was waived. However, our records do not indicate that the representative you spoke with offered to waive the remaining balance, and as advertising services were delivered in accordance with the terms and conditions you agreed to, we will not be able to offer you a refund. Thanks for understanding. Regards,HelenYelp Inc.

Hi Steven,Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns. You expressed concern with Anita F. and John C.'s reviews of [redacted]. It looks like you reported these reviews on the same day you filed this Revdex.com complaint, and as you may...

recall from the messages you've since received from the Yelp Support team, we've removed the reviews by Anita F. and John C. because they fall outside our Content Guidelines.Regards,HelenYelp Inc.

Hi [redacted],Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page for [redacted].We first want to make sure you know that a business's decision whether or not to advertise on Yelp does not affect how the reviews on its listing are...

treated. Businesses are not punished if they don't advertise, nor are businesses awarded with preferential treatment with regards to their reviews if they do advertise. We understand there are some misconceptions about this, so we invite you to visit [redacted] and [redacted] to learn more.You also expressed concern with the recommendation software. As you may have read, the goal of Yelp's recommendation software is to showcase more reliable content. The recommendation software establishes an objective standard against which every review can be measured, and looks at dozens of different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability, and activity on Yelp.It's important to note that the software applies the same analysis to everyone, and that it affects both positive and negative reviews. Please also understand that the recommendation software is automated: we cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. However, the system is not static -- reviews may become recommended or not recommended over time as the system continues to make decisions based on a variety of factors.To learn more about recommended reviews, please visit: [redacted]With regards to your concern with a negative review, it looks like you are referring to the review by [redacted] as you previously reported this review. As you may recall from your correspondence with the Yelp Support team, this review has been evaluated by and left up, as it was not found to be in violation of our guidelines. If a review appears to reflect the personal experience and opinions of the reviewer, it is our policy to allow the user to stand by his or her review.Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.

Complaint:[redacted]I am rejecting this response because:
A.  It was not clearly defined
B.  I have never received any bills concerning these charges
C.  I did not intend to ever advertise online for any amount
D.  I have not ever received any list of clicks or actual indication that these  so called 'clicks' were actually done - very ambiguous claims and not verifiable as I have asked numerous times for evidence
E.  I never ever received any confirmation from your company concerning registration etc. so therefore had no knowledge that this was going on.
Sincerely,Judith [redacted]

Hi Robert,Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your advertising program for Window King. We are sorry to hear you were not satisfied with your advertising campaign. To be clear, while the goal of advertising on Yelp is to drive more...

traffic to the business page, which may ultimately result in more customers, it is important to keep in mind that results are not guaranteed. Our records indicate you signed up for an advertising program with a $275 per month Yelp Ads budget plus $35 per month page upgrades, for a monthly maximum of $310. The $35 per month page upgrades included features such as Call To Action button, a photo slideshow, and competitor ad removal. Your advertising program was a cost per click (CPC) program and your ads budget was set at $275, which means you were charged when someone clicked on your ad and you agreed to pay up to $275 a month for those ad clicks. If you did not reach your monthly budget cap, you would be charged for the ad clicks you received. However, if you did reach your monthly budget cap, we no longer delivered ads for your business for the remainder of the month so that you wouldn't have to pay more than you agreed to.Please note that per the Terms[redacted] you agreed to, we typically require 30 days written notice to Yelp's account management team if you wish to terminate your advertising program. It looks like you were initially set to cancel your ads at the end of your term on March 29, 2018, but that when you spoke with our account management team on January 31, 2018, they offered to move your cancel date to February 27, 2018 and to waive the early termination fee.We've forwarded your message to the appropriate parties for their consideration, but at this time, as advertising services are being delivered in accordance with the terms and conditions you agreed to, we will not be able to offer you a refund. Thanks for understanding. Regards,HelenYelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 6, 2015/07/10) */
Hi Dr. [redacted]
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page for [redacted] C [redacted], MD.
You wrote, "The negative reviews actually started after the first two years,...

