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Yelp
Rating Details »
Categories: Local Flavor, Mass Media
Neighborhood: SOMA706 Mission St
(between 3rd St & Opera Aly)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 908-3801
One of the Best Travel Gadgets
Of 2009 says Time Magazine! http://bit.ly/2bAcQY
Announced 1 week ago- Hours:
Mon-Fri. 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
- Good for Kids:
- No
2006 reviews for Yelp
This business is a Yelp Sponsor
2/16/2009
11/20/2009
11/20/2009
Updated - 11/19/2009
Updated - 11/17/2009
11/20/2009
Updated - 11/17/2009
Updated - 11/16/2009
11/17/2009
11/13/2009
2 photos
Updated - 11/13/2009
11/14/2009
11/11/2009
11/20/2009
Updated - 11/20/2009
11/11/2009
11/13/2009
11/20/2009
11/10/2009
11/7/2009
11/6/2009
Updated - 11/4/2009
10/30/2009
Updated - 10/26/2009
Updated - 11/15/2009
10/26/2009
Updated - 11/4/2009
10/26/2009
10/26/2009
Updated - 10/18/2009
Updated - 11/13/2009
11/3/2009
11/13/2009
Updated - 11/13/2009
10/23/2009
10/18/2009
Updated - 11/11/2009
Updated - 10/25/2009
10/14/2009
11/19/2009
One of the Business' Favorite Reviews What's This?
Why oh why did it take me so long to find Yelp? It's a goldmine of information. I think it's especially cool that Yelp has parties every once in awhile for Yelp Users. That's cool that they show they appreciate my content and reviews.
I've also noticed business owners have the opportunity to contact reviewers on Yelp. I've had business owners apologize for my bad experiences OR sometimes write me and help me understand if I have some misunderstandings about their business. Cool!
I was aiming at the 2000th review of yelp.
Shoot!
It is already 2003rd.
It is a great website to make businesses work for customers.
Good job!
One star for helping me find talented tradesmen.
Minus two stars for empowering hipsters to write stupidass travelogues about their epic adventures of going to eat something and going to drink something. http://www.sfweekly.co...
Minus two stars for obviously harassing and degrading business owners in an attempt to make Yelp profitable: http://gpsobsessed.com...
Google -- please hurry and build a handy Yelp-killing app that is impartial and not another douchey money-grabbing startup.
In response to Kai who doesn't know what he is talking about http://www.yelp.com/bi...
--- Begin Kai's Comments ---
The point is: If you are legitimate, help Yelp to see this. Add friends, review more than a handful of places, put your real name, put real pictures of yourself, etc.
---End Kai's Comments ---
Helloooo............. What if I don't care to have a lot of friends on yelp? What if I just want yelp for yelp sake? What if someone doesn't want to put their picture up because they are private or just don't want to be recognized in some places they review?
Kai you are Yelp sycophant looking for Elite status in 2010.
Worship...
-Kult of the Piggy!
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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11/17/2009
I never go anywhere anymore without yelping, but I do not like how reviews get yanked because people… Read more »
To all of the complainers and whiners out there.
I recently discovered the contact information for Yelp on the Better Business Bureau website. They are currently rated at an "A", which means that not enough people who feel wronged by this website have contacted the BBB and filed a complaint.
I believe that masking, hiding and removing reviews falls under a customer service complaint. Haphazardly enforcing their Terms of Service can also fall under this.
http://www.bbb.org/gre...
Phone: (415) 908-3801
Ms. Stephanie Ichinose, Director of Communications - (415) 908-3801
If this contact information becomes incorrect please contact the BBB and inform them of this, Yelp cannot be a member if they do not provide it.
Oh, and Yelp provided my information to email spammers, one of whom is High Mountain Hunting Supply. This is a fact and yet another example on how they will act unethically to get paid no matter what the cost.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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8/20/2009
Yelp arbitrarily enforces it's Terms of Service. Phoenix Yelp talk is irrevocably broken. Yelp has… Read more »
(Writing this is the equivalent of Kramer's coffee table book on coffee tables.) Yelp works for some business with a high volume, such as restaurants and not well for other businesses, such as a private investigator agency like mine.
I have had to put up with one-star reviews from whack jobs who never even used my service because I thought they were creepy or weird or wanted something illegal. (The equivalent of giving a review to a restaurant where you thought about going into but never sat down to eat.) They would not let positive reviews stand from an actual customer who has used me two or three times. Why, because apparently he doesn't have enough reviews of worthless shit like "My dry-cleaner" or "My liposuction clinic."
