Trustpilot issues legal proceedings against Global Migrate for repeated abuse and fake reviews

LONDON - February 14, 2021 – Leading reviews platform Trustpilot has today issued legal proceedings  against Global Migrate, after the UK-based immigration company failed to respond to repeated enforcement action to end its abuse of the platform by misleading consumers through soliciting fake reviews.

Trustpilot’s team of Fraud and Investigation analysts found evidence to suggest more than 700 fabricated reviews have been submitted to Global Migrate’s Trustpilot profile page - all of which have since been removed. The business has received multiple warnings, as well as a formal cease and desist notice, for its involvement in fake reviews and ongoing misuse of the platform, including wrongly using the review reporting tool. A public warning has also been placed on Global Migrate’s profile page on Trustpilot, alerting consumers of the business’ misbehaviour. Despite this enforcement action by Trustpilot, the business has continued to abuse the platform with evidence suggesting it is engaging in fake reviews. 

Global Migrate is the first company that Trustpilot has commenced legal proceedings against. This case is part of the company’s recently announced strategy to clamp down on the minority of businesses repeatedly misusing reviews. Trustpilot plans to issue legal proceedings against a number of repeat offenders, seeking orders to prevent the businesses from continuing to solicit fake reviews and to recover damages. Trustpilot has committed to donating the proceeds of any  damages to organisations working to support and promote consumer rights.

Carolyn Jameson, Chief Trust Officer at Trustpilot, said: “Anyone trying to misuse reviews to potentially mislead consumer opinion will be held accountable. We don't accept this behaviour and will do everything within our power to stamp out businesses who attempt to manipulate or cheat our system. 

“Trustpilot exists to build trust between businesses and consumers, which is why our rules are so important. In order to protect consumers and help ensure they are able to shop with confidence, we are increasing our enforcement strategy - it is the right, and necessary, thing to do.”

Trustpilot invests considerable resources to uphold the integrity of its platform. In 2020 alone, the company removed 2.2m+ fake reviews from its site - 5.7 percent of reviews submitted to the platform that year. Improvements in automated fraud, enforcement and anomaly detection technologies, which safeguard the platform from misuse, have also been introduced following  investment in a growing research and development centre in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

To find out more and for more information, please visit www.trustpilot.com/trust. 

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About Trustpilot

Trustpilot was founded in 2007 with a vision to create an independent currency of trust.

A digital platform that brings businesses and consumers together to foster trust and inspire collaboration. We are free to use, open to everybody, and built on transparency.

Trustpilot hosts reviews to help consumers shop with confidence and deliver rich insights to help businesses improve the experience they offer. The more consumers use our platform and share their own opinions, the richer the insights we offer businesses, and the more opportunities they have to earn the trust of consumers, from all around the world. 

Over 144 million consumer reviews of businesses and products of over 626,000 domains have been posted on Trustpilot, and those numbers are growing by more than one review per second.  

Trustpilot has over 800 employees and is headquartered in Copenhagen, with operations in London, Edinburgh, New York, Denver, Melbourne, Berlin, Vilnius, Milan, and Amsterdam.