TrustPilot – How do competitors manipulate it?

Hi everyone,

I’m new to TrustPilot and trying to understand how some competitors seem to be gaming the system.

A bunch of them have around 2,000+ 5-star reviews, with new ones rolling in every few hours. Meanwhile, they have fewer than ten 1-star reviews, and their history of flagged reviews is almost non-existent. Due to the nature of our business (supplement industry / every body is different / different expectations etc.), it would not make sense that they almost have zero negative reviews...

Is that actually legit? Or does anyone know what tactics might be at play? For example, is it possible to request TrustPilot to remove flagged review statistics? As in, when flagged reviews get successfully deleted, is there a way to get TrustPilot to also erase the record that they were flagged in the first place?

Would love to hear any insights!

you can easily buy reviews, just look around the forum

in addition to that, many companies offer rewards to their clients for leaving 5 star reviews

From what I’ve heard, some companies do use shady tactics like incentivizing reviews or even creating fake accounts to pump up their numbers. It’s a bummer, but it happens!

As for your question about flagged reviews, I’m not entirely sure if they can just erase that history. But it wouldn't be surprising if some competitors found a way around it. It might be worth reaching out to TrustPilot directly to get the scoop on their review management process.

So, I‘m pretty sure that my competitors receive negative reviews. But if they flagged them and they were deleted the regular way, TrustPilot would keep track of that in the statistics. For my competitors, the statistics don’t mention deletions/ removals… that’s what I found suspicious… anyone familiar with that in particular?

Buy reviews or hire microworkers to write them for you

it happens.

Many of those companies probably buy bulk reviews daily, but they know how to avoid detection by keeping fingerprints and IPs clean. Usually, they'll use proxies combined with anti-detect browsers (like Multilogin, Hidemyacc, etc.) to stay under the radar. With the right setup, each reviewer profile looks like a unique individual, making it difficult for TrustPilot to catch on, let alone keep a history of flagged reviews.

Newbie0 said:

and their history of flagged reviews is almost non-existent

Click to expand...

Once a business has upgraded to one of the Trustpilot's upgraded plan, then Trustpilot algorithms are designed in such a way that this upgraded business's reviews will flow smoothly. Pay and play.

@Newbie0

I do that for a living and it is very complicated with many obstacles and nobody who knows how to really do it will ever share this info for free. There are so many details about it, trust me, not a single forum post or youtube video comes even remotely close, if anything, the online guidance you will find will be a suicide mission and have your profile banned.

It is hard and dynamic as hell