Oh, and because of the nature of my business, people don't like to admit they have used a private investigator, I am not going to get a lot of reviews even when people are satisfied.
Yelp really needs to work on its fairness.
Yelp!!!
WHY did you removed 3 NEW reviewes again from my Business??? This is legitimate reviewes, that was put there 4 day ago. WHY are you doing this.WHY??
Please STOP! This is soo annoying already!
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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10/30/2009
Yelp! Please!!!!!!!
WHY are you blocking my business page. I just got an e-mail from YOU that I got… Read more »
When I first started on Yelp, I was really happy. There are so many new sites out there and every now and again one takes off. This was one and I could see why. It is easy to navigate, well designed, and purposeful. However my excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I realized that I was spending all this time reviewing and no one but me was seeing them. I would have never noticed if I wouldn't have asked my mom to go review a business we both used and she said she didn't see mine. At first I thought it was a fluke, then I logged in as my husband and lo and behold, non of my reviews were showing to the public. And none of HIS were showing!!
So I emailed support and I was told that it wasn't for violating any rules, it was due to the automated system choosing to hide my reviews. No reason, no criteria was listed for us to follow. Just natural selection. This TOTALLY defeats the purpose of social media and has discouraged me from reviewing anymore. The represnstitive asked for feedback and told him that we need the option to have a REAL person lift this ban or whatever it is. It never happened.
SO I don't even know why am writing this, it will probably never be seen but what the heck. I have already wasted hours and hours on this site, I figured I would give it one try. Maybe my last post will actually show.
TO THE FOLKS AT YELP. This system you have sucks. Eventually a new site will come out, one that doesn't censor peoples reviews or hide them needlessly and your site will disappear. It is too bad really, it could have been great.\
TO YELPERS. Use a friends account and check to see if your reviews are REALLY there. You will see them if you are logged in as yourself, but as someone else, you don't exist. How does it feel to be entertaining and reviewing for yourself?? Not so fun anymore is it?!
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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10/30/2009
When I first started on Yelp, I was really happy. There are so many new sites out there and every… Read more »
Yelp! is a great site.
Sure it has its problems like anything else in life, but any fool can see that the goods definitely outweigh the bads.
It is very community oriented & succeeds not only as consumer-submitted business review site but also as being a cornerstone of all things friends, get togethers, and social networking in many peoples lives.
*TO ALL THE PEOPLE COMPLAINING ABOUT DELETED REVIEWS*
OK, one review getting mistakenly deleted is understandable, but more than that means there is something wrong. . .
To my knowledge I have never had any of my reviews removed.
... Perhaps the reason yours get deleted is because of a profound lacking in how "real" you appear to be to Yelp employees as well as other Yelpers..
I noticed a business here in Alameda where a man OBVIOUSLY created a personal account to leave a great review of the business he owned. A couple of days later his profile & review were gone (most likely deleted by Yelp after probably getting flagged multiple times).
I'm glad the website took action and his profile & review were promptly terminated.
- The point is: If you are legitimate, help Yelp to see this. Add friends, review more than a handful of places, put your real name, put real pictures of yourself, etc.
************
I think Yelp is a business that deserves the success it is achieving and I am glad to part take in reviewing/chatting/helping the site continue to grow.
Definitely one of the easiest 5 stars I have ever given out!
This review was written for "Denver Yelp" but has been moved to the generic Yelp/SanFran. It only applies to Denver since that's where I've done most of my sharing.
No matter how you come to be a "yelper", this version of the nationwide phenomenon will welcome you to their fold. There may be the errant "troll" lurking on the talk threads just as there are on any popular public forum but don't let that deter you from sharing whatever size slice of the pie that is your life with others. The risk is worth it to find people who appreciate what you have to offer as much as you reciprocate that feeling for all that they bring to the table. Led by the fresh and fun community manager Laura L, I would encourage you to take advantage of all that yelp has to offer including the badge of being "elite" that grants you the advantage of access to events that are sponsored and therefor FREE. Great people, great food, great drink, what else could you ask for?
Real People, Real Reviews, you sure about that?
I knew you guys controlled what reviews are actually visible to the public, had algorithms the manipulate default sort orders, capriciously enforce rules and select Elites, put people in Yelp time out for being bad on Talk and had various vendor controls in place, but deleting all of my spouse's reviews with no notice or reason provided goes beyond the pale.
