Action We Take

There’s no place for fake reviews on Trustpilot. Fake reviews undermine trust and are illegal, and we won’t tolerate that. Where we detect fake reviews, we’ll remove them and take action.

We define fake reviews as reviews which don’t reflect a genuine service or buying experience with a business. They’re written in an attempt to mislead and manipulate what other people think about that business (positively or negatively). Examples include:

• Reviews gathered using illegitimate sources such as “review sellers” and as such don’t reflect genuine consumer experiences

• Reviews written with the intention of manipulating a business’s TrustScore rather than sharing a genuine experience

• Reviews gathered through biased or manipulated invitation methods (see the ‘Review Invitations’ section below)

Every single review submitted to Trustpilot is checked by our automated detection technology before becoming visible on the platform. To safeguard our platform and make sure that we’re increasingly effective in identifying and removing fake reviews, we use a three-pronged approach that includes our people, technology, and community. Our automated detection technology goes beyond the content of reviews to analyse a large range of behavioural data points. This is supported by the human expertise in our Trust teams and a layer of bespoke systems designed to detect other types of suspicious behaviour and misuse. Learn more about fake reviews here.

For businesses

When we detect fake reviews that we have reason to suspect were written or procured by the business, we immediately place the fake reviews offline. Where we find patterns of misuse, we send an educational email to allow the business to correct its behaviour before we take stronger action. This communication informs the business what behaviour we detected, and explains what is and isn't allowed on Trustpilot. We provide clear guidance on how to collect reviews fairly and compliantly (e.g. don’t offer incentives or ask for reviews from employees). We also explain that we will continue to monitor the situation.

If the misuse persists and we detect more fake reviews related to the business, we’ll send a formal warning, demanding that they stop the misuse. Continued misuse can lead to further actions, such as placing a Consumer Warning on their Trustpilot profile page, limiting access to their business account, and, if necessary, taking escalated action, including contract termination and legal action if needed (see the 'How do we stop misbehaviour and misuse' section below).

For reviewers

When we detect a fake review, we’ll take it offline and contact the reviewer to let them know. Whilst our detection systems are constantly improving and becoming increasingly effective, we recognise that we may not get it right 100% of the time. If reviewers think we have made the wrong decision, they can let us know. Continued misuse can lead to further actions.

Any business can use Trustpilot for free to invite customers who have had a genuine experience to write a review. Businesses can use our invitation methods and tools to do this and customers can always leave a review free of charge, with or without an invitation.  
Businesses must not “cherry pick” when it comes to inviting, this is illegal.

To ensure reviews remain trustworthy and unbiased, businesses must:

• Only invite consumers who’ve had a genuine experience with their products or services - consumers don’t need to have bought something, but they do need to have experienced the product or service.

• Invite consistently and fairly — this means inviting everyone in the same way, regardless of whether they had a positive or negative experience.

• Give consumers a chance to experience the product or service before asking them to provide feedback. Inviting only at an early stage of the customer journey - e.g. immediately after an initial consultation or promotional offer - can result in unbalanced or overly positive reviews that don’t reflect the complete customer experience. By inviting at a more appropriate stage (or at several different stages), businesses help ensure that reviews are fair, insightful and genuinely useful to others.

• Use fair and neutral language - don’t try to encourage only positive reviews. This helps reviewers feel comfortable to express their genuine opinions. 

• Never offer incentives in connection with writing or editing a review. Incentives can lead to biased (both positive and negative) and low-quality reviews. Incentivising reviews is against our guidelines and will be removed.

If you have a special relationship with the business

Reviewers are also not allowed to write a review where they have a special relationship to the business they’re reviewing (for example, they’re the owner of the business, someone in their immediate family works with or for the business, is a shareholder in the business, or is a competitor). This is to prevent potentially biased reviews on Trustpilot, both positive and negative. 

Examples of misuse of review invitations
We take action when we detect misuse of review invitations. Examples include: 

• Offering incentives in exchange for a customer to write, edit or remove a review. Incentives can include refunds, discounts, gifts, monetary rewards, or loyalty points. It also extends to asking a customer to edit or remove their review after the business has resolved their issue.

