Yelp.com

Hi [redacted],Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your advertising program for [redacted].We appreciate your feedback, and will forward your message to the appropriate parties so they can take your suggestions into consideration.As you...

noted, you redeemed a $100 promotional ad credit. To redeem the $100 credit towards Yelp ads, you were required to sign up for our Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising campaign and put a credit card on file. You set your Cost Per Click monthly budget at $98. 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 only be turned off by the business through the Yelp for Business Owners Account. If you only wanted to use your $100 promotion, you would have needed to log in and end the program once that credit was used. In Step 3 of your ad setup there were Q&A's on the right side of the page explaining that you could stop your ads any time through the Yelp for Business Owners site: "Can I stop any time? Yes. There's no commitment or obligation. Just come back to the Yelp for Business Owners site and stop your ads. You will be billed at the beginning of the next month for any clicks you bought before you cancelled."Below is a more detailed description of the ad clicks you received and how the promotion was applied:July 8 - 31, 2016- You received 35 ad clicks which cost a total of $74.49- $74.49 of your $100 credit was used and you paid $0August 2016- You received 45 ad clicks which cost a total of $98- You had $25.51 remaining promotional credit for this month because it was partially used in July- The costs did not exceed your selected $98 monthly budget- You paid $72.49 for advertising services delivered in AugustSeptember 2016- You received 33 ad clicks which cost a total of $98- You had 0 remaining promotional credit for this month because it was used in July and August- The costs did not exceed your selected $98 monthly budget- You paid $98 for advertising services delivered in SeptemberOctober 1 - 17, 2016- You received 19 ad clicks which cost a total of $61.58- You are responsible for $61.58 for advertising services delivered in OctoberYou could have viewed a breakdown of how many ad clicks you received at any time by logging in to your Yelp for Business Owners Account at https://biz.yelp.com/ and then clicking on the Yelp Ads tab. Information about your previous payments and how much of the promotion had been applied to those payments was available in the Billing tab of your account. Additionally, as you noted, business owners have the option to opt in to receive billing confirmation emails.You ended your advertising program on October 17, 2016. As advertising services have been delivered in accordance with the Terms you agreed to, we will not be able to waive the remaining balance of $61.58 for advertising services delivered in October. Your advertising program is billed in arrears, so you should expect to see a charge for that amount on November 1, 2016. Once this amount is collected, you will not incur further charges. Thanks for understanding.Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.

Hi Jason,Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your advertising program for Phoenician Financial Planning. 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 a 12-month advertising agreement on May 6, 2016. Your advertising program had $25 monthly fixed costs plus up to $275 monthly variable costs, for monthly maximum of $300. The monthly fixed costs were for your enhanced profile, which included features such as competitor ad removal, a photo slideshow, and account support. Your advertising program included a cost per click (CPC) program and your monthly cost per click budget cap (in other words, your monthly variable costs) 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.Your advertising program began on May 9, 2016 and was terminated on November 30, 2016.In your complaint, you wrote, "I was to be charged per interaction, with the cost of advertising capped at $300 per month. I used the service for four months before ending payments. During the time paid advertisements were running, I had 12 total client interactions. Yelp still charged me $300 per month. Most would agree that $100 per page click is an outrageous sum, but the fact that they lied about how much each interaction costs is fraudulent." We want to clarify that you were not paying based on the number of "interactions" you had but rather the number of ad clicks you received, up to $275 worth of ad clicks per month. Please note 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. Our records indicate that the average cost of an ad click for your campaign was around $27 per click. Cost-Per-Click ads are delivered in categories matching your specific business, as well as other similar categories that our ad delivery system has identified as relevant. The price you pay per click is based on competition and relevance, but 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.Information about the number of ad clicks you received and the average cost of a click was available in the "Yelp Ads" tab of your Business Account.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 Customer Leads. As advertising services were delivered in accordance with the advertising agreement you signed, we will not be able to offer you a refund. It looks like there is currently an outstanding balance of $600 for ads delivered from October 1, 2016 - November 30, 2016. Once this amount is collected, you will not incur further charges.You also expressed concern with Yelp's recommendation software. Because our recommendation software is automated, the Yelp Support team cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. Our recommendation software is automated precisely so that it can apply the same objective standards to every business and every review without being overridden by someone's personal preferences. That said, our recommendation software runs on a daily basis, so reviews that aren't currently recommended may be recommended in the future, and vice versa. We hope you’ll take the time to watch our video about the Recommendation Software: [redacted]You also expressed concern with a review that you believe is fake. It looks like you are referring to the review by Nicholas V. We reminded the user that the review must comply with our Terms of Service and Content Guidelines, but for now we're leaving the review up. Finally, you asked for your business to be removed from Yelp; however, we don't remove business 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.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].You expressed concern with [redacted].'s review. I understand that you’re disputing the accuracy this review, and our team has taken a second look at it....