The account had not fallen into prolonged disuse, there was a bunch of reviews spanning a couple of years with the most recent within the last month, no flags or warnings, zero reason made to just out of the blue decide to wipe it out. Then no response to inquiries about blanking out the account and expunging the reviews.
If that's the way you want to run things the tag line really needs to change to be accurate:
Artificially Manipulated Representations of People, Artificially Manipulated Reviews ...
Footnote - I began lurking on and using Yelp in 2005, and will likely continue to to some degree having committed so much time to reviews over the last several years (unless Yelp deletes my account of course), but I seriously have lost a lot of respect for it considering the account management and how misleading the represented ratings can be.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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7/7/2008
It is a sad day when a fun photo of Cleavon Little and Madeline Kahn as brilliantly immortalized in… Read more »
Obviously the idea is a good one, since offering recommendations, i.e., exchanging information, has thus far ratcheted human evolution, but I'm fairly convinced we can do a better job than this.
Please, Yelp, go after reviews written by reckless assholes, of places that, in some cases, aren't even the places --e.g.: some dude walked into the family-run bar *adjacent* to the Red Sea restaurant and proceeded gave the "Red Sea" two stars because the bartender didn't know how to make a Captain and Diet. He ends his review on this introspective note:
"Despite being drunk I felt completely out of place and awkward--it's gotta be pretty weird or I must have been more sober than I thought to be that self-aware."
AYFKM?
Another Red Sea reviewer said "the flat bread was the texture of baby flesh." Yeah, Gidget, it's called injera. It's tangy , it's smooth, it's porous. That's just what it is. Imagine if some foreign-born hill person came here and gave ice cream 2 stars because "The cold hurt my sinuses when i jammed in my nose." Thanks for the input. Be sure to write more.
Upshot: most of yelp is useless. Can't we have some button to click to get out of the HELP! I'M TALKING AND I CAN'T SHUT UP part and into actual responsible reviews? The answer is of course not, but i just wanted to put this out there. Also: go to the Red Sea. It's amazing.
Before I signed up for yelp, I would search for places, and check the star ratings to get a rough idea of what the general population thought of it. After I signed up for yelp, I began reading reviews and noticing that it is nothing more than a public forum for people who can never be satisfied (much like I am doing right now). Reviews are removed for lacking firsthand knowledge. This is nothing more than politics. So called "elite" members take advantage of their internet popularity and flag the reviews of others, and cry and complain all day. The staff of Yelp clearly has no backbone. It is amusing. This review will probably get removed. It makes sense.
Yelp rox!
Yelp used to "get" me, and now... I just don' know, bebe.
How interesting, again... reviews just vanish from our business page. Yelp staff informed that this is an automatic process. How strange it is that they vanish as we decide not to advertise with the company. Hmm....
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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8/13/2009
My place of employment was approached by Yelp for advertising. At the moment we were not interested.… Read more »
If you are looking for a good opinion about a restaurant try some other review source. Yelpers seem to no little to nothing about food quality and service. A typical Yelp restaurant reviews will discuss the great time they had walking there dog at some park the afternoon before the went out to eat and oh it was such a great time, blah blah blah, and that is why I'm giving restaurant such and such 4 stars. These reviewers are a burden to the yelp community.
Yelp, please clean up some of the poorly written reviews that have absolutely nothing to do with the place they are reviewing. How about instead of being able to tag a review as useful, funny or cooll, try adding the tag absolutely freak'n useless.
My 200th review is about Yelp. I have written online reviews in many places like Amazon and Epinions, but Yelp takes this to the next level. It is local and you get information of new places to go in your area and places you want to go.
I love that Yelp is a social network that brings together people around things that they like. Plus, there are perks of Yelp that I enjoy like being a Yelp Elite, I get to visit new places out that I would not have likely ventured otherwise.
But what I really like about Yelp is this a place where you can ramble your thoughts into online ink. I find writing reviews to be kind of a peaceful thing, knowing that my reviews helps people become informed of places of interest. Thanks Yelp for giving me the power and the go-ahead to blab freely.
Why oh why does Yelp blacklist all posts from a legitimate user based on a single negative post that they decide to remove of a place that, admittedly, I had not visited, but that employs very shady business practices including insisting on 5 star reviews, and suing customers who don't give them?