• Asking a family member, friend, employee or anyone with a special relationship to write a review. 

• Asking customers to write a review in-store (unless we’ve given you permission in advance)  or collecting reviews using a business device.

• Picking and choosing which consumers you invite to write reviews, including only inviting consumers likely to have had a positive experience.

• Asking customers to write a review if they had a positive experience, but to contact the business directly if they’re unhappy.

• Including any misleading, fraudulent or harmful content such as phishing links.

• Using review invitation tools for purposes outside their intended scope, such as distributing unsolicited marketing materials, newsletters, or promotional content.

• Writing incentivized reviews: This includes accepting discounts, promo codes, prize draw entries, refunds, freebies, or any other benefit for leaving a review.

• Writing reviews where you have a special relationship to the business (e.g. as an owner, employee, or competitor).

For businesses

When we detect a business is collecting reviews in breach of our guidelines, we’ll remove the reviews and take action against the business (see the 'How do we stop misbehaviour and misuse' section below). 

For reviewers

Where we detect incentivized or otherwise biassed reviews, we’ll remove the reviews and take action against the business (see the 'How do we stop misbehaviour and misuse' section below).

If you see a review which you think breaches our guidelines, you can let us know and we’ll investigate. You can read more about the reasons you can flag reviews in our guidelines for Businesses and Reviewers. We ask consumers and businesses to flag reviews fairly, consistently, and only when they genuinely believe there's a problem. 

Businesses flagging a review
A business who has claimed their Trustpilot profile can use the flagging tool available in their business account for free. 

Reviewers flagging a review
Click the flag icon below a review - it’s as simple as that. Read more.

Using our contact form
Anyone can get in touch to report something that doesn’t look right using our contact form.

Examples of businesses misusing the flagging tool:

• Flagging negative reviews that don’t breach our guidelines in an effort to get them removed from their Trustpilot profile. 

• Flagging the same review over and over again to try and get it removed.  

• Flagging content only when it appears in negative reviews, which indicates a biased attempt to target unfavorable feedback. This includes, for example, reporting negative - but not positive - reviews which contain employee information. 

• Flagging reviews in bulk over a short period; this behaviour implies that the content is not being carefully reviewed for actual violations, but is being targeted based on sentiment.

Examples of reviewers misusing the flagging tool:

• Repeatedly flagging reviews that don’t breach our guidelines.

• Flagging the same review over and over again.

• Flagging reviews in bulk over a short period; this behaviour implies that the content is not being carefully reviewed for actual violations, but is being targeted based on sentiment.

For businesses

When we identify misuse of the flagging tool, we'll send the business a warning where we explain the problem and ask them to stop. If they continue the behaviour, we'll take further action such as restricting the flagging functionality on their account, placing a Consumer Warning on their Trustpilot profile page, and, if necessary, taking escalated action including terminating any contract they have with us (see the 'How do we stop misbehaviour and misuse' section below).

For reviewers

When we identify misuse of the flagging tool, we'll send the consumer a warning, explain the problem and ask them to stop. If they continue the behaviour, or the behaviour is particularly severe, we may block access to their account (see the 'How do we stop misbehaviour and misuse' section below).

We’ve created a trustworthy environment where customers and businesses can connect with confidence. Customers writing reviews and businesses replying to those reviews are key features of our platform. 

For businesses and reviewers

All content posted on Trustpilot must meet our guidelines. Reviews and replies that contain content which breaches our guidelines, such as hate speech or personal information, are not acceptable and will be removed. If any user - business or reviewer - repeatedly posts such content, we will issue them with a warning and ask them to stop. If the misuse continues, we will take further action, including blocking access to their account (see the 'How do we stop misbehaviour and misuse' section below).

Our trusted community’s use of our platform, including reviews of genuine experiences, provides valuable data to help consumers to make the right choices and businesses to build trust, grow and improve. 

