Yelp

I posted an artistic bus in the void photo (a Mears Connect bus in a surreal setting) to visually support my written review complaining about the paid replacement service. Someone flagged it, and Yelp HQ removed it, claiming it does not appear to be of the business and falls outside content guidelines.

The photo directly related to the consumer experience (a shuttle bus at the airport pickup area), yet they erased it with a templated email and no meaningful appeal process—just thanks for understanding and no way to challenge or provide evidence.

I feel angry and powerless. Yelp lets businesses (or their proxies) quietly suppress inconvenient visuals while leaving critical text reviews intact.

There's no real recourse for users—big corporate wins again. Yelp could do better by offering a transparent appeal system with human review, clearer guidelines on artistic/protest images, and less automatic removal on flags.

I am extremely disappointed and frustrated with Yelp's treatment of small business owners like us. We have worked hard to build our reputation honestly; every single one of our reviews has been 5 stars, written by real and satisfied clients.

Yet, Yelp has removed almost all of them. A few months ago, we had nearly 15 genuine 5-star reviews. Then suddenly, they deleted most of them, leaving only 5. I tried to stay positive and keep improving our service, hoping it was just a system mistake.

But a few weeks later, they removed even more; now we're left with just one review. This feels unfair and unethical. Yelp is supposed to support small businesses, not punish them. We are a young company, only about 17 weeks in operation, and our reviews mean everything to us.

They reflect the trust and satisfaction of real clients, not fake ones. To make things worse, we are being charged almost $700 per month, plus additional fees whenever we try to get new leads. And the leads we've received have been extremely poor quality; not a single one has turned into real business this month. It feels like we're throwing money away while Yelp takes advantage of small businesses trying to grow.

Their new AI assistant made things even worse by mishandling calls, giving wrong information to customers, and costing us potential clients. When we reach out for help, support doesn't solve anything. They keep billing us, ignoring our concerns, and removing legitimate reviews all while accusing us of asking for reviews, which is completely false. We are honest, hardworking people trying to build a small business from scratch, and Yelp's system has only made it harder.

What they are doing is not right. Small businesses like ours deserve fairness, transparency, and real support, not exploitation.

Yelp Ads is a scam, I PROMISE! For instance, Yelp Ads, Yelp will make accounts and click on the ad your paying for so they can charge you!

I did obtain some leads, don't get me wrong, but come winter, small painting businesses suffer extreme losses due to the competition with bigger companies. I had very few keywords that I would show up under, with the hopes of not being the 100 million victim of their scams! Go ahead, advertise with them, but remember, these reviews reflect what to expect from them! You will be harassed and lied to and pay for "fake leads", so if this is what you're looking for, deal with Yelp!

I recommend Next Door Ads! Yelp owners and employees should be put in prison for life!

Stealing from hard working Americans! *** *** ***

I tried to call 3 times to resolve an issue. It HAS STILL NOT BEEN resolved!

I am being harassed online now and yelp allows defamation of it's business's Character and harassment! I have been closed for 6 years your staff STILL hasn't taken me offline when I have requested it! I am now being sexually harassed online yelp platform! This is inexcusable!

I told yelp my business is closed yet it's still visible online!
A woman on your team from 5 years ago changed my original business name to my personal name. I never formally asked for the change! so now It will never be resolved from these daming posts from people I HAVE NEVER MET! The last phone call to your staff almost hung up on me for asking questions!

He didn't even look back into my history with your company to see what I am referring to! Spencer at least did! He was respectful enough to try to resolve the situation! The last phone call staff was Complete incompetence!

He didn't even resolve the issue like I asked and like he said he would!
You are the worst platform and you offer NO benefits to business only a headache with an incompetent team of workers! Get a real job offer real assistance in the world instead of being a useless leach of a company!

We would like to express our dissatisfaction with Yelp regarding the handling of our business page.

1. Several positive reviews left by our clients have been removed from our page, while a negative review that we have already responded to and that was outside of our scope of works remains visible.

This situation is very concerning to us, as it does not appear to accurately reflect the feedback we receive from our customers.

2. Our company focuses on hardscape services; however, the description on our page has repeatedly been changed to indicate that we specialize in tree trimming and tree removal. We have updated our scope of work multiple times to accurately reflect our services, but the wording continues to be changed without our consent.

3. We also believe we have been overcharged.

When we called to request clarification regarding these concerns, the representative interrupted us, asked, What are you talking about?, and then placed us on hold for over 15 minutes without providing any clear answers.

We value transparency, fairness, and professionalism, and we believe our business deserves better service and support. We would appreciate clarification regarding these issues and assistance in resolving them as soon as possible.