Yelp.com treated my business unfairly and unethically by filtering 9 positive reviews and showcasing the only negative review my business has ever gotten in 22+ years.Yelp's filtering process makes it impossib Internet, Internet

I read the reviews and I can see that there is absolutely no reason why they are filtered. There is no advertising or bad language or any indication they are fake.

I had a similar experience. I have a landscaping company. I don't have any negative reviews for my account, but I had 6 positive reviews from my customers. None of them were filtered. Then Yelp contacted me by phone and asked me to pay $900 per year for advertising. I said no. The same day I checked my Yelp account, and all 6 reviews were filtered.

I received three more calls from Yelp over the next week telling me if I paid, then they would "give my reviews higher priority": and "this may help them to become unfiltered". Each time, I said NO, I did not want to pay them for advertising. The last time they called, I told them, do not call me again, and I am adding your number to my call blocker.

The next day, I discovered that Yelp had Completed Deleted My Account, As Well As My Business! I was completely wiped off the face of Yelp!

This is where it gets interesting. A week after they deleted my Yelp account and business profile, I got really fed up with not having my business on Yelp. I sent a nasty email, and subtly mentioned about my "$3500 advertising budget with Yelp", and that I would never pay them anything under any circumstances now due to them deleting my account.

Less than an hour of sending the email, I checked Yelp and would you have guessed -- my Yelp account was completely restored, and all 6 of my comments were restored, and not filtered! It has been two months now, and not one of the reviews has been filtered! However, I wouldn't be surprised if soon Yelp attempts to contact me again about my account, and subsequently deletes my account and business when I refuse to advertise with them.

You clearly work at Yelp, you f***ing scam artist

I read the reviews and I can see that there is absolutely no reason why they are filtered. There is no advertising or bad language or any indication they are fake.

I had a similar experience. I have a landscaping company. I don't have any negative reviews for my account, but I had 6 positive reviews from my customers. None of them were filtered. Then Yelp contacted me by phone and asked me to pay $900 per year for advertising. I said no. The same day I checked my Yelp account, and all 6 reviews were filtered.

I received three more calls from Yelp over the next week telling me if I paid, then they would "give my reviews higher priority": and "this may help them to become unfiltered". Each time, I said NO, I did not want to pay them for advertising. The last time they called, I told them, do not call me again, and I am adding your number to my call blocker.

The next day, I discovered that Yelp had Completed Deleted My Account, As Well As My Business! I was completely wiped off the face of Yelp!

This is where it gets interesting. A week after they deleted my Yelp account and business profile, I got really fed up with not having my business on Yelp. I sent a nasty email, and subtly mentioned about my "$3500 advertising budget with Yelp", and that I would never pay them anything under any circumstances now due to them deleting my account.

Less than an hour of sending the email, I checked Yelp and would you have guessed -- my Yelp account was completely restored, and all 6 of my comments were restored, and not filtered! It has been two months now, and not one of the reviews has been filtered! However, I wouldn't be surprised if soon Yelp attempts to contact me again about my account, and subsequently deletes my account and business when I refuse to advertise with them.

 I run two businesses. With the first business, I have a decent size yelp following...and no negative reviews. The second business just inherited a review that contains a lot of defamatory content...

I don't expect much from consumers who have no idea what it takes to please 100% of customers 100% of the time. But all it takes is one loco, insane person to really bring you down.  Yelp keeps filtering my 5 star reviews and keeping the libelous 1 star up for everyone to see.....

And yes, Yelp are hypocrites. The libelous review is written using an alias and she has not reviewed anything else. I demonstrated to yelp why they should remove it, and they won't answer me. By there own content guidelines the review should be eliminated, but will not be becaues Yelp doesn't play fair, and makes up the rules as they go along.....

p.s. if you really think James Madison would find that review filtering should be protected by the first amendment...you need to get a reality check

 I run two businesses. With the first business, I have a decent size yelp following...and no negative reviews. The second business just inherited a review that contains a lot of defamatory content...

I don't expect much from consumers who have no idea what it takes to please 100% of customers 100% of the time. But all it takes is one loco, insane person to really bring you down.  Yelp keeps filtering my 5 star reviews and keeping the libelous 1 star up for everyone to see.....

And yes, Yelp are hypocrites. The libelous review is written using an alias and she has not reviewed anything else. I demonstrated to yelp why they should remove it, and they won't answer me. By there own content guidelines the review should be eliminated, but will not be becaues Yelp doesn't play fair, and makes up the rules as they go along.....

p.s. if you really think James Madison would find that review filtering should be protected by the first amendment...you need to get a reality check

I see others complain about Yelp here for the opposite reason, that they filter out negative reviews. The business world can't have it both ways. Don't know what the complaint was that tarred your business, but maybe the wisest course of action next time is to NOT be proved right by the BBB and just make the dissatisfied customer NOT dissatisfied. Better to lose a little on a transaction and avoid all this grief. That's part of the cost of doing business these days.

 Yelp are now well known for removing good reviews and leaving the bad ones up if you turn down their sales reps offers.  The whole company is nothing more than a scam to rip off business and if they don't fall for it then try to hurt them financially via the net.

 I'm not sure but I think there is a class action lawsuit in the works that so far Yelp has refused to respond to which alleges exactly what I have outlined above.

 Now please excuse me if I'm wrong but why refuse to respond if you have nothing to hide?  My personal thoughts are they have a lot to try to hide and much to try to explain away.

I read the reviews and I will say that while they may be legitimate, I could also see why they are filtered.

First you have been in business since 1989, yet your first positive Yelp review was not until 7/18/2011 when you had 2 on the exact same day.  Both of those giving you the same rating and both knowing you for 5 years.    Then within 6 days having another 3 written.  Then nothing for 2 months when again you have another 3 written within 3 days(where again 2 were on the same day).

While every one of your reviews were written by people who signed up for Yelp the same month of the review and have only written a review for you.  Perhaps if those people start to review other businesses they may "un-filter" their reviews on your company.

Then it really doesn't look that good when you review yourself with 1 Star complaining about Yelp, just be glad that that was one of the ones they filtered.