We offer a variety of ways to utilise this data in a secure and trustworthy way. However, some businesses, consumers and third parties attempt to exploit our platform by copying, collecting and commercialising the data without our permission, known as “data scraping”. This can result in the data being manipulated and misrepresented - this undermines the integrity of our platform and threatens the reliability of the data, as well as being in breach of various laws (such as data protection laws and intellectual property laws). 

To protect the trustworthiness of our platform and data, and to safeguard our community, we don’t allow unauthorised data scraping.

Examples of unauthorised data scraping include:

• Use of automated tools (such as AI agents, bots, crawlers, spiders or scrapers) to access, collect or extract data from our platform. 

• Use of our data for commercial purposes or to train and develop artificial intelligence models. 

• Text mining, data mining or web scraping of our platform.

• Republishing, displaying or making scraped data available. 

Action we take against unauthorised data scraping

For everyone

Where we detect unauthorised data scraping, we’ll block their access to our platform and, where appropriate, commence legal proceedings.

We’re an open platform, meaning that anyone who has had a genuine experience with a business can write a review (if there are no existing reviews on Trustpilot for that business, the review will trigger the creation of a new profile for that business). However, this doesn’t mean that we’re prepared to host business profiles for any type of business. 

There are certain types of businesses that don’t belong on Trustpilot, or businesses for whom we need to provide additional contextual information to consumers. These are typically businesses that don’t align with our values or ethical standards. It also includes businesses that don’t align with our vision to empower consumers to make confident, informed buying decisions - for instance because they don’t offer products or services. We consider these types of businesses to be ineligible for Trustpilot.

Businesses that don’t align with our values or ethical standards
This may relate to the type of products or services that the business offers or is engaged in, or because the business appears to have been created with the purpose of deceiving users. Alternatively, it may be because the business operates in an industry or jurisdiction that we don’t want to (or are not legally permitted to) do business with. Trustpilot may consider a business to be ineligible even if the product or service offered is legal in the market in which the business operates. 

Examples of ineligible businesses that don’t align with our values or ethical standards include those which: 

• Offer or facilitate the sale of illegal products or services, including fake or unsafe goods.  

• Host, offer or produce any sexual abuse or explicit imagery, including any material that presents children or animals in a sexual or illegal manner. 

• Promote illegal animal fights or products made with endangered animal parts. 

• Promote criminal activities of any sort including those carried out online. 

• Promote financial scams such as pyramid schemes, credit card fraud, or scams involving cryptocurrency or mortgages. 

• Promote escort services, mail-order brides, prostitution or any form of forced labour or human trafficking. 

• Promote hatred, violence, terrorism, xenophobia or any form of discrimination against an individual or group. 

• Aid in the manipulation of news, reviews, documents and results. 

• Are engaged in an industry, practice  or jurisdiction that doesn’t align with our values and ethical standards, or businesses subject to sanctions regimes operated around the world.

• Use, or facilitate the use of artificial intelligence in a way that may cause harm to others, for example in any of the examples listed above.

Domains that don’t offer business services

A domain may be considered ineligible for Trustpilot if it does not offer a genuine, reviewable product or service to consumers. Trustpilot’s purpose is to help people make confident, informed purchasing decisions, and this requires businesses to provide a clear, transactional service that people can meaningfully review.

Domains that do not appear to offer a consumer-facing product or service - often referred to as non-transactional businesses - fall outside the scope of what Trustpilot supports.

Examples of non-transactional businesses include:

• Websites for political parties

• Platforms whose primary purpose is publishing content or sharing information, rather than providing a consumer service (e.g. blogspot-type websites)

If you become aware of an ineligible business on Trustpilot, we encourage you to report this to us by contacting our Content Integrity team via our whistleblower form. 

When we detect an ineligible business, we may close the profile for new reviews, and/or remove and block the business from our platform.

Businesses that have signed up to Trustpilot can display our brand on their websites and in their promotional material in accordance with their tier plan. 

You can read more about our brand in our Legal Brand Guidelines. In summary, our brand means our:

• Name and logos: Our primary logo, any other official logos, and the Trustpilot name.

