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What if the platform that decides who to trust is the one that can’t be trusted? That question has followed Trustpilot for years, and it is getting louder.
Business owners on forums, LinkedIn and review sites describe the same experience: genuine reviews removed as “fake”, appeals ignored, and pressure to buy a subscription. In December 2025, a short-seller report accused Trustpilot of “mafia-style extortion”, and its shares crashed more than 30% in a day. In March 2026, Italy fined the company €4 million for misleading consumers. Trustpilot denies the allegations.
One Indian travel brand has now come forward with its own paper trail. Two years. More than 1,600 reviews gone. A public warning that cost it 30% of its bookings. And still no answer to the question it keeps asking: which reviews?
How the squeeze works
The brand’s experience followed a simple pattern.
- The good reviews go first. Happy customers left organic four- and five-star reviews. Those started disappearing, batch after batch, and the rating fell with them.
- The bad reviews stay. Not a single one-star or two-star review was touched. Negative reviews bring Trustpilot traffic and give businesses a reason to sign up.
- The pitch arrives. In August 2024, Trustpilot’s sales team told the brand its organic reviews went against guidelines. If it wanted positive reviews to show, it needed the paid plan and Trustpilot’s invitation system.
- The business pays. Faced with a falling rating, the brand bought the plan in September 2024.
From the business’s side, that is not a choice. It is pressure dressed up as a product.
Paying changed nothing
Within weeks of buying the plan, reviews collected through Trustpilot’s own tools started disappearing too. The removals kept coming through 2025, sometimes in bulk. The brand offered booking records and invoices for every review. Trustpilot said it does not accept documentation from businesses.
In total, the brand says more than 1,600 reviews have been removed. Many were removed even after Trustpilot’s team agreed they were genuine.
In 2026 the penalties got heavier. The paid plan was terminated on 8 May 2026. A public Consumer Warning went up, the TrustScore was hidden, and the brand’s TrustBoxes were removed. Trustpilot said the warning would stay through a six-month “cooling-off” period it could not shorten.
Trustpilot then claimed that 253 of 305 positive reviews in its audit, 82%, were fabricated. Its evidence was a list of phrases: “suspicious reviewer connections”, “suspicious reviewer behaviours”, “forensic signatures”. The brand asked for the review IDs, dates and links. It never got one.
Then Trustpilot’s team reached out to “solve” things. In October 2026 it offered a three-month trial. The warning became a softer Consumer Alert, and the brand sent invitations only through Trustpilot’s own automated system. Real customers replied. Trustpilot removed about half of those reviews, then all of them.
Same team, same promises, same pattern.
This is not one brand’s story
A short seller described the same model. On 4 December 2025, US firm Grizzly Research published a 26-page report and disclosed a short position in Trustpilot. It accused Trustpilot of creating profiles that attract negative reviews, then pressuring businesses to buy subscriptions. It said paying businesses saw scores jump from under 2 stars to over 4. Grizzly called it a “mafia-style extortion” scheme. Trustpilot rejected the report as selective and misleading.
A regulator fined Trustpilot. On 17 March 2026, Italy’s competition authority, the AGCM, fined Trustpilot €4 million for unfair commercial practices. It found Trustpilot did not properly tell consumers how paid subscriptions could influence the TrustScore, rankings and the “Verified” label. It also found misleading claims about how reviews are checked, and “dark pattern” design that hid which businesses paid. Trustpilot said it would appeal.
Other businesses say the same. A marketing lead at another brand wrote on LinkedIn that genuine reviews from real, verifiable customers kept being removed as “fake”, with no explanation despite offers of evidence. On the MoneySavingExpert forum, a business owner described free profiles being flooded with one-star reviews that can’t be challenged without a subscription. Small businesses on G2 describe the model as a trap.
One company’s dispute is easy to dismiss. A pattern is not.
Investors have noticed
Trust is Trustpilot’s entire product. When questions about that trust surface, the market reacts.
| Date | What happened | Share price reaction |
| 15 Sep 2026 | Half-year results showed a net loss, driven by $6m of one-off costs including the Italian antitrust fine | Fell as much as 20% |
| 23 Mar 2026 | Italy’s €4m fine announced | Fell as much as 2.7% early, then recovered |
| 4 Dec 2025 | Grizzly Research “extortion” report | Fell more than 30% to a near two-year low; about £200m wiped off its value |
The September fall was mainly about Trustpilot’s unchanged outlook, and the shares have recovered before. But each time the business model is questioned, investors are reminded what is at stake.
Who pays for the damage?
A Consumer Warning is not a small label. A traveller searching for the brand sees a red flag before a single real experience. They don’t see the emails or the missing evidence. They just book somewhere else.
For this brand, the damage has been real:
- Its Trustpilot rating has been pushed down to around 3.1 to 3.2
- A public warning has sat on its name for months
- Bookings have dropped by 30% since the warning went up
Now imagine what a 30% fall in bookings means in lost revenue for a travel business, month after month.
Trustpilot has not offered to compensate any of it. It has not even explained it.
What comes next
The brand is now preparing to sue Trustpilot for defamation. A public warning that tells customers a business faked its reviews is a serious accusation. Making it without showing a single piece of review-level evidence is something the brand believes a court should examine.
Until then, these questions remain open for Trustpilot’s leadership:
- If Trustpilot can count 253 “fabricated” reviews, why can’t it name even one to the business it accuses?
- Why were positive organic reviews removed while negative ones stayed untouched?
- Why were reviews removed even after Trustpilot’s own team agreed they were genuine?
- Why were reviews collected only through Trustpilot’s own automated system removed?
- How is a business meant to appeal a decision it is not allowed to see?
- How many other businesses are living under a warning they were never given evidence for?
If your business has been through something similar, the brand wants to hear from you at prmediamanager@gmail.com. The full correspondence is available to journalists, investors and regulators on request.