Property review site, allAgents.co.uk, has called for Trustpilot CEO Peter Muhlmann to resign over what it describes as “the fake reviews scandal”.
Martin McKenzie of allAgents has accused Muhlmann of ‘turning a blind eye for years to businesses posting their own positive write-ups on the review site’.
McKenzie’s attack comes after Trustpilot revealed yesterday how they are clamping down on companies and businesses who exploit their site with erroneous reviews.
“It’s too little too late”, he said. “This is something they were aware of well before they became a PLC, yet turned a blind eye to it.”
McKenzie continued: “They chose content over authenticity, some might say to the benefit of their brand.
“We have been bringing this to their attention for years, yet it got ignored. Trustpilot cannot be trusted.
“It’s only now as their share price drops by two thirds of their value in less than six months that they begin to repair their reputation.
“There are thousands of consumers duped into buying products and services based on these fake reviews, responsibility lies at the top and Muhlmann should do the right thing and step down.”
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.
However, “it comes after years of suspicion over its reviews”, said 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.”
Trustpilot targets fake reviews by property firms and other businesses
Comments (4)
Trustpilot is a joke site, In my opinion all they’re interested is the sponsorship from companies not feedback from genuine customers. Last year I emailed them many times regarding a company by the name of Maxen Power, they employ staff based in Pakistan whose sole job was to write fake and bogus reviews (their own employee told me this)
I asked Trustpilot to check the IP addresses of the positive reviews and informed them 99% would be from the the same address. They emailed me back to say they would investigate my complaint but 7 months on the FAKE reviews are still there and Trustpilot has done nothing about it
The Maxen Power that ‘Leggit Blogger’ refers to have, in the last 12 months, “flagged” ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY reviews – over 25% of the total received – every one of them was a one star review.
Almost makes Purplebricks look amateurish in the controlling of review ratings… who according to the Trustlesspilot-produced statistics have only bothered to flag a mere 78 of around 700+ 1-star slatings received over the same 12-month period. That’s a third or thereabouts of their 2020 tally, by the way.
And if you haven’t already – have a look at the ‘Detailed Overview’ of your favourite companies’ pages to see how many 1-star reviews they have tried to sweep under the rug. There are some VERY interesting numbers to be found…
Well, who knew?!….
What a pity that the teams at NTSEALT, NAEA and TPOS didn’t act on this years ago when they were all presented with rather a considerable amount of evidence about these two firms. How many millions of pounds has been lost by house sellers who relied on these reviews? How many millions did investors doing due diligence lose by relying, in-part, on these reviews? And, how many millions did law-abiding agents who expected their industry to be policed fairly, evenly and properly by those paid handsomely to police it lose?
Utterly shameful.
^^THIS^^