Yelp offers no support to the businesses on the platform unless it’s for setting up paid advertising. I did one month of paid advertising, I believe I stopped it after the first month of spending nearly $1000 with no results. Recently, I received a negative review from a person I’ve never done business with. After about a week, Yelp responded that it was legitimate. I asked for another chance at getting it removed about 10 days ago, but no response yet. I did receive an email from a representative that mentioned the review, but hinted at paid advertising as well. I’d hate to think that paying for their services would make it easier to remove fake reviews, but honestly that would be on par with the rest of the lead-generation industry. Yelp creates an image of a ‘honest review platform’ with claims of fairness between consumers and businesses, but there’s sadly more success for small business owners that spend their marketing budget on something like Angi until they build a reputation on their own.
