“I am personally documenting that Yelp has been removing every positive review within 24 hours after they started calling me weekly for money. They have removed 11 positive reviews so far. They even removed a 5 star review posted 10 hours prior and double listed my only negative review which happens to not even be by an actual client but by a disgruntled "elite" yelper and always stays up. They are manipulating the reviews and extorting business owners for monthly payments. I will be filing a formal complaint.” (small business owner on ComplaintsBoard.com) Our Experience With Yelp Immediately after rejecting telephone and email solicitations from Yelp.com, we noticed our positive reviews disappearing and a couple of negative reviews popping up. We contacted Yelp, and we were told that they use a secret algorithm to determine the validity of a review and whether or not it should be posted/removed. This sounds fishy of course, so we did some research on this company and discovered that Yelp.com is acquiring a terrible reputation as extortionists and scammers. We've filed formal complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the Connecticut and California Departments of Consumer Affairs. Fortunately, there are many other fair, reputable and reliable review sites out there (see NaturallyCurly.com, Local.Yahoo.com, GoogleMaps.com & MerchantCircle.com). Yelp's Shady Practices Yelp To Show Reviews It Automatically Filters  Associated Press Yelp Faces Extortion Claim, Class Action Suit ABC News Yelp Gets Bad Reviews of Its Own Chicago Tribune Yelp.com’s Ethics Questioned Washington Times YelpScam.com Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0 East Bay Express More Business Owners Accuse Yelp of Extortion Consumerist Yelp Extortion: True or False? Marketing Pilgrim Does Yelp Scam Businesses into Buying Advertisement to Drop Bad Reviews? AssociatedContent.com