Google how can you trust www.trustpilot.co.uk ?
Let’s just cut straight to the chase, why is Google trusting Trustpilot? Surely they can see the same things as I can, can’t they ?
1) I did a search on Google and noticed this :
Nothing new I know, but how many people actually click on the star rated link or just see them and go hmmm pretty stars and click on the AD’s? If you’re in the “that’s pretty” camp click the bloody link !!
2) I’m surprised how many reviews came from Trustpilot
3) But not as surprised when I actually clicked through to the Trustpilot landing page for Google, I mean look at the “Featured review of Google”
Double Mattress
Beds and Mattresses. Up to 70% Discounts & complimentary same exact day shipping. Receive a choice of space-age foam mattresses through Sleep Outlets, a British established Manufacturer. As much as ten year guarantee, no cost overnight shipping & free bedroom pillows
Really that the hell is going on ?
Let’s just have a look at tony
Now someone please tell me why does Google trust Trustpilot?
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Thanks for highlighting this issue, David.
We’ve identified the fake user profile which now has been deleted. The same goes for all reviews created by that user.
Fake reviews are a serious matter that we fight every day. We encourage all Trustpilot users to report whenever they see a suspicious looking review.
Thanks,
Joakim Ditlev
Trustpilot
Cant believe that the multitude of one liner positive reviews generated by trustpilot themselves are believed by anyone with an IQ in double figures
Nice timely reply
Is Joakim going to hunt out others now though then? It was only one example?
🙂
@Mark thanks – I hope all the guys retweeting this post make it to the comments.
@Bristol Houses – with close to 6M reviews that would take me quite some time. 🙂 Again: we encourage users to report any suspicious reviews and we are constantly tightening the filter of what skips through.
I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t ‘Trust’ Trustpilot. The issue of fake reviews has come up time and time again and although they bluff and blunder about how important it is and how they will delete fake profiles they don’t actually want to know when individuals like myself try to highlight the issue.
My issue was with iflorist and I was astounded to see so many gushing reviews on Trustpilot. My own experience has been awful in every aspect. I also did a search on other review sites and every one contains mostly negative reviews, except Trustpilot.
The link below is to another blog where the issue was raised.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/30/iflorist_update/
Here’s the real clincher, Trustpilot won’t allow me to publish a review on iflorist, it keeps telling me my order number is invalid which I know is utter rubbish.
I’ve written to Trustpilot and contrary to what their representative has written on here, they don’t seem to be interested in reports from individual consumers.
Hi Julie,
I’m sorry to hear about your experience. Any customer should be able to leave a review on our platform.
Please send a copy of your order confirmation to me personally and I will look into this issue. jod(at)trustpilot.com
Thank you,
Joakim Ditlev
Trustpilot
Hear hear. I’ve had the same experience. Trustpilot is obviously stacked with fake reviewers. Amazed Google makes itself look so naive by using them.
check out the reviews for a place called teakwarehouse. co. uk and rattanwarehouse.co.uk and tell me that not every single one of their reviews are fake… I deal with that company and had nothing but trouble and the annoying thing is that the only reason I dealt with them in the first place was due to good (fake) reviews which I naively fell for.
golfbuyitonline?? this site has a large number of TRUSTPILOT endorsement, maybe a good sign that golfbuyitonline is a trusted site. However, look at the dates of the endorsements. I cannot actually believe that this many people are actually buying. If these are true sales then maybe i need to invest in this company. If you have actually had positive contact with this company could you post a comment
Hiya Geoff, I can understand that it might look a little odd, but for a particular time frame we asked our customers to review us – hence the volume around a particular date.
I recently had a review on trustpilot regarding http://www.viziononline.co.uk they immediatelly removed for no apparent reason, which raise suspicion. After all they may be advertising company scamming people. Maybe a class action is due. My comment had 1star and it goes as follows.
We have been a client to VizionOnline.co.uk and have to admit having lots of problems. They dont pay attention on the details, No customer care (need to chase to detriment). Furthermore they will even give ultimatum to their customers if complained. One of many is that you will need a lot of patience as they take very long to respond to your calls or emails. You will also need the lux of time cause they have no deadline. Watch out.
TrustPilot is nothing but a FAKE service, it has got fake reviews.
