Trustpilot announcements
|September 18, 2015
Trustpilot clamps down on fake reviews: 85 consumer alerts and counting
18th September, 2015 – New York – London – Melbourne – Copenhagen – Trustpilot, the global review community for online businesses, today announces that 85 consumer alerts have been placed on company profiles. The alerts play a key role in Trustpilot’s efforts to safeguard the trust of consumers and businesses.
“We know that the vast majority of companies on our platform play by the rules however, some businesses try to game the system. We have a zero tolerance policy towards companies trying to mislead consumers and we want to make sure consumers are informed when this kind of behaviour takes place. That’s where our consumer alerts come in,” says UK VP of Trustpilot, James Westlake.
At Trustpilot, a team of 35 compliance agents work around the clock to make sure that companies comply with Trustpilot’s guidelines and to combat fraud. Besides consumer alerts, which are placed on company profiles where substantial fraud has been detected, Trustpilot also terminates contracts with companies who consistently commit fraud on the platform.
“We combat fraud together with our community. Thousands of consumers and companies contact us every month to let us know that they have identified something suspicious. We’re very grateful for this feedback and our platform wouldn’t work without it,” says Westlake.
All reviews on Trustpilot have a flagging option. When a consumer or company flags a review they must describe the reason for their suspicion. Our team then initiates an investigation and assesses the review or company.
In order to combat fraudulent behaviour throughout the online review industry, Trustpilot recently kick-started conversations with other well-established online review platforms to develop an agreed standard that protects both businesses and consumers alike.
Fact: What are consumer alerts?
A consumer alert is a yellow banner placed at the top of a company profile informing consumers about suspicious behaviour. If a consumer alert is visible on a company profile it will have been monitored throughout a period of time. Consumer Alerts are visible for 180 days, and the company profile will be reviewed after that period in order to determine, whether the alert will continue to be visible or be removed.
The 85 consumer alerts have been placed on companies from 14 different countries. UK companies account for 30 of the alerts.
For more information please contact: press@trustpilot.com
About Trustpilot
Founded in 2007 by CEO Peter Holten Mühlmann, Trustpilot is a global, multi-language review community that builds trust and transparency between consumers and businesses. Currently boasting more than 14 million consumer reviews of 115,000 businesses, Trustpilot produces a TrustScore for businesses based on recent reviews. Trustpilot’s community is live in 27 countries. Every day, more than 10,000 consumers sign up on Trustpilot, and every month, 500.000 new reviews are posted on the community.
Trustpilot has customers in 65 countries and has developed strong positions in Denmark, Sweden, the U.K., France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as the U.S. The company is located in New York, London, Copenhagen and Melbourne, and its employee base has increased from 168 people in 2013 to its current count of more than 450 employees representing 40 nationalities.