If you can read this, then I'm probably not blacklisted anymore. Consider it worthy of the two stars that are now visible, as opposed to the one I should have given it while blacklisted.
If you've ever had a post removed by Yelp, you may want to try logging out and looking for your posts -- they might just all be missing.
EDIT: Wow, really classy now :D This one appears, none of the others do. If you click through to my profile, check one of the other reviews, REMOVE everything after the "#" in the URL, and then check the page, it'll go missing. 1 it is.
I am one of the many that had their reviews removed from business pages for seemingly no reason. Am I really that suspicious? Is it because I have no "friends" on Yelp? Is it because my lists are whichever generic ones come up when you sign up? Because I choose to spend my time doing things other than writing 10 reviews a week? I mean, I have a picture up, doesn't that make me legit?
This hurts, Yelp. I used to rely on you for finding any new restaurant, hair stylist, or dog groomer, but now the trust is lost. Hey, the more I think about it, the more your crazy algorithm is like our flawed capital punishment system. Who cares if a few innocents get thrown out as long as we're also probably getting rid of some bad guys?
Aw, shit.
Apparently my review of this little breakfast joint in East San Diego, in which I compared the hostess' mouth to a "clenched cat's butthole," almost got the poor girl fired. (To be fair her little rage-filled face seriously resembles a cat anus right after it's pinched off one of those foul smelling cat poops. Smelly, drippy little cat poops.)
BUT STILL.
While it pleases me that restaurant managers/owners take the public's opinion into account, and while I'm glad they care about their business' performance, quality, and service, I worry. Considering most of my reviews use over-the-top hyperbole and made-up words (hence: poops), I worry. I worry that peoples' jobs are at risk due to a public forum where we can really say whatever we want, truth or not.
And it doesn't help that many Yelp! users are seriously high-maintenance, snarky asswipes who have never worked in the service industry. I wish there was a reverse-yelp so we servers could be like
"To that whore that left me 10% because I apparently didn't refill her friggin' Diet Coke for the 90th time, I was watching out for your fat ass' insulin levels. Just cause it's diet doesn't mean it's good for you, and p.s, lay off the Dior Poison. It smells like chlamydia."
I love yelping, I love using yelp to help me choose where to grub and imbibe, and I love laughing at the best Yelpers reviews. But it's dangerous, and I hope we all use our power for good (bettering our local businesses) and not evil (whining and making hasty generalizations and being sorta douchy).
P.S. Hey Yelp users: PUNCTUATION IS YOUR FRIEND.
Hi Denise,
We're writing to let you know about our decision to remove your review of Laura J.. Your review was flagged by the Yelp community, and our Support team has determined that it falls outside our Review Guidelines (http://www.yelp.com/fa...) because it contains personal attacks. Upon your next violation of this review, your account will be removed.
We review every situation with detail and take the removal of reviews very seriously.
Regards,
Noelle
Yelp User Support
San Francisco, California
Excuse me but myself and others have been called racist, crazy and I've even been told to kill myself twice by fellow Yelpers. Have they been told their accounts will be deleted or have they been put on timeouts because of personal attacks they did to me and others? No! Hypocrisy? Could be!
More recently noticed a lot of fake reviews. Either a person motivating other morons to write negative like the lynch mob for Ocean Avenue Books. Or after reading Matt Gonzalez - Gonzalez & Leigh LLP reviews, all the positive were from his political career and not his business. Even the San Francisco Public Library reviews were mostly written by staff giving themselves 4- stars.
When trying to flag them, Yelp would not to anything to them because they were Elite members. Even when another member became verbally threatening, Yelp did nothing.
So Yelp staff do have a lot of bias even when one member flags another members reviews. Notice how all the 5 star reviews are from Elite members.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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2/26/2009
Yelp and the Business of Extortion. Local business owners say Yelp offers to hide negative customer… Read more »
Dear Yelp,
First of all, I want to clarify, you are my mecca. Forget MySpace and Facebook, they don't have anything on you!
Damnit! I heart Yelp and there's nothing you can say or do to change my mind. People like me here, so I believe. Yelp is more than writing reviews and praising good food. It's about building new friendships with people who have common interests while making excuses to get together. What fun!
Yelp encourages people to express their opinions about real world experiences they've had about all businesses. Business can sure use an avenue like Yelp as a tool to build upon certain things that need to be improved. I'd like to say I always keep an open mind when trying something new. I take existing reviews in consideration, but ultimately my experience is what counts when writing my long detailed reviews. What my interpretation of high expectations of food and service may be different for other people.
