Trustpilot has strongly denied claims made by allAgents this week that the reviews site has been ‘turning a blind eye for years to businesses posting their own positive write-ups on the review site’.

The fresh attack by allAgents came after Trustpilot revealed how they are clamping down on companies and businesses who exploit their site with erroneous reviews.

“It’s too little too late”, said Martin McKenzie of allAgents.

“We have been bringing this to their attention for years, yet it got ignored. Trustpilot cannot be trusted,” he added.

Trustpilot, which removed more than 2.2m fake reviews from its site last year, says that it has enhanced its automated fraud, enforcement and anomaly detection technologies, which safeguard the platform from misuse.

It has also pledged to take legal action against firms which continue to abuse the site.

But this action “it comes after years of suspicion over its reviews”, claims McKenzie.

He continued: “In 2017 Trustpilot issued an open letter clarifying its review policy following allegations concerning the “validity of reviews” of online estate agents Purplebricks.

“Then in 2019 it was reported that ailing Purplebricks were paying Trustpilot to get better review scores.

“The following year allAgents claimed that 70% of Trustpilot reviews could be fake. This figure came after allAgents queried 42 Trustpilot reviews of itself. Some 31 were apparently removed prompting conclusions they were fake.”

However, a spokesperson for Trustpilot said that the claims made by allAgents are “sensationalised, unfounded and incorrect allegations”.

The spokesperson continued: “Any suggestions that businesses can pay Trustpilot to receive a better score are false. Previous allegations made by this competitor about the levels of fakes were also proven to be inaccurate.

“The allegation made that we have previously ‘turned a blind eye’ to businesses trying to manipulate or misuse reviews is also untrue. Where we see evidence of misbehaviour, we take action — this includes automated warnings, formal cease and desist letters, public warning banners and further preventative measures.

“The success and scale of Trustpilot shows that consumers want an open platform on which to share their experiences with both businesses and other community members. This without having to be invited to leave a review, and without their feedback being selectively displayed.”

The spokesperson added: “Trustpilot constantly strives to improve trust online through our platform. In the past couple of years, we have banned the use of incentives, improved our invitation processes, prevented review information being shared with search engines should companies receive our public warning for guidelines breaches and have continued to provide further ‘Business Transparency’ across all company review pages, allowing everyone to see how individual businesses use their reviews.

“Given the importance of reviews to consumers, there will always be a minority of people that try to manipulate the system to mislead others — in the same way as credit card fraud continues. However, our continual investments in improvement and new initiatives are fundamental to helping both consumers and businesses trust each other. It is a credit to the technology, systems and information we have available to us that we can confidently take legal action to clamp down on misbehaving businesses further.”

Trustpilot targets fake reviews by property firms and other businesses