Yelp and Other Phone Calls

So, you may remember how Yelp has pestered me in the past, to pay for their paid service.  Their paid service is like $300 / month, so it's nothing cheap, and nothing I could "try out" -- not at that price!  For $300 / month (if I had that to spend), I could legit hire someone to work for me and really get a lot of effort out of that, rather than just get a listing on their website.

Part of the reason I have always told the Yelp representatives, when I have been unfortunate enough to get on the phone with them, that I will not pay, is because of the way my rescue pops up on search results.  It pops up under rescue, and I understand, it is a rescue... but so is every humane society out there. And since, as we all know, people don't read... this creates a problem. 

The main thing being, people see "rescue" -- don't read "NWI Chinchilla Rescue" -- just focus on "rescue" and call.  Then they're surprised when I don't have what they're looking for.

So, a few days ago, I finally had someone fill out a request for information on Yelp.  Mind you, it's only taken two years for one of these to be filled out, since I created a Yelp account (so, you see how useful Yelp really is).  The person wanted a price estimate... wait for it... on a kitten.

I kind of ignored it for a day or so, mainly because I was on my phone and couldn't seem to log into Yelp, but once I got on my computer and logged in, I was able to select "service not offered" and I typed in a little blurb about, we are a chinchilla and small animal rescue, we do not take in / adopt out cats / dogs / kittens / puppies.  Sorry, but best of luck! 

... and this sort of thing is why I will not pay for Yelp.

Also wanted to share a phone call from the other day, which I wouldn't be at all surprised if it came from someone viewing the Yelp page:

Me:  Hello?
Them:  Hi, is this an animal rescue?
Me:  This is NWI Chinchilla Rescue, how can I help you?
Them:  I'm looking for a puppy, I--
Me:  Let me stop you right there.  We don't handle any dogs or cats, we just take in small animals like chinchillas, guinea pigs, rats...
Them:  Oh but that's what I'm looking for, a small puppy.

*major facepalm*

Fun fun fun...