Ask HN: Options to Close Yelp Account
Since then, yelp has been charging us $150.00 a month basically to not fuck us over. By that I mean, literally, they will remove all positive ads and post/create bogus negative ads. This happened when we first opened our store and refused to sign up with them in any meaningful ways (aka put a cc on file and agree to an advertising budget).
Long / short, it's been 5 years and our business has thrived; we have outstanding reviews on all other platforms and quite honestly, Yelp doesn't matter anymore.
Unfortunately, they are quite good at their scam; there appears to be no way to just close your account, or even remove your cc from your account. I was toying with canceling the card on file, aka call my bank and tell them it was lost/reissue me one, but I am concerned that they'll just keep billing us, and we will owe the past due balance at some point.
I have heard (thank you chatgpt) that some business have been successful at taking legal action to force them to remove your business from their system. I'm not against this considering we're spending $1800 a year just to keep these jerks happy.
The final straw for us is they seem to be dying quite rapidly now; they're sells, people are calling both of us 5-8 times a day. My wife finally answered yesterday and the Yelp sells person literally screamed at her that our business would be ruined if we didn't change our daily minimum budget from what we have ($15 a day - the minimum we could choose) to $35 a day - the maximum they do.
I'm simply done with them and want to stop paying this game. If it takes legal action, that's fine, we've already wasted $1800 for 5 years, and I'm willing to spend some money to end this charade.
If anyone has had experience / success closing their account, please contact me (email on profile), and/or comment below on the step you took. If anyone knows a lawyer that has done this and is reasonably priced, also let me know that, any help is greatly appreciated.
Thank you!