• TrustScore and Star Rating: The TrustScore (the overall measurement of reviewer rating) and the visual Star Rating (from 1 to 5 stars).

• TrustBox widgets: Our official widgets that display reviews, TrustScore, and/or Star Rating on websites, apps, or marketing content.

• High-resolution marketing assets: Official and ready-made graphics, logos, and templates provided for promotional use.

These assets must be used in accordance with the business’s subscription, our Terms of Use for Businesses and our Legal Brand Guidelines. Examples of brand misuse include:

• Misleading consumers by displaying an old, or out of date, TrustScore or Star Rating 

• Displaying reviews or other Trustpilot Designs on a business’s website, in advertising or on another domain without our permission.

If a business displays the Trustpilot Designs in a misleading or deceptive way, we’ll take action to stop this, including sending educational emails, warnings and placing a Consumer Alert or Consumer Warning on the business’s Trustpilot profile. If appropriate, we may also take legal action. 

Businesses and reviewers can create profiles on Trustpilot. 

• A business profile page displays all reviews and relevant business information on Trustpilot. It’s where users can read and write reviews, learn more about a business and access additional information such as opening hours and contact details. All businesses are welcome to claim their profile and edit the profile description for everyone to see. 

• A reviewer profile on our platform displays a username, profile picture and all reviews posted by the profile owner.

Inappropriate use of Trustpilot business profiles
The majority of businesses use their profiles as an opportunity to provide relevant and useful information. However, some businesses use their profiles inappropriately, in an attempt to mislead or harm consumers, or otherwise violate our Terms of Use.

Examples of inappropriate use of business profiles include:

• Changing the business name or profile image in the profile in a way that doesn’t accurately reflect the business.

• Changing the business website links to direct consumers to a page other than their primary business site.

• Claiming or operating the business profile while being under 18 years of age.

Inappropriate use of Trustpilot reviewer profiles
While most users adhere to our guidelines, some reviewers misuse their profiles to undermine the integrity of our platform. This includes creating an account or contributing content when ineligible, attempts to impersonate other people, or including promotional or offensive content - like hate speech - in their profiles. 

Examples of inappropriate use of reviewer profiles include:

• Using another person's photo as the profile picture.

• Creating obscene or hateful profile pictures. This includes images featuring severe profanity, disturbing material, explicit adult content or hateful depictions.

• Using their profile picture or description to promote other companies or activities.

• Creating usernames which contain harmful, hateful or illegal terms, or which contain severe profanity.

• Creating multiple user profiles to post different reviews about the exact same experience.

• Creating or operating an account while under the age of 18.

For profile misuse (Businesses and Reviewers)
When we detect that profile information is misleading, offensive, or otherwise violates our guidelines, we will remove the problematic information. For reviewers who repeatedly or severely misuse their profile, we will also block their user accounts.

For underage users
As set out in our terms of use and our guidelines, Trustpilot users must be 18 years or over in order to use our platform. This applies to reviewers creating profiles, and to anyone wanting to claim a business profile on behalf of a business. When we detect underage profiles, we take action to notify the user, block the account and provide appropriate guidance about eligibility.

We're committed to keeping our community safe and respectful. Abuse, aggression, or threats made towards anyone – employees, reviewers, businesses, or other Trustpilot users – are never okay. 

Examples of abuse include:

• Reviewer threatening a business - "If you don't give me a free product, I'll keep writing more bad reviews until everyone knows how terrible you are".

• Business threatening a reviewer - "We won't give you your refund unless you take down your negative review from Trustpilot".

• Reviewer or business threatening a Trustpilot employee - "I'm going to find you and make you pay for this decision".

When we become aware of behaviour that is abusive or disrespectful, we’ll act quickly to prevent harm, and take further actions, as appropriate, to stop the behaviour being repeated in the future.

When we detect attempts by businesses to undermine the integrity of our platform, we’ll take action to correct it - such as removing reviews we’ve identified as fake. 