during which they called our office multiple times each week, asking our company to subscribe to monthly paid service with them 'to improve online reviews about our company'." To be clear, a business's decision whether or not to advertise on Yelp does not affect how the reviews on its listing are treated. Businesses are not punished if they don't advertise, nor are businesses awarded with preferential treatment with regards to their reviews if they do advertise. We understand there are some misconceptions about this, so we invite you to visit http://www.yelp.com/advertiser_faq and http://officialblog.yelp.com/2013/05/no-yelp-doesnt-extort-small-businesses-see-...⇄ to learn more.
If you believe, however, that an individual has provided you with different information, we would like to investigate further. To that end, please provide us with the name of the individual whom you spoke with, their phone number, the phone number that received the call, and the date and time of your conversation with them, if known.
You also expressed concern with the recommendation software. As you may have read, the goal of Yelp's recommendation software is to showcase more reliable content. The recommendation software establishes an objective standard against which every review can be measured. It's important to note that the software applies the same analysis to everyone, and that it affects both positive and negative reviews. Please also understand that the recommendation software is automated: we cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. However, the system is not static reviews may become recommended or not recommended over time as the system continues to make decisions based on a variety of factors.
To learn more about recommended reviews, please visit: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews?l=en_US
You also expressed concern with some negative reviews. If you believe a review violates Yelp's Content Guidelines (http://www.yelp.com/guidelines), you can report the content by clicking the flag icon next to it. You'll need to be logged in to your account in order to view the flag icon. While reporting content doesn't guarantee that it'll be removed, our team looks at every inquiry and carefully evaluates the content against our guidelines. Each case will be reviewed by our team in the order it was received. Typically, you will receive a response to your report within a few business days. If you don't believe you've received our response, please be sure to check all email and spam folders (you may want to add [redacted]@yelp.com to your contact list).
For instructions on how to report content, please visit: http://www.yelp-support.com/article/How-do-I-report-a-review?l=en_US.
You asked for your business to be removed from Yelp, but we actually don't remove business listing information. While some business owners might prefer to keep a lower profile, this kind of information is publicly available and its use is protected under the law. More importantly, we believe that the public benefits from sharing their experiences with local businesses.
You also expressed concern that "They post that Dr [redacted] is an optometrist, instead of an ophthalmologist." We have systems in place to keep our data accurate and timely but from time to time, errors can occur. We've corrected your category and apologize for any inconvenience: http://www.yelp.com/biz/[redacted]
Finally, we've gone ahead and informed our Sales team that you no longer wish to receive any communication from them. If for any reason you continue to hear from them, please let us know at http://www.yelp.com/support/contact/questions
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 8, 2015/07/21) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Dear Business Complaints Division (Regarding complaints against Yelp.com):
Specifically, I wish to file the two complaints below, on behalf of my ethical business and every other ethical business which has suffered from the irresponsible journalism that is slanderous, inaccurate, unverified, anonymous, dishonest resulting from the yelp.com business model that is designed to financially benefit from one-sided, inaccurate, unethical reviews online. I will elaborate on these specific slanderous and defamation of character practices which Yelp.com engages in, in the paragraphs which follow the below listed complaint summaries (see A & B):
A) unethical, deceptive, negative, slanderous, and defamation of character, unsubstantiated/unverified online business reviews generated and propagated by Yelp.com company who persists in practicing irresponsible journalism and inaccurate business reviews
B) Request for our company to be included in any current or future litigation against Yelp.com, suing for damages/business revenue losses resulting from unethical and inaccurate reviews from anonymous posting persons, allowed by Yelp.com