Without Yelp, I wouldn't have anywhere to rave and rant my feelings. My personal satisfaction comes from people who read my reviews, take time to comment, and tell me if the reviews were funny, cool, or useful. Yelp, where have you been all my life?
Yours Truly,
Hogan W.
Yesterday I received a call - AGAIN - from a very immature, un-seasoned young gal at Yelp trying to sell me on Yelp business services.
She just couldn't, in between giggling and not really listening to my concerns, wrap her mind around why a business owner might have concerns about the Yelp extortion model.
Realizing that I was wasting my breath, and precious time, I told her "no thanks, I'm not interested" and hung up.
Next day, I check my business Yelp reviews and what do ya know ... my worst reviews are at the top - even though they're older than some of my better reviews.
No matter how I try and digest Yelp, I always come back to the same conclusions:
1) Yelp offers unreasonable consumers an unfair lever with which to manipulate & even damage the reputation of small businesses AND
2) If you don't PAY for their premium services, Yelp will manipulate your business reviews such that they appear in the worst possible fashion (bad ones on top, good ones disappearing, etc etc) and blame it on their "filter" software.
From the small business owners standpoint - Yelp is detrimental and unfair PERIOD.
Yelp ... YOU SUCK!
2 Previous Reviews: Show all »
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5/11/2009
My dissatisfaction wtih Yelp continues. I am writing under my personal account but I am relaying my… Read more »
Update: Elite status removed.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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11/12/2009
A forum that reveals the, shall we say, less-than-delicate sides of some of its members. Do not be… Read more »
Meh.
Yelp has been boring lately. The threads are slowing down. The raunch is damn near gone. My reviews are so vanilla I don't even want to read them.
It used to be a great place to waste, I mean spend time, during work downtime. Now there are threads about kids peeing their bed.
Maybe the honeymoon phase is over. Maybe you are the girlfriend gaining weight and just not trying anymore because you found yourself in a comfortable relationship and you know I will never leave you. We used to have so much fun together.
I just miss the yelp I knew when we first met.
"Baby come back"
Disclaimers:
- I have never had a review deleted
- I have never had a problem with Yelp as a company
- I don't own my own business
I realize now that Yelp isn't as useful as I once thought. It's nice to hear what people think about businesses, etc. but I think it sort of ruins the excitement for me. Either I have too much expectation and get disappointed or too little and miss out on a great place.
So many of the reviews are now skewed by users who want to be funny, appear "hip" (haha, did I just say that), or are just attention-seeking. This really does a disservice to those of us who want a real review.
Sure, Yelp is a fun website for social networking, and gives me a few laughs, but for the purpose of getting "real reviews" from "real people"? Not so much anymore.
There really needs to be a better filtering process. Enough with the useless reviews!
Come on Yelp, you can do better.
1 Previous Review:
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1/2/2007
It's safe to say that I don't try anything new anymore without checking with Yelp first. I love it!
Merchant Circle is better. I would rather go with them.
I had 105 first and 15,000 page views.
Yelp deleted my account because they said I couldnt be a Dj on Yelp.
I was promoting my Dj service in my name. Booo!
+
Yelp was cool last year. Until I found it they will put you above your competition if you pay them for Marketing! Booo!
Yelp changed a review of mine (business name which made the entire review invalid), and then when I inquired to have to back to the original business name (name you they never contacted me that they changed the name of the company that would change the entire review), they emailed me back, informed me that they could do that per yelp policy, and proceeded to LOCK the business so absolutely no changes could be made to it. My gut feeling it is the plethora of yelp scouts we have gotten (they bread like fleas here) and all they do is write and update businesses. I can't stand them.
Yelp, why are you taking the words out of reviewers mouths and changing them based on what you want?
Match the following famous Yelp misquotes with the individuals below. Good luck......!
1. The unexamined life is not worth yelping.
2. Give me liberty so I can Yelp
3. To be or not to be that is the ultimate Yelp question
4. Yelping is the bedrock of a representative democracy.
5. I came, I saw, and I wrote a Yelp review
6. There always comes a time when one grows weary of work and devotion to duty and all one craves for is a good online connection, the warmth and wonder of a great Yelp review.