You know what it does, it blackmails these poor website into getting them good reviews for a monthly charge of thousand of pounds and they pop on Fake reviews for these poor companies when they get Poor reviews.
TrustPilot is fake fake fake fake ….
Trustpilot is a wrong website, I hope Google black lists it as it is playing with peoples trusts.
I will report them to Trading standards and Watchdog. We should take this to parliment.
The people they eat money from they wont let write bad reviews for them and you can easily make out the fraudulent good reviews they write themseleves for big companies. I am compiling a list of your fraud reviews and then make them public trustpilot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See e-mail below, I have a link on my website directing to Trustpilot so new customers can see genuine reviews done without any direction from us, They are pressuring us to become a paying customer, and I am not willing to pay £800 for something customers can do for free!
——————————-
Hi Steve,
I have to ask for a decision soon, because you are currently displaying copyrighted material on your website, strictly reserved for paying customers.
If I do not get a decision by the end of today, and you still have the content on your website – I will pass your case on to our legal department immediately.
Best regards,
Andrew (I have removed his second name)
Sales Account Executive
Hi David,
How can I trust you? – How do we know you do not have connections with other review platforms? – Chances are you dont, but this is the online reality we are in, I dont see why you are all getting so upset..
all review sites have fake reviews, it is unfortunately a fact. – As a user of multiple review sites (including trustpilot amongst others) you can usually see the difference between fake and geniune reviews, – these sites are far from a guarnetee of trust, rather it is another resource we should use cautiously before making online purchases..
Reviews influence my buying decisions but it is not the bottom line,
Take ebay and amazon as perfect examples, do you honestly think all the reviews on these sites are real and geniune?? I think not.
I think sites like trustpilot are a great idea but to be used with caution.
Instead of asking yourselves why does Google trust trustpilot, how about thinking for yourselves, use common sense, use the resource for what it is.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18143812 – Google must answer EU antitrust concerns over search – food for thought huh?
We have been using Trustpilot as a company for just over a year (and have been very pleased with the reviews we have received). We do very occasionally get a bad review (often because our emails get caught in customers’ spam filters so customers think they “haven’t had a reply” from us). Occasionally the poor reviews are justified and we are happy to admit the fact.
However all the reviews we have received are genuine despite the fact that we have selected “No” to the Trustpilot option: –
“Require order number to write a review” — Would you like to require people to enter an an order number before they can write a review? This applies only to people who press the ‘submit review’ button on your Trustpilot company profile. Customers who click on the link in the Automatic Feedback Service email will not be asked to enter their order number.
Yes please, always require an order number.
No thanks, allow anyone to write a review”
We have had a couple of negative reviews from non verified reviewers. I believe these were generated by competitor businesses as we responded and had no reply. We have also had one positive one non verified review.
Some of the above comments are excessive hyperbole and Trustpilot offers a good value service to small businesses such as ours however if they if they removed the option and made a valid order number a requirement it would raise their respectability in the reviews industry.
But then again we only discovered Trustpilot in the first place because, unbeknownst to us, one of our customers gave us a 5* review us on its site!
@Julie if you want your comment to be taken seriously here you need to respond to Joakim’s request here.
Interestingly, I have just followed your link and Trustpilot’s Iflorist rating has gone from 4.9/10 (“very bad”) to 7.5/10 (“good”) between 20 March and now – definitely either very suspicious or a sudden and very dramatic improvement in their service…
@Joakim Ditlev – you need to respond to the relevant comments to defend your reputation
@John Smith, Karen you need to provide you evidence
I am genuinely worried now that people won’t believe in our reviews which I definitely know are genuine and work very hard to keep authentically positive…
The premise of online review sites is that opinions from third parties are much more powerful. That seems to be the case in this discussion too, so thanks for the support, James and The Wool Company.
Since this post was written we have taken multiple actions to fight fake reviews at Trustpilot. Requiring user validation via Facebook and improved reporting of reviews just to name a few examples.
@Deven I checked the records and this case is not new to us. But thanks for highlighting the problem.