I accuse of Yelp.com (business name) of deceptive and untruthful business reviews propagation, defamation of character, slander and refusing to post corrections, accurate reviews based on truthful facts from normal and real patients/clients, and willful, repeated refusals despite six years of requests by telephone and online to reliably post true patient positive reviews on their website. Yelp hides and/or buries or deletes all positive reviews, only posting prominently negative reviews (forever), often from negative attitude persons who were not even established or real customers or clients and allows these persons to post these reviews anonymously so that anyone can post lies and deceptive reviews without accountability. Our company cannot pursue these individuals for slander and defamation of character and we have no options for legal recourse due to Yelp's anonymous review policy and thus we are unable to seek reimbursement for crimes committed by these cowardly anonymous reviewers who slander rival businesses and fear no retribution for untruthful and deceptive, vicious reviews that appear on Yelp's website. Yelp repeatedly blocks all new positive reviews from new and established clients, repeatedly telling our company Yelp has determined that these positive reviews are "unreliable". Yelp also has refused to delete (or allow me to delete) my company profile from their Yelp online website, despite my multiple, repeated requests the past six years, resulting in irreparable harm to my business and business reputation online. I consider their arrogant behavior and deceptive reviews unethical and slanderous. Yelp hides and/or buries or deletes all positive reviews, only posting prominently negative reviews (forever), often from negative attitude persons who were not even established or real customers or clients and allows these persons to post these reviews anonymously so that anyone can post lies and deceptive reviews without accountability. Our company cannot pursue these individuals for slander and defamation of character and we have no options for legal recourse due to Yelp's anonymous review policy and thus we are unable to seek reimbursement for crimes committed by these cowardly anonymous reviewers who slander rival businesses and fear no retribution for untruthful and deceptive, vicious reviews that appear on Yelp's website. Yelp repeatedly blocks all new positive reviews from new and established clients, repeatedly telling our company Yelp has determined that these positive reviews are "unreliable". Yelp also has refused to delete (or allow me to delete) my company profile from their Yelp online website, despite my multiple, repeated requests the past six years, resulting in irreparable harm to my business and business reputation online. I consider their arrogant behavior and deceptive reviews unethical and slanderous. The negative reviews actually started after the first two years, during which they called our office multiple times each week, asking our company to subscribe to monthly paid service with them "to improve online reviews about our company". We respectfully and repeatedly declined their excessive and unwanted cold marketing telephone calls which were unsolicited and abusive. After two years of telephone harassing calls to our office, yelp.com resolved to post only vicious and slanderous reviews with daily online defamation of character reviews. Please automatically enroll our company in any pending or future litigation against Yelp.com, with this letter as proof of authorization for you to do so on behalf of our company, and please mail (to our company address listed below) any present or future group litigation that is currently in process or planned for the future so that we may join in any lawsuit against yelp.com for irresponsible and unethical, deceptive, slanderous business practices by Yelp.com. Yelp.com should go out of business or be forced to go out of business by an enormous law suit which remunerates the myriad businesses who have been unjustly monetarily damaged by inaccurate reviews by Yelp.com from unverifiable sources that are only displayed prominently by Yelp's website if they are vicious, inflammatory and overwhelmingly negative. Myriad companies, such as my own company, work hard every day to provide excellent customer service. Our company, specifically, strives to preserve vision in patients with sight-threatening diseases and to optimize patient's vision to both enrich their lives and achieve the maximum amount of excellent visual functioning possible that will allow patients to live long, happy and productive lives without progression to preventable blindness. Yelp.com's mission statement seems to be the following: "let's accept anonymous, unconfirmed reviews from only the most negative and vicious people writing online reviews and post them forever without letting the companies who are being maligned have any option to delete their company