Don’t Buy Trustpilot’s Paid Plan Before Reading This: Challenges Faced by a Paying Business
TL;DR
- Trustpilot encouraged Thrillophilia to move to its paid review collection system.
- Positive reviews later began disappearing in large numbers.
- More than 500 reviews were removed within 15 days, impacting ratings and reputation.
- Repeated requests for review IDs, evidence, and explanations went unanswered, according to the company.
- The issue raises broader questions about transparency and accountability in automated review moderation.
Trustpilot is one of the world’s largest online review platforms, used by millions of consumers and companies to collect customer feedback, evaluate businesses and make purchasing decisions. It currently has over 330 million reviews.
However, over the years, a growing number of businesses have raised concerns about Trustpilot’s review moderation practices, including the removal of genuine reviews, limited transparency around moderation decisions, and increasing pressure to adopt paid subscription plans.
Independent reports, consumer complaints, and business forums have documented similar experiences, suggesting that it operates on a pay-to-play basis, raising questions about how review platforms balance fraud prevention with fairness and accountability.
Unknown of these malpractices, and like countless businesses that rely on customer feedback to build trust, Thrillophilia reviews also represent genuine traveller experiences and the trust our travellers place in us. Over the years, thousands of travellers have shared authentic feedback about their journeys.
We maintained a Trustpilot rating of approximately 4.2 while collecting reviews directly from customers. As part of our normal customer feedback process, we encouraged travellers to share reviews after completing their bookings, a practice followed by thousands of businesses worldwide, and Thrillophilia facilitated the process accordingly.
However, even after collecting reviews for 2 years and receiving personal feedback, when we observed that our average rating had gradually dropped to 3.6, we decided to enquire into the matter.
How Trustpilot Sells Paid Plans to Bring Reviews and Ratings
We were seeing our ratings constantly dropping, even after the hard work that we had put in for review collection. So, we reached out to Trustpilot for the answers.
Upon our initial inquiry, we were informed that reviews collected outside Trustpilot’s official invitation mechanisms faced greater challenges in automated verification. Around the same time, Trustpilot’s sales team approached us with a proposal to upgrade to a paid subscription.
Trustpilot’s reputation, combined with our confidence in the authenticity of our traveller reviews and the ongoing discussions with the platform, we decided to proceed with the upgrade.
Little did we know that we were only being trapped in an extortion racket that would lead to reduced ratings and reviews over time. At the time of payment, the promises from Trustpilot’s team talked about better brand visibility and rating growth that only lasted for a short while before we saw our reviews being tanked.
It started in August 2024. Thrillophilia subscribed to Trustpilot’s paid Plus plan at an annual cost of approximately £3,108.
As per the written communication provided during the sales process, it was made clear that genuine reviews collected correctly and in compliance with platform guidelines would not be removed. Thus, we trusted their instructions, and as per the expectations, every invitation was sent to customers with verified booking references and PNR numbers.
It even transitioned entirely to Trustpilot’s Automatic Feedback Service (AFS) and still saw the reviews being removed. It was then that we raised a gentle reminder, expecting a genuine answer.
Even though Thrillophilia’s rating recovered to approximately 4.1, the period also saw frequent review removals and rating fluctuations, but we did not know that this issue would eventually affect the company’s credibility on a public platform. This was precisely what we were paying for, and seeing it compromised came as a harsh blow.
Even then, back in 2024 and again in 2025, our team continuously raised multiple tickets with Trustpilot to address these concerns, but continued to receive templatised automated responses without any human intervention in the process.
Amidst the emails from our side and review removals, the rating somehow sustained at 4.1. Here is a screenshot taken on 19th August 2025, where the positive verified reviews made up 65% of the 5000+ reviews.
Screenshot Date — 19th August 2025
Mass Review Removals, Declining Ratings, and Lack of Transparency
As the second year of the subscription approached, positive reviews started getting removed at an alarming rate, often without prior notice or any clear explanation.
Here are some examples of positive, verified reviews that were removed despite Trustpilot mentioning in its previous emails that verified reviews will not be removed:
Here is an example of a verified review of a customer who also left feedback on our official website, which was also taken down from Trustpilot. We have thousands of such reviews where the customer left feedback on our official website, and yet the review was removed without any explanation:
Meanwhile, we renewed our second year’s subscription with Trustpilot on 13th September, 2025, in hopes that review removals will stop once we subscribe to the paid plan and continue getting verified reviews.
Shortly after, on 12th October, 2025, we started receiving warning notices from Trustpilot stating that a percentage of our reviews had been flagged as “fake” and therefore in violation of their platform guidelines.
Between 1 and 15 Oct 2025 alone, the review count dropped from 5,186 to 4,644, which was a reduction of more than 500 reviews in just two weeks. This, in turn, resulted in a sharp decline in Thrillophilia’s average rating on Trustpilot from 4.1 to 3.6, for which no review-level management or justification was provided, despite our continued requests.
In the same month, to support the authenticity of our reviews, we submitted records for over 2,000 verified customer bookings, including booking references, PNR numbers, and customer details.
However, we were informed that reviewer verification could only be conducted directly with individual reviewers, leaving us unable to understand which reviews were being questioned or how to address the concerns raised.
This rendered us helpless in presenting counter-evidence on behalf of genuine customer experiences.
In order to justify that reviews were verified, we kept on reaching out to Trustpilot, but every effort was in vain as there was no response from their team.