7. I should have written more Yelp reviews instead of scuttling across the floors of silent seas
8. About the woodlands I will go
To write a Yelp review in the snow
9. Each person yelps to the beat of his own drummer
10. It is better to have yelped and lost an account due to a TOS violation, than to have never yelped at all...
11. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And write a Yelp review on its branches
AE Housman ________
Albert Camus ________
Alfred Lord Tennyson ________
Clyde R ________
Henry Thoreau ________
Julius Caesar ________
Patrick Henry ________
Robert Frost ________
Socrates ________
TS Eliot ________
William Shakespeare ________
Answers:
Socrates (from the Apology) is 1, Patrick Henry (speech at the Virginia Convention) is 2, William Shakespeare (Hamlet, the great soliloquy) is 3, Clyde R (after a bottle of Australian Shiraz) is 4, Julius Caesar (from Plutarch) is 5, Albert Camus (from The Plague) is 6, TS Eliot ("Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock") is 7, AE Housman - one of my favorite poems - is 8, Henry Thoreau (from Walden Pond) is 9, Alfred Lord Tennyson (y'all thought Shakespeare, didn't you?) is 10, Robert Frost (from "Birches") is 11....
2 Previous Reviews: Show all »
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10/11/2009
New words for the Urban Dictionary
Yelp - an online phenomenon that is shrinking the world and… Read more »
I've had four reviews removed from my page in 48 hours. We've had it. We are suing. Oh, and your big bad ass attitude doesnt scare anyone. You have no right to take legitimate reviews off of a business page. I do not care whether its "random" or not. My staff member had two reviews, I had two review and now they are gone. SCUMBAGS! See you in court
2 Previous Reviews: Show all »
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9/15/2009
My business Orange Crush Studios has never received a bad review on yelp. I personally know or have… Read more »
I have had a life-long love of Yelp(your life, not mine) which started when I discovered a review(and very informative directions) of the mysterious Bavarian club tucked deep in the Marin Woods. When I go eat, get my hair done, whatever, I find myself writing Yelp reviews in my head. My husband has come to recognize that glazed over, I'm working on my review look. I am fortunate to have been Elite for several years now and appreciate your community development and events.
So it was only natural that when I started my own company, I would use your toolkit and integrate your reviews with my website, http://smedule.com. So Yelp, I ask you this...With1998(now 1999) reviews of your site. Why am I forbidden from registering my own company on your site- and from advertising? I love you, I support you, I integrated with you, so why don't you love me back?
What's up with Yelp? I'm a new business owner, with a yoga studio in Castro Valley, and have encouraged students to Yelp! honestly. Each time the reviews get past 2 or 3, they're removed. There's no actual contact with Yelp! possible, just a circular loop of FAQs when selecting "Contact Us". I've been a member for several years as a consumer, and have written a few reviews and used the reviews of others to choose restaurants and other businesses. The reasons provided in the available FAQ information don't seem to apply, so I'm reviewing your weird review removal. I've never received any notice about the removal, and would love to know what's up with the disappearing reviews? Meanwhile, I'll encourage students and colleagues to use other forums that have reviews.
I swear if I could take away stars I would. Yelp removed a legitimate review about an experience I had at an Oakland business. But because someone at Yelp is getting their johnson waxed by dick lee, my review got the boot.
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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3/27/2008
for the arbitrary and capricious manner in which it enforces its TOS. if I could take away another… Read more »
I think the idea behind YELP is a great idea. Let everyday people make comments and recommendations to help other consumers.
As a business owner I am disappointed that our positive YELP reviews disappear just because that reviewer may not be an avid YELPER.
All businesses have to suffer silly reviews that are not really valid, but when actual customers feel so strongly that they want to write a glowing review about a business only to have it removed because that might be the only YELP review they posted is ridiculous.
Until YELP finds a better way to validate reviews I am not going to support YELP.
I feel like my experience with Yelp is like a blind date gone bad--the reality is far from what you were expecting.
I write this review with mixed emotions. I came to Yelp as an excited new reviewer with uninformed views as to what this social media company seems to be. It's very liberating to be able to voice your opinion and share with others your experiences in such an open forum. And for that I do say, "Thank you!"
However, after noticing that many Yelpers are more about posting their "naughty" pictures and sophomoric bragging rights to nights on the town than writing a good review, I was reminded of another social networking site. (You know which one!) I also started to see that a Review of the Day could be the most poorly written piece of opinionated garbage, but voted to top review status due to how many "friends" voted for it. I was even solicited for friendship by someone who called himself "a friend collector". (huh, really? Is that how you get 3000 "friends"?) I was suddenly transported back to high school idiocy.