@Cater: A review can only be deleted by us or the person creating the report. But it can be reported by users or companies. A report can be done for various reasons like coarse language or mentioning names of employees. We have a team of 5 people who investigate reported reviews and take the needed action. We often get reports of suspicious reviews here, and the reviewer must identify him/herself as a buyer, as the purpose with our site is to share reviews from real customers. That process has just been improved – you can read more about it on our blog: http://blog.trustpilot.com/review-reporting-introducing-a-small-but-important-change/
@Karen: It’s simply not true. Any company can claim their domain and reply to reviews without a paid subscription.
@Geoff: I’m sorry but I don’t see what makes this company’s reviews unthrustworthy. They have a steady flow of reviews coming in – most of them from users with real names and pictures who leave good reviews but also a few bad ones. Late March their amount of reviews jumped – there could be many reasons for that: Perhaps they sent out an email newsletter asking all their customers to write a review? I can’t tell, but I’m not worried about the quality of the reviews in this case.
@Wool: Due to it’s ranking on Google this post has attracted some critics of review sites. The analysts paint another picture. Last month Nielsen found that 70% of global consumers trust messages from online consumer reviews – an increase of 15% in 4 years http://t.co/R3xJ72M4
I’ll be happy to answer other questions related to fake reviews – either here, on Trustpilot’s blog or via email.
Joakim Ditlev
jod(at)trustpilot.com
Trustpilot
I had forgotten after writing this article but somehow when type an adress on internet explorer it took me to this blog.
I would like to thank David naylor for bringing up the issue of Fake website Trustpilot, Trustpilot is not only a Fake and but also a fraudsters paradise.
I would like to respond to @Wool company where they have asked me for a evidence.
Wool company you are the evidence, three comments after I have written on this blog ie, James, Wool Company and Joakim(obviously from TRUSTPILOT FAKE). I am a language expert the wording in your comments are almost the same, clean easy to read paragraphing and the biggest give away is at the bottom of the paragraph you have used @ signs to respond to the people, this you have done before the end of the paragraph how come you and Joakim write English in the same way.
Is it not easy to see that TrustPilot has written comments for ‘Wool Company’ here ? And this is what TRUSTPILOT do on trustpilot website you write fake reviews for other companies and you can easily make out fake reviews by the constant use of same language structure.
I am sorry to say Trustpilot you are a fraudulent company who is conning innocent millions.
Hopefull everybody comes forward as John is asking them too.
Well well well! I’ve never been accused before of being non-existent or of being someone else!
I suppose that’s the problem with the internet – nobody really knows anything for sure… Perhaps @”KAREN”, you had a terrible experience but perhaps you are blogging on behalf of a competitor, perhaps even Feefo! It was, in fact, a salesman at Feefo who, slightly guiltily, pointed me in the direction of this thread the other day when he was trying to sell me their service. (Feefo, as it happens offers product reviews as well as simple service reviews, something I have been requesting of Trustpilot for a while. So I was only depressed that he was trying to derogate their competition rather than be pleased that he had brought this to my attention)
I can’t speak for Trustpilot being a “fraudsters paradise” (sic) or Joakim, however you may not have noticed that in his last post. Joakim did say he was from Trustpilot…
@KAREN, If you visit our web site you will see that we are real and indeed so am I. Allow me to disabuse you of your fanciful notions: come to http://www.thewoolcompany.co.uk, buy a wonderful wool blanket, throw or sheepskin rug (our beautiful high quality products are as authentic as me and in much better condition), experience our service and write your own genuine review on Trustpilot!
As regards your claim to be a “language expert” I won’t comment further than to observe that, from reading your last post, perhaps the English language is not the one in which you might be most expert…
My experience has taught me in the past me that, not infrequently, those with the most strident opinions and language tend to be those who might be hiding something more sinister and perhaps need to be treated with a modicum of scepticism.
I have also observed the keyword style of language employed by @KAREN in relation to Trustpilot and what she accuses them of. Thoughtful, good for SEO… Oh, but then this is an SEO blog. Hmmm…
Anyway I’ve spent enough time on this – was only trying to be constructive and silly of me to have got drawn in: I rather regret it and will not be revisiting!
Bad luck @Joakim, you’ll have to deal with “KAREN” on your own, but mind your language: if your English is too good you might end up being accused of being me again!