from Yelp.com's website and with no recourse to correct and defend their good name and company reputation without sounding petty and argumentative by responding to incredulous and untruthful reviews by bitter and vindictive Yelp.com online reviewers. Yelp.com is the epitome of irresponsible journalism, slander, defamation of character for businesses worldwide and pretends to be an ethical company. Instead they have become experts in generating anonymous, negative, inaccurate reviews of businesses which they post forever and they engage in the practice of burying or discarding all positive reviews from prominent areas of their company review pages online, and then attempt to harass the very companies the pretend to be concerned for by cold marketing telephone calls and emails, hoping to charge these same businesses they are slandering "to improve that business's online reputation", which Yelp.com originally sullied. Again, you have our company permission to include us if any current or future lawsuits against Yelp.com. We have lost many thousands of dollars from the defamation and slanderous accusations which are untruthful and unsubstantiated but published without verification by Yelp.com. More importantly, patients with serious eye disease who would have derived sight-saving eye care have been turned away from this eye care as a result of Yelp's singular focus on destroying businesses reputations throughout the world and then, in an ambulance-chasing manner, trying to follow these damaged businesses (which Yelp injured via irresponsible publishing of hostile, untruthful, subjective, one-sided online business reviews by malicious persons with evil intent) and profit monetarily by having these business pay Yelp to improve online reputations that Yelp destroyed. Truly, yelp has a wicked business model that deserves to be entangled in lawsuits until yelp.com is forced out of business and into bankruptcy or exposed by businesses who unite and take action in conjunction with state government agencies and the federal government responsible for prosecuting businesses engaging in daily fraud!
Until Yelp.com removes completely my business and all past, present, and future yelp reviews of me and my business from the internet, I will consider this matter unresolved and consider any and all opportunities to individually or jointly unite other maligned companies to pursue litigation against yelp.com for irresponsible slander and defamation of character, and unethical business conduct and irresponsible and inaccurate journalism which engages in no fact finding and purposely perpetuates non-factual reviews of businesses and only regards vicious reviews as reliable for their first screen yelp reviews of businesses while simultaneously burying positive reviews from real clients who were actually clients of the busin
Final Business Response /* (4000, 10, 2015/08/05) */
Hi Dr. [redacted],
It sounds as though you don't accept our explanation of the recommendation software, but we can only stand by our previous statements. Yelp's recommendation software is an automated algorithm that attempts to weed out less reliable reviews while showcasing more reliable ones. This means that when reviews are posted to your listing, not all of them will make the cut. We acknowledge that even some legitimate reviews will not be recommended, but we still believe that the software as a whole makes our site more trustworthy and useful to consumers.
As indicated in our prior response, the recommendation software is automated to help avoid the potential for human bias inherent in individual decision-making: we cannot reverse the software's decisions, either to suppress an active review or to restore one that isn't recommended. But once again, the system is not static reviews may come and go as the recommendation software picks up new information.
We do understand the recommendation software can be frustrating at times, and your feedback is appreciated. When it comes down to it, all review sites face the same challenge: how to identify fake reviews among the many millions of legitimate reviews. It's no easy task, and there is always room for improvement. We hope to be able to continually improve on this issue.
Additionally, while we share your concerns, we don't adjudicate disputes between businesses and their reviewers. Congress acknowledged this predicament by passing [redacted] that provides statutory immunity to online service providers such as Yelp for the content of third-party posts. See 47 U.S.C. §230. The case law is clear on this point in support of online service providers because of concerns that they would otherwise be forced to remove third party posts every time someone raised issue with their contents. See Carafano v. Metrosplash. com. Inc., 339 F. 3d 1119 (9th Cir. 2003); Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997); Barrett v. Rosenthal, 40 Cal. 4th 33 (Cal. 2006).

