11 ms·

Perhaps a bit off-topic, but TrustPilot is a form of near-perfect evil. If someone leaves a negative review of your business on TrustPilot, you can have it tak

• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• cletus 6y ago
  Otherwise known as the Yelp business model.
  • dkural 6y ago
    Can you purchase a subscription from Yelp to remove all negative reviews?
    • julianlam 6y ago
      As a business owner? Yes, you can use Yelp and pay them for removing/burying negative reviews.
      • istjohn 6y ago
        This is simply not true. I am speaking as a small business owner on Yelp.
      • asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        I have never seen any credible evidence for this accusation. I don't dispute that some unscrupulous Yelp sales rep or another has represented this to be the case to some business owner who then posted about the interaction online. I do dispute whether Yelp actually does remove reviews for paying businesses.
      • npteljes 6y ago
        Not sure why you're downvoted, there were serious allegations saying exactly this https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/yelp-accused-of-bullying-businesses-into-paying-for-better-reviews-1.2899308 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/yelp-accused-of-bullying-bu... https://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks-yelp-20130420,0,7824145,full.column https://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks-yelp-20130420... https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/yelp-blames-greedy-lawyers-for-extortion-allegations-jw/2090383/ https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/yelp-blames-greedy-law...
        • istjohn 6y ago
          Serious, unsubstantiated allegations. If I could pay Yelp to remove reviews, believe me, I would. It would be far easier than the alternative: bending over backwards to make every customer happy. Yelp's sales people can be aggressive, and it wouldn't surprise me if a rogue employee deceived a prospect to close a sale, but there is no way to pay to win. Yelp also does flag legitimate positive reviews sometimes, but the alternative is to be like Amazon where half the reviews are fake.
          • npteljes 6y ago
            I believe that the middle ground is true: there's no official way for "pay to win", neither is the corruption so rampant that everyone has access to it, but there still is some.
• MrsPeaches 6y ago
  Is there any information on this? I just had a look at their pricing page and it doesn’t seem to say anything about this. Maybe a screen shot would do if it’s something you only see when you have the plan?
  • dmitrybrant 6y ago
    Well of course they wouldn't advertise these sorts of practices in their pricing plans. But you can get certain hints from some of the verbiage. For example, they talk about "review invitations" -- this is code for review gating, which is the practice of selectively inviting users who are more likely to leave positive reviews. They also say "Curate your Trustpilot Company Profile Page through ... adding authentic content". The term "authentic content" is code for "positive reviews", because you'll be able to flag any negative reviews as inauthentic. And of course you can also look at reviews of Trustpilot itself from third parties, i.e. websites where Trustpilot doesn't have a paid/boosted account, for instance: https://www.reviews.io/company-reviews/store/trustpilot https://www.reviews.io/company-reviews/store/trustpilot
    • vizzah 6y ago
      Review invitations can be sent on basic plan. Only 100, though, but you can choose internally which customers to invite. I don't see that as a problem, because people do need to be reminded (or asked) to write positive reviews, because when everything is working as customers expect, many won't be bothered to venture onto review sites to write about that. So they must be asked while hot. And it's much better than offer any incentives to reviews - many companies aren't shy to do exactly that, but that's where the line gets crossed..
• polote 6y ago
  It is the same thing as any other companies in the reviews business. The same can be said of Glassdoor or Yelp for example. As long as a review as an impact on the finance of a company. You can be sure the reviews provider will give ways to remove those reviews.
  • istjohn 6y ago
    Actually, Yelp doesn't remove legitimate reviews. Edit: I speak from personal experience as a small business owner, described in more detail below.
    • polote 6y ago
      In theory the same can be said of glassdoor. In reality it is different
      • istjohn 6y ago
        In reality, Yelp doesn't play games with reviews. I became the top-rated business in my city for my niche while turning down their sales people over and over. I successfully got one review removed in that time because it was clearly a spam account based on their review history. I have several legitimate 5-star reviews from actual happy customers on my business profile that "are not currently recommended" due to Yelp's aggressive anti-cheat software. There are plenty of unhappy business owners who would have people believe their poor Yelp ratings are because the game is rigged, and I'm sure Yelp makes plenty of mistakes, but it is not pay-to-win.
        • Retric 6y ago
          That’s not a counter argument. I was once the top rated player on a pay to win game server without having paid anything. The issue with pay to win in games and online reviews is the distortion not the impossibility of success. Yelp etc needs the average review to be somewhat useful so people actually trusts the Star ratings. However, they can still accomplish that while distorting a significant number of reviews.