We were still doing multiple follow-ups (10–15 times) with different Trustpilot teams, including the Content Integrity team, account managers, and senior management representatives. Yet no clear explanation was provided on the basis for these flags, even though the reviews were sourced through authentic traveller data.
All our efforts to get in touch with Trustpilot were in vain, as we were helpless in justifying ourselves even when we were right.
When we finally received a response from Trustpilot’s account manager, Petra Kukuckova, on December 30, 2025, instead of outlining which guidelines they had seemed to breach, they were simply told that they were non-compliant and asked to redirect their concerns to the Content Integrity team yet again.
Despite our emails, justifications and verified data, the next couple of months, Trustpilot reduced Thrillophilia’s average rating from approximately 3.6 to 3.1, which is the current rating of Thrillophilia on Trustpilot.
Trustpilot informed us that review removals or reinstatements were controlled by automated systems, limiting further intervention.
On 6th May 2026, Trustpilot issued a warning citing alleged platform misuse due to fake reviews, restricting Thrillophilia’s account features, including review invitations, TrustBoxes, and brand benefits, despite the company offering proof of review authenticity.
Two Years of Requests Without Any Reviews of IDs
Over a period spanning approximately 610 days, Thrillophilia repeatedly requested basic information from Trustpilot regarding the reviews being removed, including review IDs, removal dates, and the specific policy provisions allegedly breached. None of which was provided or addressed.
We reached out yet again in hopes of getting a response, but what we received was an automated response from the customer support team:
When Trustpilot’s Audit Numbers Raised Concerns
Finally, on 10 June 2026, nearly 20 months after we first raised concerns, Trustpilot shared a numerical summary of its review audit covering September 2025 to May 2026.
- 451 reviews were assessed
- 305 reviews were marked as positive
- 253 reviews were removed for alleged fabrication
- An 82% fabrication rate was reported for the positive reviews assessed
- No review IDs or review-level evidence were shared
Trustpilot said its assessment was based on three factors: suspicious reviewer connections, suspicious reviewer behaviour, and account and content pattern analysis. However, no specific examples or detailed explanations were provided.
At the same time, our public profile still showed 4,789 total reviews, with about 80% being 4- and 5-star ratings, reflecting largely positive customer feedback. Despite this, the TrustScore remained hidden behind a consumer warning.
The gap between the audit findings, the visible review data, and the drop in TrustScore raised questions on Trustpilot’s process that remain unanswered.
Similar Concerns Raised Across Businesses and Independent Reports
For platforms such as Trustpilot, these systems help ensure fairness amongst businesses and identify potentially fraudulent feedback.
However, while essential for protecting consumers and ensuring feedback authenticity, they are not flawless and can sometimes misclassify genuine reviews as suspicious.
Thrillophilia was not alone in facing this issue with Trustpilot’s automated moderation system. Similar concerns around unclear moderation processes and restricted transparency have been highlighted by others as well. In December 2024, investment research firm Grizzly Research published a report titled The Trustpilot Mafia, alleging that Trustpilot’s commercial model creates incentives that can work against the very businesses the platform claims to serve.
Among its findings, the report alleged that businesses frequently experience declining ratings, unexplained review removals, and increasing pressure to subscribe to paid plans to maintain visibility and reputation on the platform.
The Telegraph newspaper in the UK published an investigation in December 2025 into Trustpilot’s practices. The report documented complaints from multiple businesses that described the same basic experience: reviews removed without specific explanation, followed by commercial pressure to upgrade or maintain a paid subscription, with no clear independent path to contest the platform’s decisions.
Adding to that, A verified complaint submitted to the Better Business Bureau in 2026 described an experience almost identical to Thrillophilia’s. The business reported that Trustpilot refused to manually review evidence they had submitted, citing their automated systems as final. They also reported being locked out of their paid Pro dashboard. The complaint was independently verified by the BBB.
Here are some major complaints on the BBB platform related to Truspilot’s malpractices.
Not just the platforms, even Reddit has a r/trustpilotcomplaints community where there are genuine complaints about Trustpilot’s malpractices and how they extort money from other companies as well:
This community clearly says that Trustpilot exploits businesses, sells their paid plans and starts a loop from which they can’t escape. This raises an important industry question:
How can fraud prevention be balanced with transparency, fairness, and due process when genuine customer feedback is challenged?
Why is a genuine customer feedback and review hinged on payments? And what is the solution when a company’s trust is challenged?
The Answers We Are Still Waiting For…
For us, this issue was never merely about invoices, verification processes, or the removal of individual reviews. It questions our hard work, the trust we built over the years, the efforts we put in and the attempts we made to reach out to Trustpilot.
It concerns the authenticity and trust Thrillophilia has built through thousands of genuine traveller experiences.
When we were genuine, followed every practice carefully, did not breach the guidelines and collected reviews exactly how Trustpilot wanted us to, even then, we are facing such grave issues.
With this, it’s clear that when verified customer voices are excluded without clear explanations, something is not right with the inside processes.
We are only asking Trustpilot to provide the evidence underlying its decisions and conduct an independent review of the actions taken against our profile.
For the last few months, all we were asking for is a transparent and accountable process that allows businesses to effectively challenge moderation decisions, particularly when those decisions have a direct impact on how customers perceive the credibility, reputation, and trustworthiness of the company.
For us, every review represents a real journey and a relationship built on trust. Preserving those voices is not just important to the company but fundamental to the trust their travellers place in them.
We want Trustpilot to provide proper evidence regarding this matter and address the issues we experienced throughout the period during which we paid for Trustpilot’s services.
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