From April 2022, we’ll slightly delay the posting of reviews on Trustpilot so our automated fraud-detection software can better prevent fake reviews from making their way onto the platform.
Trustpilot is unique from other platforms in that we’re fully transparent and open to all. When consumers and businesses engage on our platform, they should feel confident that the feedback they see is genuine, coming from a real person with a real experience. That’s not to say that fake reviews won’t happen, but this change increases our ability to catch fakes before they go live.
Automated fraud-detection software
Our automated fraud-detection software has been developed, refined, and improved over many years and billions of data points. It’s really good. In fact, it was able to detect and remove more than 1.8 million fake reviews automatically in 2021.
These numbers are impressive, but the problem is, these reviews were detected after they were already posted on Trustpilot. The second a fake review makes it on our site, it compromises the trust of consumers and their faith in the platform.
A minor delay can have a major impact
That’s why we’re introducing a delay of up to two hours in posting reviews. Our automated software will proactively detect potentially fake reviews so we can catch them before anyone ever sees them. It’s like a spam filter—protecting users by catching offenders before they even hit the inbox. By proactively detecting fake reviews, we help increase the quality of reviews that make it to our site and improve the experience for our community.
What does this mean for you?
Unless you’re a bot, nothing. In all seriousness, so long as you haven’t fabricated anything in your review, it should be published within a couple of hours after our software has done its thing. You’ll receive an email notification once your review is posted. In the event our automated systems filter your review, you’ll receive an email notification and have the opportunity to challenge any incorrect decisions.