• tehwebguy 6y ago
  Years back I signed my ecom business up for ResellerRatings’ similar service for like $20 or $50 / month. Eventually they determined we should be paying a few hundred per month based on their impression of our traffic and upped the price, notifying us at the bottom of a very, very tall newsletter email. It was like a year before we noticed, they quickly refunded us 6 months when we told them we were charging it back (presumably that’s how far back we could charge back without fighting harder).
• poundofshrimp 6y ago
  > If someone leaves a negative review of your business on TrustPilot, you can have it taken down I don't think this is true. If this was true, then any sane business would pay the $400 and have a decent record on TP.
  • brianwawok 6y ago
    Except not everyone wants to play the game. The BBB pioneered this business model. Yelp perfected it. This is just another flavor for another market. There 100% needs to be regulation around any kind of review site. If you can pay and change how the reviews look it is 100% corrupt and shouldn’t be allowed.
    • dexterdog 6y ago
      Also if you can leave a review for something that you have not consumed it is 100% corrupt and shouldn't be allowed. The fraudulent usage goes both ways and in the end the sites are only for the ignorant.
  • ihaveajob 6y ago
    $400/month is not a trivial sum of money for a mom-and-pop shop. Plus if this becomes the norm, there will be other predatory sites jumping at the bite.
  • dmitrybrant 6y ago
    I'm not sure about that. A sane business would not give in to bullying tactics. Most small business owners I know have probably never heard of Trustpilot, and if they did, would probably consider any kind of fee for maintaining a decent record to be an obvious scam.
  • dazc 6y ago
    They don't exactly say 'you can have it taken down' though. And, believe it or not, some businesses take the view that they will not be held hostage in this way. There are several big brand retailers in the UK who don't pay Trustpilot; you can tell by how many negative reviews they have manged to amass. Another 'benefit ' of paying Trustpilot is that you can have gold stars underneath your search and ads listings. Google seem happy to to be part of the scam too.
• agilob 6y ago
  >you can have it taken down... for a measly $400 per month Might be wrong, but glassdoor does it too
  • perfectstorm 6y ago
    not that I don't believe you but is there any proof to back your claim?
    • oxfordmale 6y ago
      Glassdoor allows to flag reviews that break their T&Cs, including sharing of company confidential information. Even disclosing that your CTO left, could be considered breaching confidential information. Many negative reviews are removed this way.
      • agilob 6y ago
        "Applied for a Java role, but had JavaScript questions. Tried to explain to interviewer there are unrelated things, was asked to come back when I learn more about Java. One star." Removed because it exposes interview process.
• mytailorisrich 6y ago
  > If you refuse to purchase their premium package, they can prioritize the negative review to be shown above the positive ones until you do. That's not my experience. Here in the UK at least they display reviews in chronological order, newest first including for "unclaimed" businesses".
• bjarneh 6y ago
  > Perhaps a bit off-topic, but TrustPilot is a form of near-perfect evil. That is certainly not off-topic in this context. The horrid behavior (or business model) of TrustPilot is relevant (and immoral), and should be known. Every time I see one of those "4.2 / 5 stars on TrustPilot" banners, I'll start thinking about the extortion money to keep hiding those negative reviews; what a scam..
  • jakub_g 6y ago
    Apart from the business model: No one ever takes time to write positive reviews of big businesses on third-party sites out of good heart. By default only people who have something to complain about go there. (I know this first-hand based on PlayStore/AppStore ratings of the app I worked on in the past). The diff between 1.8 and 4.2 business is that the latter sends mass emails to the customers saying "write us a nice review on TrustPilot, and maybe you'll win a $50 gift card". (Although, in case of the app, we just asked nicely, and many people clicked the banner and went on to give 4* or 5* ratings in the store, for free). Having said that, if company doesn't care about 1.8 rating and has no actions to change, it's probably a bad sign...
    • bjarneh 6y ago
      That's probably true; people are most likely to give feedback if it's negative; making the TrustPilot way of earning money even worse, as it mostly attracts negative reviews. Then companies with those negative reviews have to "buy them invisible" on TrustPilot. I wish I could give TrustPilot a 1 star review right now :-)
    • a_f 6y ago
      >No one ever takes time to write positive reviews of big businesses on third-party sites out of good heart Maybe I am missing the context of big businesses, but I will often write a good review of a company (say on trustpilot) I have used, with no reward to myself. Even well known ones. The most recent example being Scan the hardware retailer in the UK. I have though also done it for reward too, so I am not completely altruistic!