That said, we will revisit your request if you provide to us a final judicial determination that the contents of a review are defamatory and will, at our discretion, take appropriate action with respect to the review and the user responsible for the review.

We encourage you to contact the reviewers directly using the private messaging function on our site in order to constructively address your concerns. We do not recommend that you engage in anything other than a well-meaning dialog with the reviewers in order to sort out any misunderstandings.
Lastly, you have again asked that your business listing be removed, but as previously stated, we don't remove business listing information. Yelp is allowed to publish business names and publicly available information about businesses under the well-established fair use doctrine, as well as First Amendment principles. Generally speaking, this means that we can display business names and trademarks "for purposes of comparison, criticism, point of reference, or any other such purpose." See New Kids on the Block v. New America Pub., Inc., 971 F.2d 302, 306 (9th Cir. 1992).
Thanks for understanding.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp, Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/06/30) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page for The [redacted].
You wrote, "all positive legitimate reviews conveniently get hidden if you choose to not...

advertise with Yelp." We want to assure you that a business's decision whether or not to advertise on Yelp does not affect how the reviews on its listing are treated. Businesses are not punished if they don't advertise, nor are businesses awarded with preferential treatment with regards to their reviews if they do advertise. Furthermore, there is zero relationship between the timing of when a review gets recommended and when a business decides to - or declines to - advertise: reviews can be recommended or not recommended days, weeks, or even months after they were first posted, and your Yelp sales representative doesn't have any influence over when that might happen. We understand there are some misconceptions about this, so we invite you to visit http://www.yelp.com/advertiser_faq and http://officialblog.yelp.com/2013/05/no-yelp-doesnt-extort-small-businesses-see-...⇄ to learn more.
As you may have read, the goal of Yelp's recommendation software is to showcase more reliable content. The recommendation software establishes an objective standard against which every review can be measured. Even though it inevitably affects legitimate reviews from time to time and misses some fake ones, too, it helps protect the integrity of the site both for consumers (who will be less likely to be led astray by bogus reviews) and business owners (who will spend less time worrying about whether their competitors are writing negative reviews about them).
It's important to note that the software applies the same analysis to everyone, and that it affects both positive and negative reviews. Please also understand that the recommendation software is automated: we cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. However, the system is not static reviews may become recommended or not recommended over time as the system continues to make decisions based on a variety of factors.
To learn more about recommended reviews, please visit: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews?l=en_US
You also expressed concern with [redacted] R's review of your business. As you may recall from the messages you've received from the Yelp Support team, the review has been evaluated by the Yelp Support team and left up, as it was not found to be in violation of our guidelines. You claim that this review is "littered with false statements"; however, Yelp does not take sides in factual disputes. Rather, if a review appears to reflect the personal experience and opinions of the reviewer, it is our policy to allow the user to stand by his/her review.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/10/13) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page for [redacted].
We first want to clarify that a business's decision whether or not to...

