Bogus ratings, weird sites and a feeling of inactivity.
When reviewing some sites, you can see obvious bogus ratings and ratings from other sites which aren't explained or anything. This gives a very unprofessional feeling about the site. Combining this with the lack of users that write more than 1 review, it doesn't make me feel like this is a site I'd recommend to other people. On the other hand, the site has a pretty good looking but simple layout.
Reply from Trustpilot
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for your feedback and the kind words about our website design. Let me try to explain how things work.
If companies already have reviews from other review sites they may be included on the company's profile page. The idea is that if a company already had a lot of customer feedback elsewhere, it tells something about the company's reputation. We link back to the source to make it easy for consumers to make a better decisions on whether a company is worth buying from or not.
Most of the users with one review, will have a "verified buyer" badge attached. That means that the company has invited them to write a review using email invitations send out from Trustpilot. In that case, their customer database communicates with our system, so we know that these people are real customers. However, most of these people are only asked to write a review on a specific company, so that's why their review count usually ends up at 1.
Hope it helps.
Joakim Ditlev
Trustpilot