Wherever possible, we’ll work with the business to help them understand why their actions are not acceptable and how they should use our platform in the future. If the misuse continues, we’ll take further enforcement steps. Where the misuse is particularly bad, or if we believe there is a real risk to consumers or the integrity of our platform, we may go straight to any one of the enforcement steps below. We determine enforcement based on the severity, scale and potential risk to consumers and the integrity of the platform.

1. Educational email 
   We'll send an educational email explaining where the misuse took place and how to avoid doing it again, aiming to increase understanding and prevent unintentional misuse.

2. Warning 
   We’ll send a warning explaining the misuse we’ve detected and asking them to stop.

3. Cease-and-desist notice 
   We’ll send a cease-and-desist notice demanding the misuse stops. This is the final notice before we take more severe action.

4. Account restrictions
   Depending on the type of misuse, we may place restrictions on the business’s account including, for example, temporarily blocking the ability to flag reviews from their account and editing their business profile. 

5. Consumer Warning, TrustScore suspension and account downgrade 
   We’ll place a Consumer Warning on the business’s Trustpilot profile. This is a prominent notification explaining that the business has been misusing Trustpilot and includes a summary of what happened. While a Consumer Warning is active on a business’s Trustpilot profile, their TrustScore will be hidden from view.
   
   At this time, we’ll end any paid subscription with Trustpilot and downgrade any Trustpilot account to the minimum functionality - limiting the business to responding and flagging reviews that breach our guidelines. The business will no longer be able to use the other functionalities of their account, such as sending review invitations, displaying our brand or using TrustBoxes. The business is also restricted from changing their Trustpilot plan, including upgrading or renewing, during this time. 

   
   When we place a Consumer Warning on a business’s profile page, we also stop sharing any information about that business with certain third parties (e.g. search and answer engines) about that business. This means that we’ll stop sharing data like the TrustScore, star rating and other review data that search engines may display in their search results, or otherwise use to index and rank businesses in search.
   
   A Consumer Warning remains on a business’s Trustpilot profile for a fixed time - usually 6 months (but this can vary depending on the type of misuse) - and we’ll review it periodically to see if the business is continuing to misuse our platform. We don’t remove a Consumer Warning until all misuse has ceased, and a reasonable amount of time has passed to ensure that consumers are aware of any attempts to mislead users or otherwise misuse our platform.

6. Further action
   Depending on the severity of the misuse, and the risk to our community, we may also take further action to protect the integrity of our platform, part of which involves raising awareness, such as:

   • Legal action, including court proceedings

   • Sharing information with law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies or the media 

   • Sharing information with third parties 

In addition to the above, in certain circumstances, we will place a Consumer Alert on the business’s Trustpilot profile. We do this in situations where we think there is information that consumers should know about a business. This can include, for example, where a business is operating in a particularly high-risk industry, or has been subject to significant media attention, or where a business is being investigated by a regulator. It’s important to note that a Consumer Alert does not necessarily mean the business has engaged in misuse or wrongdoing.  We keep Consumer Alerts on a business’s profile page for as long as necessary to raise awareness and help consumers make informed decisions.

When we detect attempts by reviewers to undermine the integrity of and trust in our platform, we’ll take action to correct it - such as removing reviews we’ve identified as fake. 

Wherever possible, we’ll work with the reviewer to help them understand why their actions are not acceptable and how they should use our platform in the future. If the misuse continues, we’ll take further enforcement steps. Where the misuse is particularly bad, or if we believe there is a real risk to other consumers or the integrity of our platform, we may go straight to any one of the enforcement steps below. 

1. Educational email 
   We'll send an educational email explaining where the detected misuse took place and how to avoid doing it again, aiming to increase understanding and prevent unintentional misuse.

2. Warning 
   We’ll send a warning explaining the misuse we’ve detected and asking them to stop.

3. Blocking the account
   We’ll block their account and inform them of the reason.
   

If you believe we’ve made the wrong decision, you can contact us by following the steps outlined in the email we’ve sent you.

If you have trouble finding the dispute link or encounter technical issues, please contact us for assistance.

Please help us ensure a trustworthy environment for everyone. If you observe any activity that goes against our guidelines and policies, please contact us using our whistleblower form.