[boyband6666]

Companies that pay can flag negative reviews, when they get taken down, and to get it back up you have to provide all sorts of proof of your custom, and complaint. Companies can also then reply without you getting to add.

Much like amazon reviews they absolutely cannot be trusted to be a representation of the truth

[throw14082020]

Oh my word. It looks like they've also removed some negative reviews I posted about a company in the past...

This is a suitable problem to be solved by decentralised system.

[MaxBarraclough]

> This is a suitable problem to be solved by decentralised system.

That would also be open to abuse. It's difficult to stop dishonest PR firms (or anyone else) from flooding positive or negative comments.

[throw14082020]

I didn't think of that. That's true, a decentralised system would make reviews immutable (negative, or positive, fake or real reviews would still persist).

Does anyone have any ideas how to solve this?

[braveyellowtoad]

That depends, is there a requirement for the solution to be free?

If you are happy to pay for this, then there are a variety of options with a sliding cost/usefulness/accuracy scale.

If you are looking for reliable, accurate, balanced reviews conducted by anonymous ethical independent agents, and you don’t think consumers of that information should pay for it, then I believe the answer is there is no perfect solution that satisfies all those constraints simultaneously.

[boyband6666]

I can't say I'm surprised. The incentives are for them to provide a mostly trustworthy service, and certainly one that looks like it, but to monetise it there are compromises. Nothing overtly bad, but certainly... selective. I mean companies could also flag positive reviews they feel are fake, right? But it just so happens that they will likely flag negative ones - that isn't Trustpilot’s fault, right? Ultimately it means that any score is biased upwards.

Depressingly is also means the most shady companies that will abuse systems like this, will also seem to have a sparkling reputation - actually harming customers if they rely on these sites.