However, we reached the same conclusion as before and are unable to remove the review. We don't take sides in factual disputes; if a review appears to reflect the reviewer’s personal experiences and opinions, it is our policy to let the user stand behind his or her review.These decisions aren’t always easy, but please know we looked at this review closely before reaching our decision.We also want to address your comment, "Our VERY HAPPY customer reviews are not being scored!! We received 4 to 5 great reviews and our score went from 2 to 2.5. I imagine it should be higher because Yelp chooses to not score those probably so businesses become desperate and pay them which we refuse to." We want to be clear 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.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. While we only look at Recommended Reviews in calculating a business's overall star rating, please keep in mind that 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]Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because:
[redacted] from Yelp said, in her last response, "If a review appears to reflect the reviewer’s personal experiences and opinions, it is our policy to let the user stand behind his or her review."  However, this is not consistent with what shows in my business listing.  In fact, the majority of my reviewers who have "reflected their personal experiences and opinions" are NOT being published!!!
Also, I noticed another review was submitted last week, and it, too, was not published!!! 
What do you want from me, Yelp.  Money?  A subscription?  Advertising dollars?  What? 
Sincerely,[redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]I am rejecting this response because: this is their typical answer on everything they send out. It is not a coincidence that all business owners call them out for the same issue and complain about the same thing. Sincerely,[redacted]

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 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]We also want to be clear 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]We also wanted to let you know that we have forwarded your concerns to the appropriate parties. As you may recall, an account manager, [redacted], reached out to you and let you know that your advertising program is set to cancel on May 31, 2016 and we are waiving the early termination fee.We hope you will continue to take advantage of the free features available to you on your business account to engage with the Yelp community. For guidance, please visit [redacted]Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.

Hi [redacted],Thank you for writing. We appreciate your feedback regarding your advertising program for [redacted]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 clicked on your ad impression. You were also paying for enhanced profile features and a featured video.You wrote, "I signed up under the premise that my cost per click was $2.40." As noted in your contract, you signed up for a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) auction-based auto-bidding program. Cost-Per-Click ads are delivered in categories matching your specific business, as well as other similar categories that our ad delivery system has identified as relevant. 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, you'll always pay the least amount needed to win the click.Your advertising program has been terminated as of April 30, 2017, and you will not incur further charges. We have also forwarded your message to the appropriate parties for their consideration.Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.

Revdex.com:I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID[redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Sincerely, Christina [redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/05/01) */
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 the review by[redacted] As you may recall from the...

correspondence you've had with the Yelp Support team, the review has been evaluated and left up, as it was not found to be in violation of our guidelines. You claim that this person was not a customer and "is making false claims"; 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.
That said, you might consider sending a private message to the reviewer or posting a public comment through your Business Account. Many reviewers respond favorably to business owners willing to engage in constructive conversation, and at the very least, other Yelp users appreciate seeing business owners take a proactive approach to dealing with customer concerns. Our hope is that by utilizing these means you will be able to rectify any misunderstandings and come to an amicable resolution.
You can access your account by visiting https://biz.yelp.com/
For guidance on using your Business Account, check out https://biz.yelp.com/support/using_business_account
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/05/18) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
Yelp's own content guildelines state the following "Conflicts of interest: Your contributions should be unbiased and objective. For example, you shouldn't write reviews of your own business or employer, your friends' or relatives' business, your peers or competitors in your industry, or businesses in your networking group. Business owners should not ask customers to write reviews.
Promotional content: Unless you're using your Business Owners Account to add content to your business's profile page, we generally frown upon promotional content. Let's keep the site useful for consumers and not overrun with commercial noise from every user. "
There is a conflict of interest here. The person is promoting another business. This person has threatened to shoot someone (over window tinting? which is just ridiculous. We responded to this "customer" just so other potential customers understand what this person is saying is false. Also, the Yelp guidelines state reviews should not promote other competing businesses which this person is doing. The review should be taken down. I understand what [redacted] is trying to say, but please take into consideration we are a small business and false reviews hurt us. I understand she cannot take sides or investigate if the review is false or not, but please at least remove the promotional content in the review. I would really appreciate that. I do not want to waste too much more energy on "[redacted]" who had now changed their name to "**" which makes no sense. And like I said I have all ready found out who the person is from the neighboring business.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2015/06/01) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for your response.
You stated that the review by [redacted] represents a conflict of interest and should be removed. However, please note that our Content Guidelines do not prohibit users from naming other businesses in their reviews, and based on what we see in the review, we can't confirm that the user has a conflict of interest with [redacted] We can only therefore reiterate what we previously communicated to you: if a review appears to reflect the user's personal experience and opinions, we allow the user to stand behind their review.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/11/06) */
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 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
You also wrote, "Remove the false one that we have flagged for removal multiple times." We assume you are referring to the review by [redacted] T. Our team has taken a second look at the review, but we reached the same conclusion as before and are unable to remove the review. We don't take sides in factual disputes; if a review appears to reflect the reviewer's personal experiences and opinions, it is our policy to let the user stand behind his or her review. These decisions aren't always easy, but please know we looked at this review closely before reaching our decision.
We noticed that you've already used your free Yelp for Business Owners Account to post a public comment on this review. Many reviewers respond favorably to business owners willing to engage in constructive conversation, and at the very least, other Yelp users appreciate seeing business owners take a proactive approach to dealing with customer concerns.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/12/10) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing regarding your business page for Born 4 INK. We are still looking into this and will respond with additional information soon. We appreciate your patience in the meantime.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.

