Comments on: You’ll always remember your first ~ How I got banned from Yelp

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 21:12:30 +0000

I just want to thank everyone for their comment. I have closed commenting on this post after 2 years…

By: Chris E.

Chris E. — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 05:18:43 +0000

I’m not surprised at hearing about Robert’s problems with Yelp and also with Vancouver’s CM – Crystal H. – she’s without a doubt the most controvercial & notorious CM in the entire Yelp company. Her negligence in properly handling Roanna’s trouble-causing on Yelp is a huge example of that. I was a member of Yelp from October of 2008 to about May 22nd, 2011. Earlier today I made a blog exposing the trouble-causing people on the Los Angeles region of Yelp. Here’s the URL for it: http://ocf1fansblogaboutyelp.blogspot.com/2011/06/truth-yelpers-movement.html

By: fred J

fred J — Wed, 04 May 2011 03:25:53 +0000

Yelp removed my negative comments and left my positive ones. when i complaned to yelp about hiding the negative comments, they closed my account stating that i violated the terms of service, specifically creating multiple accounts. They also state d that they removed my comments because they could be from a competitor or former disgruntled employee.

fred j

I suggest contacting the california attorney general and the federal attorney general with your specifics!

By: Marjan G

Marjan G — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 04:07:00 +0000

I am not a bit surprised to hear Robert’s story about Yelp.
I was a member of Yelp from May 2010 until December 2010, when I was forced
to shut my account from being stalked by a Phoenix member. I was tired of the harassment and
endless messages from this man, and unsure of whether he was capable of locating me. Real People
Real Reviews? I say Real Stalkers Real Danger, for women especially.
During my time on yelp, I witnessed unfair account closures, due to ‘flagging’ by the yelp community, which consists of a bunch of Elite bullies.
These Elites, for the free reviews they write, and rewarded by some Elite parties Yelp hosts for them, and of course the Elite status. Its my opinion that many reviews are fakes, due to the fact that some Elites have written 500 plus reviews in a year, in the fervor to become an Elite. Plagirism is rampant on Yelp as well.
Yelp can throw members in the yelp ‘jail’ and never let said member know what offense occured as to be avoided in the future. I was in Yelp jail once. Receiving an email from Marvin, saying I was flagged by the Yelp community. Really Marvin? That would mean that Yelp bullies can jail you with no violations of TOS .
Yelp throws in the talk threads to lure more members. In Los Angeles, the threads consist of talk about personal hygeine and sexual practices as well as member bashing and racial slurs.
Stay away from Yelp. The faster this site foes down, the sooner a reputable one will go up.
That is my two cents.

By: BruceS

BruceS — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 22:10:10 +0000

Thanks, Robert. You may have kept me from wasting a lot of time with Yelp. Thanks also to Gregg for the link to the eastbayexpress article. Here I was about to start a Yelp account, and doing a bit of research on them makes it look like they’re entirely untrustworthy.

By: Destroying an Online Community « The Art of Relationships: Chenergy Consulting

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:59:51 +0000

[...] ~Users’ accounts can and have been deleted for posting URLs, though this is not specified in the terms of service. Yelp wants your free content, but it doesn’t want traffic leaving. [...]

By: Jenny Rassen

Jenny Rassen — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 21:27:53 +0000

Yelp in vancouver is quite horrible. There are so many bias reviews…most from the same 10 people. Marc “Hole in the Wall” D is one of the most annoying reviewers.

By: Lynae

Lynae — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:18:42 +0000

Oh, and it was also after being contacted by the “Community Manager for Yelp Denver” that I was blacklisted. Didn’t realize that’s who she was until after it happened and I started poking around.

By: Lynae

Lynae — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 22:14:58 +0000

Yep, I’ve been blacklisted at Yelp, too. Didn’t really start investigating until the second time it happened (after the first time, I deleted my account and figured I’d start over). Now, not only are all of my reviews in the “filtered” section, but the few reviews from my first account KIND OF show up there, only you can’t read anything because it was “removed for violating their terms of service.” Really? Seriously? Deleting my account “violates their terms of service”? Now I feel like I’m not only being blacklisted and suppressed, I’m being slandered as well.

Love the urbanspoon site so far – learned about it through this post!! Trying now to spread the good word through Facebook as well as my own blog – http://www.coloradoexplorers.com/blog/why-im-leaving-yelp-for-urbanspoon

By: Kira

Kira — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:34:41 +0000

It really sucks what Yelp did to you. I’ve been a member since 2006 and didn’t actually start using it till maybe last year. HA. I’ve had to make a new account because I couldn’t remember my old account information and couldn’t retrieve it. But one of my friend’s reviewed a place my old account reviewed and you can actually see it there, the old account, which was really odd.