    • vizzah 6y ago
• xnx 6y ago
  Important to remember some of the other players like TrustPilot when considering the posts about Google's moderation of Robinhood reviews. Moderation is hard, every actor (reviewer, reviewee, and review service) can be malicious.
• programmernews3 6y ago
  Trustpilot are a scam operation themselves and I agree that they are near-perfect evil. They shake down companies involved with them and give add very little of value. If anything, they are harmful to ecommerce as it makes people more skeptical of reviews
• jader201 6y ago
  Isn’t this the exact same thing Yelp has been reported of doing? Seems like any form of reviews — Amazon, Yelp, TrustPilot — or even independent reviews (that are often given a product in exchange for “their honest review”, can’t be trusted anymore. Someone will find a way to game the system. We’ve gone from being ignorant, to being informed, back to being ignorant again — or worse, ignorantly mislead.
  • blackearl 6y ago
    It's mafia tactics in a modern world. Nice business you got here, would be a shame if someone said something bad about it online. You know we can make that go away...for a price.
    • MikeDelta 6y ago
      Protection money indeed.
  • totalZero 6y ago
    Amazon reviews could potentially be salvageable. The way I see it, their problem is that items sell more when they have a plurality of reviews, so there's a disincentive for the platform to take down positive reviews (because they drive revenue). But Amazon is a platform that depends on repeat business (hence the existence of Prime) so it also has an incentive to ensure that the totality of a product's reviews give a useful idea of the product's pros and cons. On the other hand, sites that let you remove bad reviews or showcase good ones are running a 21st-century protection racket.
• throw14082020 6y ago
  Yes. Here is an example of the evil after I posted a negative review: > Thanks for your review on Trustpilot. > >Based on your review, Curve would like a little more information about your experience. This will help them write a more useful >reply to you. It'll also help them verify that you’ve had a genuine experience with their business. >Of course, it’s totally up to you what you share. "verify" vs. "totally up to me" are different things.
  • vizzah 6y ago
    This is important to validate the review was left by a genuine customer. You can indeed share as much (or as little) information as you want, but they'll have to decided on the balance of probabilities if you had a real interaction with the company you're reviewing. We receive many reviews and often fake negative reviews, so this helps to provide at least a level of protection against such attacks.
    • epanchin 6y ago
      Do they verify fake positive reviews, or just the fake negatives?
• ratherbefuddled 6y ago
  A few years back I left a negative review for one retailer of oak furniture on TrustPilot. It was deleted for profanity within 60 seconds. There was no profanity in it. I repeated this four or five times before eventually it stuck. I noticed it was quickly buried by the deluge of five star reviews. Then I noticed they claimed to have over 100,000 Trustpilot reviews. The numbers were impossible. It's heavily astro turfed and it would surprise me little to see that there's a significant review score downside to not paying them for a subscription. For me, TrustPilot has the reverse effect - if your business uses it I trust you less.
  • dpwm 6y ago
    I rarely go on aggregate review scores, but instead on the worst reviews. I read the text of these reviews. Sometimes the reviewer had unrealistic demands. If this worst case is acceptable, I proceed. If it is a choice between competitors, it often comes to the least bad option. If there are no reviews under 5 stars, I'm suspicious. If a company replies to reviews, I mentally flag it as doing reputation management - not something you tend to need do when providing a service your customers love. It is amazing how many nightmare companies have 4-5 star trustpilot reviews.
• udestoworkthere 6y ago
  as someone that used to work there i can say this info is false. >If someone leaves a negative review of your business on TrustPilot, you can have it taken down no, they can flag it but neither that nor the money they pay as subscription has any direct effect on the review being taken down, this solely lies on the discretion of moderators according to the terms of usage. >they can prioritize the negative review to be shown above the positive ones no, like hackernews trustpilot has a a scoring mechanism that is quite easily explained and also reflects on what is being shown, look here: https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/201748946-TrustScore-and-star-rating-explained https://support.trustpilot.com/hc/en-us/articles/201748946-T... >It's a shocking lack of integrity trustpilot has the most open and transparent platform for reviews, bad actors get marked publicly no matter if they are companies(free or paying) or reviewers.
• Mc_Big_G 6y ago
  Yet again proving anyone can be rich if they don't have to worry about pesky morals.
• Nerwesta 6y ago
  I mean, there is a redflag to me when the name of your company is literally starting with Trust.
• tdeck 6y ago
  This business model is nothing new. The BBB has been operating this way for years.