I also don't agree with their policy of not being a good Yelper if you don't use your real name. Some of us don't want employers to be able to read/see our accounts. These days, that's just common sense to most people. And now after reading about businesses that have had bad interactions with this site, it makes me sad. For the love of writing and sharing my experiences, I will continue to review with the euphoric excitement of contributing to what I thought Yelping was and still could be.
Yelp, you broke my heart. :(
Banned from the Talk threads for the day.....BOOOOOOOOO!
3 Previous Reviews: Show all »
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8/1/2009
kthanxbyi! Read more »
Some folks grab sunsets. I grab Yelp on Sunday mornings, even before I crack open The Times.
I pour a cup of Cafe Du Monde with a splash of vanilla Atkins shake (Yeah, I'm on a diet cause I gain weight reading Yelp restaurant reviews, really. I sip my coffee through a straw so as not to stain my teeth, really. OK I'm high maintenance!), boot up and catch what ya all have been up to over the weekend.
Thanks for sharing. Keep them reviews comin' and I will too! Damn, we're a vibrant and diverse family!
1 Previous Review: Show all »
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6/25/2009
It has been said (my research hasn't come up with a legitimate source beyond Mom) that you "can… Read more »
Two stars ONLY because I would have given 5 stars before I learned about the constant removal of legit reviews PROBLEM (yes, it's a problem! This is a policy that really needs to be changed). I use(d) Yelp regularly to find places and read reviews for years, but I had never posted a review myself and had no idea that reviews were edited at random or preference was made to keep reviews up from their "super reviewers" or whatever.
I also have a business that has been listed on Yelp for several years now -- we had a nice collection of 5-star reviews and 2, 3-star reviews for a long time; we had always been listed as a 5-star business and of the two reviews that were 3 star, the one person had a good point and the other person was a former customer was is just a weirdo and could not back up her claims in the review when we had a civil discussion.
So, Yelp kept hounding me to pay for advertising (calls all the freaking time - I was so annoyed!), so I finally decided to give it a 3-month try - I guess they just wore me down and it's true we had a good rating and it was true that even though I did not have an account, I used Yelp all the time to find stuff.
Right away, I got a bad, 2-star review by a person that simply read our website, but was never a customer or had any interactions with us at all -- that brought us down to a 4.5-star rating. I asked my customers to go to Yelp to review us and bring our rating back up, and they responded generously and quickly -- we got 17 new, completely legit reviews posted in one night, 10 of which were removed before I could even thank the people or know who they are -- really, gone within a matter of a few hours! Wow. Yet that bad review from a total non-customer just stays put. About 20 (that I know of), 5-star reviews from actual customers I've had in the past two weeks have all been removed. This is a ridiculous way to rate businesses!
Now I feel like I can't take the ratings as being at all honest or truthful representations of how customers feel about a particular business or service -- these reviews are 100% altered/edited by Yelp and so, IMO, not at all reliable.
These removed 5-star reviews are from my long-time customers that went to Yelp to write legit reviews, but they were removed because, while they have been monthly customers for 5-7 years, they are not long-time or established Yelp reviewers. That should not matter - sure, forcing people to use Yelp the way they want people to to keep their reviews posted might matter to Yelp as an organization, but when becasue this policy interferes with the legitimate rating or review of businesses, it's a serious problem.
Yelp needs to either overhaul the technology they are using to be more accurate about removing non-legit reviews or just have it go manual: business owners or Yelpers manually flagging reviews if there's something wrong - if it's spam or you know they are not legit for some reason. But if someone posts just 1 Yelp review becasue of having a great or bad experience with a business -- that review should stay put becasue it's legit. That review helps people using Yelp get a true picture of what the business is really like.
Let the legit reviews remain -- good or bad!
Now my business is rated lower than it should be based on actual customer experience. And I've lost faith in Yelp as a resource to find out what the real deal is on local businesses. That totally sucks.
I think yelp does some things very well. I like how relatively easy it is to use. I like the zip code search feature. I have experience good customer service. I do think they should do a little more to ensure that reviews are reviews and not schmeer campaigns. I don't know how this would be done, but sometimes yelp seems like a place for angry, cowardly people to be nasty, abusive and, sometimes, not completely honest. It just seems like libel runs a little bit rampant on Yelp. I think it would be nice if Yelp policed the reviews a little bit more strictly than they do.
