Trustpilot tackles business review cheats

Trustpilot tackles business review cheats

The business review site Trustpilot is making it easier for the general public to detect when companies attempt to suppress complaints posted to its platform.

The service is to reveal what percentage reviews each company has flagged for investigation over the previous year, which causes them to be hidden.

It will also disclose what percentage of the posts were subsequently returned online and, conversely, what percentage were deleted.

It follows criticism that it had been possible to cheat Trustpilot's system.

Last year, a BBC Radio 5 Live investigation heard from one user whose negative review had been flagged as "suspicious".

She raised concern that by the time Trustpilot had confirmed it had been real and reinstated the post, it had been "buried" under later submissions, meaning it had been never given the prominence it should are.

Image copyright TRUSTPILOT
Image caption
The site will let visitors see if a corporation is especially flagging reviews that gave it a coffee score
Trustpilot's brand chief said its move should deter companies from regularly challenging reviews.

At present, he said, companies flagged but 1% of user posts, on the average.

"Nobody is trying to find perfection but what they need is that a corporation is open and transparent," Glenn Manoff told BBC News.

"This makes it harder for companies to game the system and makes it easier for consumers to figure out who were the few bad apples."

He said Trustpilot had considered moving reinstated reviews back to the highest of the feed to make sure they appeared on a company's first page but felt it had been unnecessary.

Reinstated ratings would still feed into the businesses' overall score, he said, and users had the choice of filtering the reviews to point out only feedback.

"Trustpilot's success stands or falls on people feeling like they will trust it," said Iona Bain, founding father of the Young Money blog.

"All too often, unscrupulous companies are ready to exploit flaws and loopholes to bury bad reviews.

"These improvements are an enormous breakthrough, though they need to be an extended time coming.

"At the very least, consumers can now see whether companies are spending a suspicious amount [of time] flagging negative reviews and avoid companies that are more concerned with public appearance than customer service."