Trustpilot

Holepunch

Just curious - how reliable/trustworthy is trustpilot?

Reason I ask is that last week I filled in a review for the first time. I booked a hotel room but was pretty annoyed that if I went through trivago, then I was quoted £49 per night, but the same room, in the same hotel, for the same nights with the same booking conditions was quoted as £51 per night. I gave the site 3 out of 5 (because it was a very good price regardless) but made the comment that with the cashback price, I would prefer an honest amount of cashback on an honest price instead of hiking the price and giving a larger amount of cashback.

My review was flagged for deletion by the site until I responded to the claim that I was reviewing the wrong retailer (which I clearly wan't because it was the retailer who emailed the link to review them). I provided this evidence and then my review was deleted for not being a proven customer (which I was because the retailer sent me the link after I made my purchase). I provided my proof of purchase, as requested, and am now waiting for trustpilot to reinstate my review (or find another reason to delete it!).

So I watched this retailers reviews for a while and from what I have seen, they are deleting all negative reviews - dozens a day - presumably in the hope that most people wont bother jumping through the hoops required to validate their review - they're clearly, in my view, manipulating their ratings by attacking all negative reviews. And I presume trustpilot let them do this (though I've never reviewed a site before or looked into it in this level of depth).

Is this common? Was I wrong previously to have a degree of trust in sites that come up with good reviews in trustpilot? I'm now wondering whether the sites with good reviews are just those who bother to manage their reviews (attack/delete anything not rating them highly)

Holepunch

I'm still jumping through hoops and my review is still not back online (so far I have replied to the first query which claimed I was reviewing the wrong web site and the second query which claimed I was not a verified customer).
This is the third response I have had, now its been rejected because my review was about pricing!!

Trustpilot wrote:

Thank you for your review of olotels.com and for sending us the proof of purchase documentation.
However before I can put your review back online, and since your review currently doesn't comment fully on the company's service (rather it focuses on the price), we kindly ask that you elaborate your review to describe the customer service you received in relation to your buying experience with the company. According to our guidelines, reviews must primarily be about the company's service.
You can edit your review from here:
****************
You can read our guidelines at this link: http://company.trustpilot.co.uk/evaluationguidelines
If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Should you need to update or write additional comments regarding your request, please reply to this e-mail without changing the subject.

My original review was:

I wanted to book a hotel in Amsterdam. Olotels was by far the best price on the comparison websites. However, I was disappointed that the same hotel for the same nights for the same rooms, for the same booking conditions quoted me different prices depending on which referrer I went through.
For the hotel I booked, I was quoted £49 per night if I went through Olotels in trivago.
If I didn't go through Trivago, but through Olotels in topcashback, then I was quoted £51 per night. Why the cloak and daggers to increase prices when you offer cashback? Far better to offer an honest amount of cashback on the genuine price.

My rewritten review is: (and I've reduced the stars from 3* to 1*)

I was disappointed at the lack of clarity offered by Olotels in the pricing on their web site. The site did not display consistent prices and it was only by repeatedly retrying the booking with the same details that I was able to find the most competitive prices. The changes I had to make were by accessing the site with different referrers. Yes, depending on which referrer you used, a different price was offered!
For example, if I went through a cashback site, then I was charged a higher price than if I went through a price comparison site. I would much prefer that Olotels offered me a genuine cashback percentage on a genuine price, rather than falsely inflating the price and offering a higher cashback percentage.
I have also been watching Olotels response to negative reviews on Trustpilot and am annoyed to watch that they attempt to block the majority of bad reviews instead of taking the feedback on board, learning from it and improving. From my perspective it seems clear that they are trying (and succeeding) to manipulate their rating on Trustpilot.
Overall, my experience of Olotels service offered was negative because of the lack of clarity in their displayed pricing. My complaint is not about the pricing (which was extremely good - indeed the best price I could find).

I suppose I'm still talking mostly about price, so I'm not really hopeful that the review is reinstated at this point

EDIT: My rereview appears to have been autopublished immediately - I'm expecting Olotels to be along shortly though to block it!

Holepunch

Holepunch wrote: »

I'm expecting Olotels to be along shortly though to block it!

Wow - How fast was that??

This review has been reported to customer service by the company 4 days ago for referring to other websites or companies.

Customer service is in the process of investigating this review.

Following this investigation, it will either be deleted or returned to Trustpilot.

It says 4 days ago, but that is the date of the original review - the reblocking has only just occurred.

Coopdivi

Trust Pilot are running a lucrative operation. They charge businesses around £800 a year. In return websites get to display the Trust Pilot Seal on their site which is supposed to indicate to customers that they are dealing with a reliable entity. Of course it does nothing of the sort but it looks good.

Trust Pilot's biggest selling point for businesses is the ability to vet reviews and answer customers' criticisms. Plenty of companies complained to Trust Pilot about negative reviews so TP introduced the idea of the 'Verified Buyer' whereby TP's clients can check their reviews for authenticity and request deletion of reviews which they don't believe to be genuine. Naturally some etailers have taken advantage of this system by deleting the rubbish ones. Also the ability to respond to small complaints in an otherwise good review gives the impression that the company cares about customer service.

Fake good reviews have been appearing on Trust Pilot for years and, a few years back, The Register showed how prevalent this was when they investigated a company called iFlorist and found that 100 reviews had been posted in the space of three days most of which gave 5 stars.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/29/iflorist_reviews?page=2

http://www.bitterwallet.com/iflorist-comes-up-smelling-of-roses-on-review-site/27464

TP will no doubt say that they've tightened their procedures since then but, having looked at iFlorist's latest reviews I'm still dubious.

http://www.trustpilot.co.uk/review/www.iflorist.co.uk

When I look for reviews I want to read the bad ones as well as the good 'uns then I can form a balanced opinion on the website and its products. The likes of Amazon, Trip Advisor and of course MSE generally don't discriminate against negative reviews and for this reason I will always trust them far more than the likes of Trust Pilot and Review Centre.

A poster on UK Business Forums said this: 'I had a call from Trustpilot salesman and his selling points rang alarm bells, If I paid a annual fee close to £800 I was told I could exclude reviews I didn’t like from being seen via their B2B site which to me defeats the object of a good honest system for the customer to see, also it would rank me higher on Google?. The companies that have signed up to trustpilot have fantastic reviews NO Negative comments and the companies that haven’t have a mixed bag of reviews! How can you trust a system like that?'

http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/archive/index.php/t-245300.html

As to your problem, you would achieve a greater impact if you posted your story on the Praise, Vent and Warnings board. Make sure you name the hotel but be completely factual. MSE forum threads rank highly on Google and other search engines and will achieve far more coverage than trusting Trust Pilot.

Holepunch

Could a moderator move this thread to the Praise Vent and Warnings forum for me please?

Thanks for such an in depth response Coopdivi.

I will confess I'm surprised as I genuinely thought there was value to trustpilot - it seems clear that trust was misplaced and it is a site I shall cease trusting. It also appears I've picked my battle unwisely (I assumed trustpilot would want to catch "review fixers", but they clearly have no incentive to do so - indeed quite the contrary)and its one I won't win, so I probably wont bother fighting to get my review placed any more.

I'm not sure I understand the point about naming the hotel. I have no reason to suspect any issue with them.

Holepunch

Could a moderator move this thread to the Praise Vent and Warnings forum for me please?

I've been surprised - the review has now, it seems, been approved - it is visible and I have received the following email:

Your ticket ****** is deemed resolved, please see latest comment below:

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Thank you for helping us by updating your review.
It is now back online.

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