advertise on Yelp does not affect how the reviews on its listing are treated. Businesses are not punished if they don't advertise, nor are businesses awarded with preferential treatment with regards to their reviews if they do advertise. We understand there are some misconceptions about this, so we invite you to visit http://www.yelp.com/advertiser_faq and http://officialblog.yelp.com/2013/05/no-yelp-doesnt-extort-small-businesses-see-...⇄ to learn more.
Additionally, as indicated on the first page of the advertising agreement you signed, "Please note that businesses cannot pay to remove, reorder, or otherwise impact reviews. If you decide not to enroll in a Yelp Ad Program, that won't affect your reviews, either."
You also expressed concern with the recommendation software. As you may have read, the goal of Yelp's recommendation software is to showcase more reliable content. The recommendation software establishes an objective standard against which every review can be measured, and looks at dozens of different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability, and activity on Yelp.
It's important to note that the software applies the same analysis to everyone, and that it affects both positive and negative reviews. Please also understand that the recommendation software is automated: we cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. However, the system is not static reviews may become recommended or not recommended over time as the system continues to make decisions based on a variety of factors.
To learn more about recommended reviews, please visit: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews?l=en_US
We have forwarded your feedback regarding your conversations with our account management team to the appropriate parties. Additionally, it looks like a manager, [redacted], has since been in touch with your colleague [redacted]. As you may recall, the early termination fee has been waived.
Please note that per the terms of your contract, we require 30 days written notice to your account management contact if you wish to terminate your advertising program. As you provided your cancellation request on September 29, 2015, your advertising program is set to cancel as of October 29, 2015. Because your advertising program is billed in arrears, please note that you will see a final charge on November 1 for services delivered in October. Thanks for understanding.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/10/19) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
These are the messages sent back and forth from yelp. I explain to them that I do not want to be charged for anything I will not pay them another dime they are scamming people for there money and it is not fair. I would like for yelp to return all money back to me. I am highly upset with yelp and there scamming about there reviews being utilized by a software they pick and choose what reviews are on your page. And I understand I am not paying for reviews. But it is not right that my clients cant put a good review and it gets taken off, ITS A SCAM.
Hi [redacted],
Thanks for your time today. Sorry we got disconnected. I wanted to follow up via email to cover what was discussed, as well as outline the plan for moving forward.
Written notice is required 30 days in advance to stopping a Yelp Ads program. With today being your cancelation notice (please reply back to confirm), your Yelp Ads will be shut off 10/29/2015.
The early termination fee of $640 will not be assessed.
The charges from your Yelp Ads program (ad clicks and enhanced profile) will be collected. You should see a charge on 10/1 for services received in the month of September, and one final charge on 11/1 for services received in October.
You still have Account Management support until the end of your term of termination date of Yelp Ads. We can be reached at (XXX) XXX-XXXX.
I encourage you to continue to engage with your Business Owner's Account and reach out with any questions you have. I wish you the best moving forward.
Thanks,
[redacted], Associate Manager- Local Accounts
p: [redacted]
[redacted]
Sep 29
to [redacted]
[redacted],
I think I told you that when you can come to a better resolution instead of bullying me and harassing me about Fee's that I am not authorizing then we could talk. I will go ahead to further notice let the better Revdex.com know what you are trying to charge me for and also let them see this email. If I was today to cancel my account that means I WOULD NO LONGER BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING! If I am terminating my account that means I should not be charged any FEE'S!!
Its called a early termination! If you continue to harass me I will get law enforcement involved!!
Charges from a cancelled Yelp Ads program (ad clicks and enhanced profile) will not be collected. I should not see a charge on 10/1 for services not received in the month of September, and one final charge on 11/1 for services not received in October because I am prompting to cancel my account! You will not charge me anything you might think you can try to scam me but you wont.
Hi [redacted],
Thanks for the reply. I apologize, I do not intend to harass you or bully you for fee's. I have attached a copy of your original advertising agreement to use for reference. This should outline what services were rendered and the fees associated with those services.
I am more than happy to schedule a call to discuss further concerns, but as of now your account is set to discontinue on 10/01/15 with no early termination fee.
[redacted],
I am glad my account is set to discontinue on 10/01/15 with no early termination fee. Like I said I don't want any further Fee's to be accessed!
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2015/11/04) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for your response.
Our records indicate that you signed up for a packaged Cost-Per-Click program, which means you elected to pay every time a user clicked on your ad impression. You were also paying for additional features such as competitor ad removal, a photo slideshow, featured video, and call tracking.
We also want to reiterate that we require 30 days written notice in order to terminate your advertising program. As noted in Section V (Term and Termination) of the advertising agreement you signed: "Client may terminate the Purchase Order on any day of the month by providing thirty (30) days' written notice, including email, to Client's account management contact at Yelp." Because you provided your cancellation request on September 29, 2015, your advertising program was terminated on October 29, 2015. As advertising services have been delivered in accordance with your contract, we will not be able to offer you a refund.
With regards to your concerns with the recommendation software, we can only stand by our previous statements. Yelp's recommendation software is an automated algorithm that attempts to weed out less reliable reviews while showcasing more reliable ones. This means that when reviews are posted to your listing, not all of them will make the cut. We acknowledge that even some legitimate reviews will not be recommended, but we still believe that the software as a whole makes our site more trustworthy and useful to consumers.
As indicated in our prior response, the recommendation software is automated to help avoid the potential for human bias inherent in individual decision-making: we cannot reverse the software's decisions, either to suppress an active review or to restore one that isn't recommended. But once again, the system is not static reviews may come and go as the recommendation software picks up new information.
We do understand the recommendation software can be frustrating at times, and your feedback is appreciated. When it comes down to it, all review sites face the same challenge: how to identify fake reviews among the many millions of legitimate reviews. It's no easy task, and there is always room for improvement. We hope to be able to continually improve on this issue.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.
Final Consumer Response /* (4200, 11, 2015/11/06) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
My records indicate that I signed up for a packaged Cost-Per-Click program, which means you elected to pay every time a user clicked on your ad impression WHICH I ONLY GOT A FEW CLICKS WHICH WERE CHARGED AT DIFFERENT AMOUNTS MAJOR "SMAM".. I did not sign up for additional features such as competitor ad removal, a photo slideshow, featured video, and call tracking.
I provided My cancellation request before September 29, 2015, your advertising program should have been terminated before October 29, 2015. As advertising services have not been delivered in accordance with my contract,you will refund every dime I ever paid you. Because this is a scam.