Happy blogging…
Harry
Comendable job is done by the Wool Company for I dont know what vested interest they are achieveing in protecting Trustpilot, the fools or owner of the Wool Company whatever they like to call them know SEO very well as they have commented about the search words but keep forgetting the golden rule of SEO not to piss anyone off on the internet, why they are getting into a dispute which dont even concern them, if Karen who they are trying to prove is a Fake like TrustPilot she wouldnt mind putting a Fake review about Wool company elsewhere, may be a fake bad review on Trustpilot for them.
Everyone knows TrustPilot business models – Trustpilot takes money from business to show fake positive reviews about other companies, ‘ John Lewis ‘ for instance pays a monthly fee for Trustpilots fake reviews and they earn a monthly fee from John lewis. Would they want to piss John lewis by showing bad reviews from them no they would only want to show positive reviews about them so they Put fake reviews for such companies, if you notice the pattern after every 1 bad review there are 5 fake positive ones (only for websites they take a monthly fee for rest its just a string of bad reviews) so as to bury a negative one on a pile of good ones so that people think OHH it does not matter they have one bad one but 5 positives.
So in the end conclusion is its all Lies on the Trustpilot website.
.
@joakim Ditlev. You are rogue and deceitful so is TrustPilot and so is VisionOnline.co.uk disgrace to society. People like yourself and the directors of VisionOnline.co.uk should be jailed. VisionOnline.co.uk are fraudster, crooks. Hence Trust Pilot is a crook for not authenticating 5star reviews created by VisionOnline.co.uk about themselves. Rather REMOVING only the negative reviews immediately !! NO MORE TRUST PILOT. NO MORE TRUST VisionOnline.co.uk
.
Hi All,
I stumbled on this when going to log in and admin my trustpilot account.
1) Joakim is an employee of Trustpilot, he has handled one of my tech issues before
2) I use the service to generate feedback from my customers, some good, some bad, but in principal the service simply lets other people see what my other customers think of us.
3) Feedback has always been an area open to exploitation, and as a consumer it is always healthy to be suspicious of everything online.
4) Feedback seems to generate polar opposite responses, when people are pleased they are glowing, when unhappy they are scathing!
Oh, and as I am the “top tier” user of Trustpilot I should also point out that if you get a negative review, you cannot simply delete it. You have to log a ticket and ask trustpilot to remove it, providing evidence that a review is fake.
All the best.
Andy
This does feel like a “generated” debate and has people with agenda’s commenting. The only people that seem reasonable in the comments are the wool company and trustpilot. I don’t normally comment on things like this, but I thought another voice of reason was needed.
I can fully appreciate the point of views expressed in the original blog, and I agree that it would be better if you could guarantee all companies are playing by the rules but if you buy based on feedback and are not satisfied why not simply provide your negative feedback afterwards to balance it?
@ Andy
I am not able to understand what you are trying to proove???
1. We know that Joakim is an employee of Trustpilot who covers trustpliots dirty tracks online. Joakim is one of the fake reviews at Trustpilot.
2. So as a user of Trustpilot service you would know that someone has to pay to receive these services of trustpliot. So what does a TV channel call when it shows paid advertising – Commercials so this makes it paid advertising.
And what is trustpilot lieing it as innocent honest customer reviews – what a lie ???
3. Feedback has been an area of exploitation when as below my friend
– When trustpilot only accepts only some good email address from you not all of your email clientele so you hide negative ones.
– When Trustpilot does not let general public write reviews about anyobody and are censored.
– Sending general public unsolicited emails requesting fake reviews.
4. There are two diferences when Trustpilot writes good fake reviews about the company they are paid from and hide negative reviews and when trustpilot fakes it have been written by general public.
TRUSTPILOTS FAKE REVIEWS CAN EASILY BE IDENTIFIED FROM THE REAL ONES (if there are any)
I checked your company reviews on trustpilot you are faking it as well every negative review you receive you bury it with a positive one.
Your nearest competitor is Ligo electronics which only has 4 bad reviews which does not take up trustpilot service so does not even have one positive review and that also it has recieved in 3 years, which is a better service as in such a long service it onlly received a few negatives but looks bad as there are no positive comments !!!
While you have more than 15 negative reviews and receiveing negatives regularly one every week or so which You have artificaly made out to look like a pattern of good by buring them below positive ones, so really your company is a bad service???
