You Can't Trust Trustpilot
I've been with trustpilot for many years now and while as a company I've been well aware they can't be trusted, I've obviously trusted in the reviews I've shared on their site, some good, some not so in the hope it will help others . Most of us I believe used our common sense reading reviews, you could often gage if there was something suspicious about them, maybe there were way too many gushing over the top ones or ones that sounded more like a marketing ad, but overall I found the site rather helpful when deciding whether to shop with a company or not.
However that changed this week when having made a first purchase with Smyths toys and being impressed, I decided to leave a review. I rarely write reviews, a purchase has to be exceptionally good or exceptionally bad for me to give up precious time to write one, in this case I felt it worthy. It was only a short to the point review, that it was a first purchase, how I was impressed with speedy delivery, how the items were well packed and the items themselves had been a very good price and I would recommend the company based on my experience.
The usual process is a day or two after posting, Trustpilot send an email to say your review has been published , not so in this case. I was shocked to receive an email to say my review would not be posted because their automated tech had flagged up the review based on algorithms, they went on to say that they couldn't say why but suggested that maybe I'd posted spam ? (Nope) Maybe I'd posted a link to take people away from the Trustpilot site? (Nope), it was a fairly boring standard 5 star review to be honest, just a couple of lines saying what I've already shared with you, nothing excitingly naughty or sinister? ? Trustpilot went on to say that if I thought they had got it wrong I could ask for a review and send screen shots of documents to prove i had made a purchase with the companies logo clearly on the document.
Questioning my integrity after being on there for years and sharing reviews irked me immensely and while I had better things to do with my time I felt it important to write back defending the simple review and suggesting that they check their so called automated tech which is evidently wrongly flagging up reviews. As proof of purchase I also sent two documents, one, an order confirmation from Smyths with logo clearly emblazoned along the top and the paypal receipt with the companies details on as well as mine. I thought that would be the end of it, but yesterday I received another email from Trustpilot to say they are standing by the automated techs decision and wont be posting the review ? It's absolutely ludicrous, so much so I went straight over to the website and deleted my account completely along with about 14 years worth of reviews that I'd written.
If they can wrongly flag 5 star reviews and refuse to publish them purely based on a bot, but be happy to post 1 star reviews without question they have the ability to falsely sabotage a companies reputation? How can anyone trust that ? More and more sites are relying on automated tech to make decisions and the more I look into it the more frightening it becomes, the biggest issue isn’t the tech itself, it’s the lack of human review
If appeals just get auto-processed again, the system becomes self reinforcing and unaccountable. That’s when trust breaks down, ironically, on a “trust” platform.
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