Here’s a funny story that *might* answer why you can’t see some of your reviews (other than they may be being paid to be removed.)

So a place I yelped about has gotten made customers since I reviewed it. Yet it ONLY has two reviews. I doubt the 30+ people that have gone there through my review did not review it all. Well I went back to the place and the owner told me about it (which is why I know my review helped.) The owner said that Yelp called him and told him that has over 30 reviews (which can only been seen by the actual poster) this is a.k.a. pending status, if you will. Yelp told him that if he Joined and Paid that the other reviews will be shown.

While I’m not anti-yelp, because I do use it, I’m checking out Urbanspoon now.

I really feel for you. It really sucks what they did to you. Crystal needs to stop copying and pasting what the company gave her.

By: Melanie / Lushpad

Melanie / Lushpad — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:54:34 +0000

Urban Spoon is the best! I’d go with them, and they’re fine with bloggers linking back to their sites. They do that with the awesome timinganddelivery.com

By: Rennison

Rennison — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:57:45 +0000

Sorry if this is redundant – I am not sure if I posted this already or not – BUT: I was also dumped by Yelp (for posting honest, negative reviews, with documentation) – and I just ran accross this website –

“Got Yanked At YELP?
You aren’t the only one. And because of the methods that Yelp employed, the false advertising, libel, slander, and defamation used when Yelp “cleaned house”, and Yelp’s refusal to individually review each profile/account to determine if they have made a mistake, they leave us little choice but to take Yelp to Federal Court in a Class Action Lawsuit.”

source:
http://yelplawsuit.com/

By: Rennison

Rennison — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:27:49 +0000

I agree with the comment “…(Yelp) was about as fair and balanced as Fox News during the Bush Administration” – Now that I know how heavy-handedly they censor and weed their reviews, why would I ever even bother to read anything there?

Good luck with your future endeavors, Yelp.

By: Ella

Ella — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:34:08 +0000

Wow, I was about to create an account on yelp then somehow found my way to your site. Anyways, off to urbanspoon. Does this Crystal H woman have a life? Who rates Staples… then a public library… then a pet store.

By: Lorien

Lorien — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:34:54 +0000

Yelp deleted my account too. They said for the same reasons. My website (www.whatcutandwhere.com) has pictures hairstylists upload so I thought it only right that in a review for the hair salon I say that you can see some of their haircuts the people at the salon have done by going here…..

Apparently they didn’t like that.

The salon owners love that I do that and this makes me mad.

By: mainlandheathen

mainlandheathen — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:10:42 +0000

Yelp has to be the biggest trash site on the web. It is usually a very cliquish site withing the city you Yelp in. I placed hundred of reviews and pictures on Yelp and kept getting repeatly banned for what seemed like no reason. All Yelp support would tell me was due to multiple accounts. Which I only had one account going at a time and would start up a new Yelp account when they deleted the previous one. Edgar from Yelp in email told me I am banned from Yelp for life. They now have my ISP blocked out. Yelp is RETARDED and the RAG of the internet!

By: frankinden

frankinden — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:13:34 +0000

We’re having the same problem here in Denver. My friends are noticing that their positive reviews go on display and then a couple days later they go away. But the negative reviewers, with fewer reviews and fewer friends, go on display and stay there.

Yeah, yelp is pretty unreliable.

By: juliemarg

juliemarg — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:02:43 +0000

I got an email today from yelp saying they’ll delete me if I don’t remove my link from my reviews … Haven’t decided what to do.

Funny, because yelp was one of the original inspirations for me to start my website. They encourage and reward yelp reviewers for being snarky and sarcastic. I was motivated to defend the reputation of perfectly fine restaurants — to combat those unhappy people who think it’s appropriate to give a business a one star review because you’d like to punish them for some imagined slight.

By: Sunny

Sunny — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 02:23:22 +0000

Yelp has changed some polices. Of course when they delete a user, they remove that users reviews.

But they KEEP YOUR PHOTOS! So if you postyour personal photos of food, or places, restaurants or just help the site by locating images and pictures in Google image, they keep those in their content.

That seems pretty unethical. Also, they keep all forum thread posts. So that seems weird that they remove your reviews, but keep your forum comments. Usually because many of the forum comments are helpful, informative and of course add to their pages on content that can be searched.

Yelp blows. Seriously the most unethical website out there in the review content segment.

By: mike

mike — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:23:57 +0000

Yelp removes reviews when a member quits or they fire him. that totally skews the reviews and rating of a business, making it meaningless.