This is what is happening on Trustpilot good are shown as evil and worse like you are shown as Angels…..
This a response from general public my friend we are not paid by anybody so this is an honest blog unlike you have money invested with Trustpilot who show paid for advertising as innocent public opinion.
So like trustpilot Andy you and your website is als involved in this cunning unholy plan to deceive innocent Joe public.
.
@Gray
I am not trying to prove anything, I am simply providing feedback based on my experience.
1. I have never seen Trustpilot remove a post without proof that the feedback is unfair, wrong or a lie. Perhaps that is unique to me, but as I am paying them for their top tier of service I would expect that if they wanted to keep anyone happy it would be my type of account.
2. I believe you can use them without having to pay for it, but paying allows you more tools and control when you work with them. Simply put, I use their service as a place where my customers can publicly post reviews. We use the option to restrict feedback to only those customers who have bought with us to allow us to look into problems reported and as a way of ensuring feedback is from actual users.
Do I believe that all accounts will use it as fairly as I do? probably not, but as I said, Trustpilot have only ever tried to be fair with negative feedback I have seen and require proof if we do not believe the feedback is honest. I have only ever had cause to remove one or two bits of feedback and we had to prove 100% that they were unfair reviews before Trustpilot would touch them.
3. Take this as you will, but I promise you, we do not filter the emails we send to our customers. I know because I generate the list based on people buying in the last week that have opted in to receive email from us. No more, no less. Who has the time or means to filter who you send emails too?
-restricting “general public” from posting surely means that you get feedback from only those people that have actually used your service. How is that bad?
-Im not sure you make sense here, as if you restrict emails as above to ensure only complicit feedback, how would sending emails unsolicited to the general public help you at all?
4. I am sorry, but you are simply wrong on this point. I doubt you will accept this but I guarantee that we do not fake reviews, we send emails to customers in batches of 1000+ each time so our “burying” negative feedback is also absurd, we simply generate a batch of feedback, hopefully good but there is no way to influence that once an email is sent. The results simply reflect service a customer has had. Good or Bad. If you believe that my feedback is an example of fake results, I suggest that you need to take another look at all the others that you consider fake as if you are wrong about mine, you may well be wrong about others.
I only posted here to give another perspective. My experience seems to have been different to yours and I have no cause to complain about how Trustpilot has dealt with me. I am not trying to deceive anyone, my company prides itself on being an ethically driven business and I would certainly not risk that to score points on some public feedback.
Have a nice day.
Andy
I am here to support Truspilot. Like any service, it can be used for manipulation by both fake users, and dodgy company’s who want lots of nice looking 5 star reviews.
I know for a fact that every review is genuine, as each person who posted a review did so from an automatic email generated when they placed an order with me. People without an order number can’t post a review.
I have read each and every one, and although some of them make me cringe and think “my god it looks like we have written it” or “I wish they hadn’t of used that wording, it makes it look fake”, each and every one is genuine.
I agree that reviews are often faked and this is seen as a good way to blog.
It is also a way to try and damage a competitor by using what seemingly is a genuine customer to make a purchase and then they have a so called right to write a review.
This has happened to us with a so called customer who placed an order over a weekend for a ‘made to order’ product on one of our sites but then a couple of days later, whilst the product was being made, telephoned to cancel their order.
Despite following guidelines and allowing the customer a refund when it wasnt due the customer was then able to write a review out of the blue thinking we wouldnt see it.
The review was very inaccurate and was clearly put there to harm our business.
The review was in the wrong Company name and this person has never been a customer of this particular Company.
Trustpilot said on the telephone they could not remove it and would have to speak with the reviewer yet this in not how one would expect to receive fairness is it, the review is about the wrong Company and the reviewer is deliberately inaccurate.
Trustpilot need to review their own procedures otherwise someone will come along and cause major problems as inevitably happens.
Nic
Trustpilot is a breeding ground for negative reviews, which companies then must pay to respond to. They Allow fake reviews on the site and Trustpilot allows unscrupulous customers to lie & blackmail other companies. Despite providing evidence, Trustpilot will often do nothing as they think they are untouchable in the UK. I hope someone takes them to court soon and stops them from damaging UK businesses who refuse to pay them money. I’ll happily donate for legal action against them.