Hi [redacted],Thank you for your response.As you may recall, a manager, [redacted], reached out to you on August 1, 2016 to discuss your concerns. [redacted] has also submitted a request to write off the remaining outstanding balance of $214.52 and to waive the early termination fee.Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.

Hi [redacted],Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns.We're sorry to hear that you weren't able to use the [redacted] Deals voucher you purchased for [redacted]. We're canceling the voucher and refunding your credit card $15 -- please allow 5-10 business days for...

this to be reflected on your statement.For future reference, you can contact our [redacted] Deals Support team at [redacted]We hope you get a chance to use a [redacted] Deal soon! Regards,[redacted] Inc.

(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)Hello,Thank you for the reply.Your system obviously has a glitch. I DID enter the coupon code - and I even sent you a screenshot of the coupon code in my previous email per [redacted] request. I even indicated that the $300 was from a [redacted] campaign that you ran.Yelp, you are not authorized to charge my credit card. And I made it clear to you. Then you went ahead and charged again - even after I canceled the trial campaign with you.I am still unhappy with the poor response and lack of liability that you have. Where is my money? I want all of it back because you did not deliver what you promised.[redacted]

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/09/14) */
Hi [redacted] and [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 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, and looks at dozens of different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability, and activity on Yelp. 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. You asked that we recommend all of your reviews, 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
Finally, you also asked that we "remove the one bad review by a new customer." It appears you are referring to the review by [redacted]. It looks like you reported this review to Yelp on the same day you filed this Revdex.com complaint, and as you may recall from the message you've received from the Yelp Support team, we have removed the review by [redacted] because, as written, it falls outside our Content Guidelines. Please keep in mind that if the user chooses to post a new review and that content falls within our guidelines, we will allow it to remain on the site.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (2000, 7, 2015/09/15) */
(The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.)
I accept their response but do not agree with their overall software that allowed this review to be in place after I complainted several times without results. It did affect my business however I am happy to see it gone. The sad said to this is that yelp is picking and choosing what is a real review or a bad one and all reviews should stand as they are written real or not the truth always comes out, which brings balance. For a company to have a software to weed out real or not is not how valued customers that take the time to become a member of yelp to place a revie good or bad and is told that it is not a recommand review because yelp does not know enough about them or because they are new to yelp it is crazy. It is hard enough to get customers to post a review but it is even harder to get that noice that someone place a review but yelp is placing it under not recommended.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 6, 2015/08/11) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding the business pages for [redacted] Cafe and [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 listingor the listing itselfare treated. Businesses are not punished if they don't advertise (or stop advertising), nor are businesses awarded with preferential treatment with regards to their reviews if they do advertise. Regarding listings, we strive to present the most accurate listing information, based on the knowledge we have available.
To that end, can you please let us know:
- when did [redacted] Cafe open at [redacted]?
- what was [redacted]'s previous location, and when did that close?
- is [redacted] currently operating (under the name [redacted] Cafe) at [redacted]?
- if [redacted] is operating at that address, is it separate from [redacted]? if so, how? (are there different store fronts, different cash registers, different phone numbers, etc)?
If you have any other information regarding your business that you think would be helpful, please let us know.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
[redacted]
Yelp Inc.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (2000, 8, 2015/08/17) */
(The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.)
- when did [redacted] Cafe open at [redacted]?
End of February, 2015
- what was [redacted]'s previous location, and when did that close?
[redacted] XXXXX- closed in February
- is [redacted] currently operating (under the name [redacted] Cafe) at [redacted]?
YES
- if [redacted] is operating at that address, is it separate from [redacted]? if so, how? (are there different store fronts, different cash registers, different phone numbers, etc)?
It's run as a same business- [redacted] is a Retail Cafe INSIDE the [redacted] Cafe bakery, where people can consult on [redacted] Cafe items AND purchase [redacted] items.

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/11/13) */
Hi [redacted],
Thank you for writing. We are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns regarding your business page for [redacted] Chiropractic.
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.
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 asked that we recommend [redacted] D's review, 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.

Revdex.com:I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Sincerely, [redacted]

Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: They are THIEVES and no one is doing anything about it!  They are not beinginvestigated for false advertising. Paying per click is "smoke & mirrors".  Since they can not show anything thatthey have done.  
Sincerely,
[redacted]

Hi [redacted],Thank you for contacting us with your concerns about your advertising program for [redacted]We've forwarded your message to the appropriate parties, and it looks like an account manager, [redacted], called and left you a voicemail for you on July 13, 2016. Please reach out to...

[redacted] at your earliest convenience to further discuss your concerns.Regards,[redacted]Yelp Inc.