Hi Nichole,Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your advertising program for Freedomstar Financial.Our records indicate you redeemed a $300 promotional ad credit on December 27, 2017. To redeem the $300 credit towards Yelp ads, you were...

required to sign up for our Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising campaign and put payment information on file. You initially set your Cost Per Click monthly budget at $450, then lowered it that same day to a $150 monthly budget. You also signed up for enhanced profile features which cost an additional $75 per month. Once the promotion runs out, advertising continues until you stop your ads through your Yelp for Business Owners Account.Your advertising program was a self-serve program, which means that ads can be turned off by the business at any time through the Yelp for Business Owners Account. If you only wanted to use your $300 promotion, you would have needed to log in and end the program once that credit was used. During your ad setup there were Q&A's on the page explaining that you could stop your ads any time through the Yelp for Business Owners site.Additionally, after you signed up for and after you edited your advertising program, we sent you automated emails that recapped your purchase and the details of your campaign, including that the payment method on file in your account will be charged monthly, up to the maximum specified in the email, and your programs will continue unless cancelled. If you were not satisfied with the terms outlined in these emails, you could have logged in to your account and stopped your ads.Below is a more detailed description of how the promotion was applied:December 27 - 31, 2017- You received ad clicks and enhanced profile features which cost a total of $10.52- $10.52 of your $300 credit was used and you paid $0January 2018- You received ad clicks and enhanced profile features which cost a total of $225.00- You had $289.48 remaining promotional credit for this month because it was partially used towards your December ads- $225.00 of your remaining $289.48 credit was used and you paid $0February 2018- You received ad clicks and enhanced profile features which cost a total of $225.00- You had $64.48 remaining promotional credit for this month because it was partially used towards your December and January ads- $64.48 of your remaining $64.48 credit was used and you paid $160.52March 1 - 5, 2018- You received ad clicks and enhanced profile features which cost a total of $10.70- You had $0 remaining promotional credit for this month because it was used towards your December, January, and February ads- You are responsible for $10.70 for advertising services delivered in MarchYou can view ad click and billing information in the Yelp Ads and Billing tabs of your Yelp for Business Owners Account at[redacted].You ended your advertising program on March 5, 2018. As advertising services have been delivered in accordance with the Terms [redacted]) you agreed to, we will not be able to offer you a refund or waive the outstanding balance of $10.70 for advertising services delivered from March 1 - 5, 2018. Once this amount is collected, you will not incur further charges. Thanks for understanding.Regards,HelenYelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/07/15) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page for [redacted]
You expressed concern that incorrect hours were displayed on your...

business page. We have systems in place to keep our data accurate and timely but from time to time, errors or delays can occur. We've gone ahead and removed the hours and apologize for any inconvenience: [redacted]
For future reference, if you would like to submit changes to your business page, we suggest that you do so by logging in to your business account at https://biz.yelp.com. Changes made from a business account will be displayed immediately, but please note that they will still need to be approved by our moderators.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/11/16) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page for The [redacted].
We first want clarify that a business's decision whether or not to advertise on Yelp does...

not affect how the reviews on its listing are treated. Businesses are not punished if they don't advertise, nor are businesses awarded with preferential treatment with regards to their reviews if they do advertise. We understand there are some misconceptions about this, so we invite you to visit http://www.yelp.com/advertiser_faq and http://officialblog.yelp.com/2013/05/no-yelp-doesnt-extort-small-businesses-see-...⇄ to learn more.
If you believe, however, that an individual has provided you with different information, we would like to investigate further. To that end, please provide us with the name of the individual whom you spoke with, their phone number, and the date and time of your conversation with them, if known.
You also expressed concern with the recommendation software. As you may have read, the goal of Yelp's recommendation software is to showcase more reliable content. The recommendation software establishes an objective standard against which every review can be measured, and looks at dozens of different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability, and activity on Yelp.
It's important to note that the software applies the same analysis to everyone, and that it affects both positive and negative reviews. You wrote, "I want my positive reviews to show as recommended," but please understand that the recommendation software is automated: we cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. However, the system is not static reviews may become recommended or not recommended over time as the system continues to make decisions based on a variety of factors.
To learn more about recommended reviews, please visit: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews?l=en_US
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.