Isn’t it interesting that all the negative anti-trustpilot posts are made by people who find it fit to NOT include their website address in their blog post…..
Clearly all of these people are competitors of truspilot and are just here to stir up trouble and put an end to them. I suggest everyone makes a hat out of tin foil to combat this issue.
I gather you have paid your annual fee to them for this year?
Well yeah…why would they provide their service for free?
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?
“I am not willing to pay £800 for something customers can do for free!”
Trustpilot are not a charity, they are a private business trying to make a profit. Their service is good and worth the money in my opinion.
Yes they offer a free service, which is there to allow people to sample the benefits so they can decide on whether to pay the full price.
@Steve I regret that you have misunderstood some of our policies. If this is due to poor communication from our side, we apologize.
Our company policy is extremely clear:
( The following answers are publicly available and are inserted from our FAQ on the matter, which you can find here: http://www.trustpilot.com/faq/google )
Regarding negative reviews
Reviews can only be deleted from Trustpilot if they are in breach of our terms and conditions or local legislation. If you believe a review is in breach, you can report it to Trustpilot’s customer service. While the review is being investigated, the stars and the text in the review will be replaced with a message notifying Trustpilot’s visitors that this review is being investigated. After investigation the review will either be deleted or restored to Trustpilot.
Regarding ranking on Google
Will Trustpilot reviews influence how high my website appears in Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERP)? Google is the only one in control of what impacts search engine results. As a result, Trustpilot can’t tell or promise you anything about how this link will impact your Search Engine Results Pages (SERP).
Hope this makes things more clear.
Joakim Ditlev
Trustpilot
‘TRUST’PILOT CANNOT BE TRUSTED WHEN THEY GIVE SUCH GOOD REVIEWS TO VALUEBASKET.COM
WHO ARE NOTHING MORE THAN FRAUDSTERS/SCAMMERS AND THIEVES.
I just checked out valuebasket, their trustpilot score is pretty bad to be fair, they have loads of bad reviews. I don’t see anything dishonest going on here.
I am looking into using Trust Pilot because Google requires you to have reviews from a third party site or Google shopping, in order to show customer reviews next to your ads.
Fake reviews can obviously be generated by placing fake orders. As a small business owner, I don’t have the time to place hundreds of fake orders and then refund all of them to myself later. The fact is that most will be generated by real customers as emails are sent and responded too. A percentage will be fake.
I’m more upset by the fact that I have to pay a company to do this for Google to accept the reviews. My hosting company can already do this, but Google will not accept these reviews. Google is favoring companies that have the extra cash flow to spend on a review service. Google’s actions concerning reviews, Google shopping is no longer free, and they allow larger competitors to list multiple ads that show the same product with different URLs.
@Bill All reviews on Trustpilot are syndicated to Google – regardless of whether the company has a Trustpilot subscription or not. Our bread and butter is a service that automates the process when collecting reviews + we offer different tools to share your reputation on your own website, on Facebook, etc.
Please refer to our Google FAQ if you have other questions or get in touch with me directly: http://www.trustpilot.com/faq/google
I have no faith in Trustpilot whatsoever. I recently reviewed a site that supplied my girlfriend with a counterfeit Chanel product.
After a very short time, they blocked my review, pending further investigation. They requested proof of purchase from me in the form of a sales invoice before they would legitimise my review. Sadly, but obviously not surprisingly, this company did not supply an order number, a confirmation email or an invoice and therefore beat Trustpilot’s system.
I supplied a credit card statement copy and several photos of the goods, yet they still won’t accept that my review is legitimate. This company has a steadily building dossier of similar reviews, all blocked for the same reason.
I have found Trustpilot to be amateurish, unhelpful and I seriously doubt their credibility. Joakim and Thomas are full of apologises but they will not investigate this properly. Their idea of an investigation is to make the victim prove what he cannot prove by way of an invoice.
I have a Police background and feel comfortable in saying that the word investigate and Trustpilot is a misnomer.
So coming from a Police background, you would understand the need to provide evidence before convicting someone?
Photo’s of the goods is worthless evidence, they could be any old pictures. Clearly a credit card statement isn’t enough for them to prove that the goods in question is linked to that transaction.
