The review website Trustpilot is to make it easier for the public to see whether companies have tried to stop complaints being published.
Trustpilot is used by Purplebricks and several other estate agencies and has been the subject of substantial criticism by some agents and industry figures who allege some companies suppress complaints made on the platform.
Now the site has today told the BBC that it will reveal how many reviews each client company has flagged for investigation over the previous year.
When a review is flagged for investigation it is hidden from public users of the site - and can therefore inadvertently contribute towards what some regard as a misleading perception of the company under review.
The BBC says Trustpilot will also disclose the numbers of posts which were posted again after the investigation, as well as how many were deleted.
Last year a BBC Radio 5 Live probe heard from one user whose negative review had been flagged as suspicious.
“She raised concern that by the time Trustpilot had confirmed it was real and reinstated the post, it had been ‘buried’ under later submissions, meaning it was never given the prominence it should have been" says the BBC report.
At the time of the radio programme's broadcast Purplebricks - which was featured in the show - said it had cooperated and "actively engaged with its makers."
But now Trustpilot brand chief Glenn Manoff has told the BBC: "Nobody is looking for perfection but what they want is that a company is open and transparent … This makes it harder for companies to game the system and makes it easier for consumers to work out who were the few bad apples.”
He said that on average companies queried fewer than one per cent of posts from the public.
You can see this morning’s full BBC story here.
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Trust Pilot allows a business to flag if a review has been posted that you suspect is fake or just that you do not recognise the customer details submitted. They then ask the customer to verify they have actually been a customer of the business and if they can’t prove that the review is removed. Seems fair and reasonable.
We have worked very hard over the last two years to get a score rating of 9.8 from 1,800 reviews (which does include 1 star ones) all from genuine customers.
On the occasions we have asked TP to verify a customer, about 90% of the time the reviewer has not been able to do so.
How can 51% sales produce a 97% Trust Pilot approval rating? How do the 49% of unsuccessful Sellers not resent that they had paid out a substantial sum for nothing and wasted their time as well?
The fact Trust pilot offer to remove reviews for a fee shows how little integrity they have.
All agents recently hinted that they'd be willing to do the same but only if its a non-genuine paying customer.
is that really true?! Can an agent pay TP to remove a bad review? Surely that's blackmail.
Hi there, I'm responding on behalf of Trustpilot.
Trustpilot is an open platform that any company or consumer can use for free. Companies who wish to engage even more with their customers can buy additional services. Paid services include automatic review invitations and access to statistical and analytical tools.
All companies on Trustpilot must abide by the same rules - whether a company is a paying customer at Trustpilot or not has no bearing whatsoever on how their reviews are treated. No company can edit, delay, deselect or prohibit a review from being published on Trustpilot.
If we find that any company is violating our guidelines, we investigate and take appropriate action. This could include a Cease & Desist procedure that may result in a Consumer Alert being placed on the company’s Trustpilot profile. A Consumer Alert informs Trustpilot users about the company’s deliberate attempts to mislead consumers.
I hope this clarifies on the comment made above.
I worked at PB and there is definitely something fishy going on with TP and PB. Example is one of my clients left a scathing non rude review about the conveyancing and TP wrote to my client and said they removed it due to a technicality involving his IP address!!!
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