Trustpilot scam/deception

LetRightBeDone

Does anyone have any experience of the following? I had a few sales calls from Trustpilot over a year ago, I considered their service and decided to try it for a year. The sales rep told me I could try it for a year, then before the year was up, they would call, see how I had got on, and discuss upgrading/renewing for another year. I agreed to the "Lite" package and paid the first quarter, up front, over the phone, using my business debit card. For the subsequent quarterly payments, they would send me an invoice and I paid them via my online business banking, on time, no problem at all.
I would on occasion get an email from Trustpilot from a "Jono Keen". I would sometimes reply, sometimes asking for technical advice etc, but never get a reply. No problem, I assumed it was just another company using bots. I had a lot of technical issues with their service, it damaged our website when we applied it, we were unable to remove it, it took them 2 weeks to respond (during which time the site was live and damaged), they were unable to fix it so in the end I paid a programmer to fix the problem. Their service is technically very restricted, (you cannot auto add ebay customers for example, you have to add them manually one by one in order to ask for a review). It seemed that they were fantastic with their sales promises, but once you had paid, were no longer interested. Long and short of it is, come the end of the year, I did not want to renew.
After the year came to an end, Trustpilot sent me an invoice, and an email from "Jono Keen" asking me to renew and pay. I replied that I no longer wished to use their service, and gave them my reasons. I received no reply - a day later they took a quarterly payment from by bank, using my card details that I had used with them once, 1 year before.
I called my bank (Santander), told them Trustpilot did not have my permission to use my card, and that I had already told them I did not wish to renew. I never signed any renewal agreement with them, nor agree to one. Santander reversed the charge. They contacted Trustpilot who showed an unsigned piece of paper showing my "subscription" details. At the end of this "subscription" piece of paper they had typed "auto renewal" - something I had never agreed to, discussed, or signed. I signed Santander's letter, stating that I had never agreed to auto renewal with Trustpilot. I have cancelled my card and had a new one issued. I have also asked Santander to block Trustpilot from using my old card, new card (apparently they could even still take money from my new card) and actual sort code and account number.
Now I am worried, that because Trustpilot have shown Santander an unsigned piece of paper that they have typed "auto renewal' on, that they can reverse the charge again and give the money back to Trustpilot. Santander say because I have had dealings with Trustpilot already, the case is not classed as fraud, but as a "dispute". I assured them it was fraud, as I had never agreed to any renewal or any unauthorised use of my card. I also put it to Santander that if they reverse the charge back to Trustpilot, they are party to fraud. I won't say what the Santander rep said, as they are unable to defend themselves here, but let's just say she was as exasperated with the situation as I am.
So I suppose what I would like to know is - can Trustpilot do this, take my money from my business debit card without my consent and without my agreeing to any type of renewal?

Mike_in_Horwich

I see you posted this in late April - and have as yet received no further input from other users of this site. Out of courtesy, having read your post in full, I feel obliged to offer some support. I have never had any "business" dealings with Trustpilot but have had an ongoing email dialogue with them over the past month. It originated with a review I posted on TP about a well known health supplements company. I'll avoid that aspect here.

Trustpilot (TP) were very quick to respond to the Health Supplement (HS) company's flagging of my review. It was removed from public view whilst TP investigated. TP emailed me to request confirmation of my dealings with HS and I duly provided a scanned copy of the product order confirmation and my email dialogue with HS. The specific details are hazy in part due to the complexity of the whole saga, but it is true to say that as soon as my review was once more publicly visible and I'd edited it with further info. HS once more flagged it. In all, three reviews I've posted re. HS are now pending investigation.

This in turn prompted me to review Trustpilot and I mist admit, they did not cover themselves in glory. There's a wealth of reviews detailing the belief that TP are far from impartial. When companies pay TP for a business account there's an immediate conflict of interest.

So, LetRightBeDone I would not be at all surprised by TP's invoicing style given my unsavoury encounter with them. Check out the Distance Selling Rules as the initial contact and "sale" by them was over the 'phone and not face-to-face.

shaun_from_Africa

Mike_in_Horwich said:

Check out the Distance Selling Rules as the initial contact and "sale" by them was over the 'phone and not face-to-face. 

The rules governing distance selling are contained in the Consumer contracts regulations which as their name implies, only cover sales to consumers and not businesses so won't be of any help to the OP.

DoaM

Distance selling rules (now the Consumer Contracts (ICAC) Regulations 2013) possibly don't apply as this was a B2B transaction.

[Deleted User]

Mike_in_Horwich said:

I see you posted this in late April - and have as yet received no further input from other users of this site. Out of courtesy, having read your post in full, I feel obliged to offer some support. I have never had any "business" dealings with Trustpilot 

Unfortunately, the OP of this thread was enquiring about a Business-To-Business transaction on a Consumer forum. Your response, while well intentioned, is of no use to the OP because the rules you cite do not apply in his situation. I expect this is why the thread languished unanswered for over a month before you were "obliged"  to attempt to help. 

Sorry. 

Mike_in_Horwich

I stand corrected guys, I'm "obliged".

But at least I've learned something - thanks.

jamesmorgan111

I wrote a review on parcelcompare - who were terrible - gave them one star.  Guess what?  parcelcompare got trustpilot to remove my review!  Came up with some BS that I was not a genuine customer!!!!  What is the point of writing a review when they can be removed for no reason other than the company doesn't like what you say about them?  Conclusion?  Trustpilot are NOT TO BE TRUSTED.