Its the company that sold you the bags which is at fault here, not Trustpilot. I like the fact that they are strict with this policy as I operate in a highly competitive industry. Without “verified buyer” protection my competitors would happily trash my reputation with fake, rubbish reviews.
Take a look at this:
http://www.hotukdeals.com/misc/trade-services-ever-used-them-heard-them-1278061#comments
Have a read at the seven pages and perhaps you might think that this should not be protected.
The reason nobody has an invoice is because the clown running the scam doesn’t provide them or confirmation emails at the POS and denies any knowledge of the customer.
This is straight forward criminality, obtaining property by deception and nobody should be assisting in covering this up. I am horrified at what I have discovered about Trust Pilot. They simply sell a platform to accrue positive reviews, whether genuine or not.
Not to mention what damage criminals do to consumer confidence in online purchasing, which in turn damages decent business like you own.
There has to be a point where quantity creates a need for a thorough investigation. Trust Pilot are not interested in Crime Reference numbers or any developments in exposing a criminal. They do not reply to the points in any communication, just occasionally send out some lip service.
I am sure when Trust Pilot’s policies are shown to the greater public in the UK, people like yourself might not see the value in paying them money for a glossy report. I am sure it is only a matter of time until some consumer’s rights TV programme gets hold of this information. 😉
It seems my replies got deleted.
Quite simply, ordered something from Trade Services and see whether you still feel good about the Trust Pilot policies.
http://www.frustratedcustomers.co.uk/complaints_detail.php?SETparam=aWQ9d2U1c25xa2drYmh3aXo3MHV0ZmN0
TRUSTPILOT are paid by companies like WAE+ to create fake 5 Star positive reviews they are a Danish company with a UK address who think they are able to do exactly what they want irrespective of the results of their false reporting when people use such sites and are scammed by them. The main rate is £75 per calender month so they sell their lies quite cheaply
I recently reported a debt company to trust pilot for posting blatant self reviews, I referred them to a body that regulates the industry that I complained about. They wouldn’t listen as there is no physical evidence.
They mentioned providing customer reference numbers for a service that is telephone based service.
I’ve went to the ASA UK and pointed out Trust Pilot to them. Fingers crossed the ASA will do more
Hello Bloggers
Would be interesting to learn what alternatives you’d suggest? We currently use Review Centre and have not had any problems, but our competition are using other review sites so we need to keep up with the game or miss out.
I have a bean bag web site and was one of the first to have customer reviews and we post only genuine reviews even if the customer is not happy but we always try to solve the problem the customer has had, So in my opinion it works but only if the company is honest.the best tip is go through as many reviews as possible and the fake ones will stand out time consuming but worth while
It is so frustrating when you see a company, whom you no has really low sales, getting several reviews an hour always similar in size and structure, often 2 at a time and pretty much always during 9-5.
What worse is that this company is actually terrible at customer service – my customers are always complaining about them. I know that they are also trust-pilot customers and actually pay for the service and therefore trust-pilot doesn’t want to offend them but this surely damages the credibility of trustpilot if it is so easy to do?
The company in question is racking up the reviews and makes me less inclined to join trustpilot judge for yourself:
ultimate-appliances
I know their suppliers and I know how much they sell – they get more reviews than sales…
Trustpilot is more partial than Sa-Damn!
The people they eat money from won’t let write bad reviews about them, and you can also many other which are fraudulent good reviews they write themselves for companies.
I recently had an issue it a company PCBuyIt.co.uk and wrote my review (bad of course but no offensive words), it was censored same day and didn’t show up anymore, hours later same day after my complaint it showed up again, censored but with a “moderating” status, check:
http://www.trustpilot.co.uk/review/www.pcbuyit.co.uk
I sent a message to see why and received this, a non sense stating that they sent another separate email before:
Your ticket 126901 is deemed resolved, see latest comment below:
Magnus Å, Mar 21 16:25 (CET):
Dear Juan,
Thank you for your email.
You should have got an email about that so i kindly ask you to reply to that one.
If you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to write back to us by replying to this email.
Kind regards, Med venlig hilsen, Met vriendelijke groet, Mit freundlichen Grüßen, Cordialement, Cordiales saludos,
Trustpilot Support
I am sorry to say Trustpilot is actually more fraudulent company that the one I reviewed, both are messing with innocent millions.