Is Trustpilot a scam ?

GraceCourt

The problem with Trustpilot is that UK consumers simply cannot trust its "recommendations"... don't forget that the parent company (Trustpilot A/S, registered in Denmark) completely ignores any questions that are in the "too difficult" tray , and won't even confirm that they have any connection with Trustpilot Limited, registered in England number 30276582, for one simple reason: the UK Trustpilot site doesn't comply with regulations made under Section 82, Companies Act 2006, requiring specific identity information to be published on the site, and the relevant identity information is missing, which in the UK is a criminal offence committed by the company and by each of the directors in default. Of course, it's no huge surprise that a previous director of Trustpilot Limited - Anders Frejo Joergensen - gave his address as Trustpilot A/S, Trommesalen 5, 3 Sal, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1614! I still have all of the copy correspondence with Trustpilot A/S as evidence of the above.

So it's not surprising that I believe they "censor" anything that a paying company doesn't want to be widely known: for example, I obtained a County Court judgement against Green Network Energy Limited about eight months before that company ceased trading, but it wouldn't pay up.  In the end, I sent in County Court bailiffs with a Warrant of Control to seize goods and GNE handed over the judgment debt to stop the bailiffs removing goods for sale at auction.  After posting the factual details of this on a Trustpilot review, GNE had it removed, with Trustpilot claiming that it contained "harmful or illegal content", but simply ignored repeated requests to identify what part of the review was in either or both of those categories.

Of course, Trustpilot is committed to transparency... and irony! See this screenshot!

PS - Green Network Energy Limited, which ceased trading six months ago, still gets four stars on Trustpilot!

Niallworldwide

Jenni_D said:

Does your company have a paid-for account with TP?

No Read my OP this was the problem they were pestering us for years to take one which we refuse to do there is no benefit for paying to collect reviews unless you want to have the feature to flag the bad ones and get them deleted it seems which it seems this is all TP is about after doing our own research. They look after their PAYING customers and try and strong arm the un paid accounts to take up the paid service.

Jenni_D

Sorry - I hadn't realised you were the OP.  

Biff_Groovin

The results of the MSE poll of delivery firms’ performance in 2020 were used to rank the firms in best to worst order. Hermes ranked 14th worst out of 17. Yet Trustpilot rates Hermes (in its Hermes UK profile) as "excellent" with 4.4/5 stars. Contrast that with the Review Centre's 1.5/5 stars, Reviews.io's 1.2/5 stars, Sitejabber's 1.1/5 stars and Amazon customers' 2.1/5 star rating.

A major reason for Trustpilot's 4.4/5 star rating for Hermes is revealed in Danny Richman's (SEO Training) report 'Can you trust Trustpilot? - 9 million reviews studied' as being the reviews Trustpilot allows Hermes to invite which comprise the majority of reviews in Trustpilot's Hermes UK profile and which are predominantly positive. Richman found that 81% of all reviews (predominantly invited) were "excellent" and 7% "bad" but just 9% of uninvited  reviews were "excellent" and 88% "bad". 88% "bad" is more consistent with other review sites' ratings. Richman comments that Trustpilot's business model is dependent on the income from facilitating invited reviews.

Another possible reason for Trustpilot's generous rating for Hermes is that an unknown proportion of negative reviews are deemed "suspicious"  by the "advanced software" used by Truspilot's 'Content Integrity Team' and removed. Detailed multi-paragraph one star reviews seem particularly likely to be deemed "suspicious". I once provided the Hermes tracking number and correspondence with an eBay seller in support of a review being reinstated but there was no response from the 'Content Integrity Team'. As an experiment I posted the review  in the Hermes (without the 'UK') profile, which hasn't been claimed by Hermes and from which Trustpilot derives no income, to see if the "advanced swoftware" would remove it. It is still there. Without being stuffed with invited reviews and without reviews being removed the Hermes (without the 'UK') profile rates Hermes as "bad" with 1.4/5 stars. Details of the proportion of negative reviews removed from the Hermes UK profile and a clear definition of "suspicious" don't seem to be available on the review site "committed to transparency". 

I can't trust Trustpilot when it receives income by allowing businesses to invite reviews that comprise the majority of their reviews and are predominantly positive. I can't trust Trustpilot when its 'Content Integrity Team' removes negative reviews their "advanced software" deems suspicious without knowing what proportion of negative reviews for a particular business are removed in this way and what the software deems suspicious.

Caz3121

I only use the 'detailed overview' and focus on organic reviews and ignore the 'invited' (all 1.6m of them)...you then see the figures for the past 12 months of 7% excellent and 88% bad
It also states "Hermes UK hasn’t flagged any reviews in the past 12 months" which makes me think they are not bothered about removal as the % is far lower than their 'invited reviews' so make little difference to the headline numbers - that 88% bad organic reviews becomes 9% bad when all the 'invited' reviews are added into the numbers

Kay_Henderson

They took my review down with no justification. I know obviously that my review was genuine, with evidence to support it and honest, but they didn't  like it for some reason?? refused to explain why?... therefore on that basis you cannot trust TP.

GreenScepter

I'm not sure I'd call them a scam but they certainly should improve how they operate. It's too easy for companies to try and shut down reviews they don't like, but it's almost impossible to do anything about fake positive reviews. I've seen dozens of reviews that are obviously fake, mentioning the same agent names over and over. Even including their supposed ID numbers, no actual people write reviews like this. And nothing is done even if you report the companies. I've seen dodgy companies such as Lyca mobile who should be less than 2 stars manage to stay closer to 4 because of this.