Trustpilot - a dawning realisation that it's a scam!

fozmcfc

I agree, companies can take liberties on these websites and it is clear, when some reviews are fake (99% of the time, it's usually an over the top ,glowing review). A lot of these companies are the sort that offer electronics from China or Hong Kong.

It's a bit like the opposite of Ebay, where the buyer can take liberties and sellers can end up getting a raw deal.

Generally though, you can cherry pick reviews, which are clearly from purchasers.

likelyfran

fleshandbone wrote: »

Some people love to go out of there way to ruin a businesses reputation, which in turn could cause job losses, which could result in people becoming homeless.....too many bitter people about that just want to be hurtful.

If you are like the above, then TrustPilot has every right and is correct in removing malicious hateful comments.

But we're not talking about cases like that?

NeverEnough

Have had really poor experience with trying to leave reviews on Trust Pilot --John Lewis, for instance, employ "reputation specialists" who seek to remove all negative reviews about John Lewis stores any which way they can, although they are not always 100% successful, a lot of the reviews are posted then removed, whatever rubbish TrustPilot may spout about the companies not doing this.

We had a more recent issue with a store selling mobility scooters -as we had an awful experience with their store staff and ended up not being able to make the purchase, we nonetheless thought it would be approriate to highlight the way we were treated by their staff to warn others.
Withn minutes of the review being posted, I received a message stating I had to provide "proof of purchase" and that my review had been removed until this was done. Even though we had wasted several hours travelling and trying to buy the item we wanted, we had left without making a purchase, so according to Trustpilot, we were not viewed as customers and not entitled to post a review. Even when I explained this to the Trustpilot robot, the review was never reposted.

I bet if it was a positive one there would have been no problem!

Like OP, I have come to realise Trustpilot are a pack of shysters who have little interest in ensuring that accurate reviews by customers of their experiences with businesses are posted - Trustpilots real customers and income comes from the shops and businesses they seek to protect.

dealer_wins

I have to say I wouldn't trust "trust pilot"

tonycottee

I don't like them either. I had a poor experience with Music Magpie. Very slow payment after around 2 months. Wrote my review, and then a couple of days later it was removed until I could provide evidence.
Forwarded an email of my order but was told to send further evidence, so I gave up. That said, I did get paid 2 days after my review.

However, there were a lot of bad reviews around the same time, and each one of them was removed. It did seem though that any positive reviews stayed. It's almost as if you don't have to provide evidence of your dealings if you've got good things to say about them...

likelyfran

tonycottee wrote: »

I don't like them either. I had a poor experience with Music Magpie. Very slow payment after around 2 months. Wrote my review, and then a couple of days later it was removed until I could provide evidence.
Forwarded an email of my order but was told to send further evidence, so I gave up. That said, I did get paid 2 days after my review.

However, there were a lot of bad reviews around the same time, and each one of them was removed. It did seem though that any positive reviews stayed. It's almost as if you don't have to provide evidence of your dealings if you've got good things to say about them...

So quite a few people have had this same experience then.
Given the 'name', size and reputation (I formerly thought), this is enlightening and quite shocking really.

What is weird is that a review can't be posted there unless 'proof' is provided BEFOREHAND, from what I remember anyway.

And then once they've posted it (if it's negative), they take it down and start asking for proof but never accept any.

Very strange process - I'm assuming TP are influenced by subjects of reviews seeing the reviews and getting TP to take them down?

Trustworthy! 😋

gwapenut

What I think is worse is websites such as "hitched.co.uk" offering a "reviews" section when in fact it only appears to consist of positive testimonials.

I could not get them to publish my review, backed up by timestamped factual evidence, of the problems I had with photobooth.co.uk, nor did hitched.co.uk respond to my emails on the matter.

My experience was that some companies appear to be very much on top of policing/censoring the web and pretty sharpish I had a couple of accounts for other websites blocked / review or forum posting removed, despite those postings being entirely factual and backed up by hard evidence.

deanos

You will find many of the reviews are before they have even got the product, i ordered a sofa from Harveys and was asked to leave a review a few days after ordering even though they took 16 weeks to arrive !

One of the latest reviews

" Beautiful, comfortable and minimalist style sofas.
I was immediately drawn to the look of these sofas as soon as I entered the store. Having sat, and then later layed on them, I knew they were the ones for me. I ordered three two seaters and am so looking forward to them being delivered"

dad22

Hi all,

sorry for the late response here - too many tasks, too few hours in the day....

I finally received a reply from Trustpilot. At first I was quite pleased that they had re-instated my review. That was until I realised they were trying to pull a fast one:

"Dear Just Me,

Thanks very much for using Trustpilot and for editing your review. We really appreciate your help!

Your review is now visible. To see it on our site, log in to your account with your username and password, or try clicking here: URL REMOVED DUE MSE RULES

Regarding affinityvillas.com's reviews

Firstly, let me apologise for the confusion in my previous email. Yes, companies must invite all their customers equally and identically. However, it may happen that they have limited amount of "review invitations" at their disposal due to their subscription packages. As a way to still comply to our "all-or- none" invitation rule, they can, for instance, invite every third customer to review them on our platform—that is through random sampling. This may explain why you have not received an invitation to review them, while others have.

In regards to your concerns about the rapid surge in positive reviews, I can reassure that the issue has been escalated to our investigation team. We have bespoke fraud detection software and advanced systems that analyse the domains on our platform and report those that contain fabricated/fake reviews. These processes are implemented so that end users like you can trust the quality and authenticity of the reviews on our site.

We understand that you may find it unpleasant that your review has been flagged under these circumstances. We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. However, rest assured that we do take these actions because we strive relentlessly to create a platform where trust and transparency remain the building pillars.

Many thanks in advance for your understanding and collaboration, and should you have any other queries, you are more than welcome to get back to us."

When I followed the link it took me to my full review which appeared to be at the head of all the reviews. Result!

Well, err, actually no.....I then searched for affinity villas trustpilot in a browser that had not been used to access their site previously and guess what - my review is still removed from view. It appears they set a cookie or something to give me a different view to that seen by anyone else viewing that thread. What a way to do business.

I replied to Carl at Trustpilot on 7 Sep as follows:

"Thank you for your reply Carl.

I am curious, why do I have to log in to my account to see my review? I note that my review is still not visible to anyone just visiting the site. There's not much point in review that is only visible to the author!

Regards."

I have received no response.

So, I can only conclude that they are an even more determined bunch of scam artists than I first realised. Trustpilot? TrustPIRATE!

dacouch

Reminds me of when I used to deal with Aviva on personal lines Insurance, at the time they had made many cuts resulting in very poor customer service.

I always make a point of thanking the person, if they resolve a problem and / or give good customer service. Without fail, the staff I thanked for their help asked me if I would be prepared to take a quick survey about customer service. Strangely the staff who gave an average service or poor service who I did not thank did not offer the chance to participate in the customer service survey.

The result of the survey (Which Aviva heavily advertised) were unsurprisingly that the vast majority of respondents felt they gave a good service...

Incidently, it's specifically against the law for a companies employees or other acting on their behalf to act as a satisified customer by giving a fake review