Trustpilot accused of running ‘mafia-style extortion racket’ as company's stocks plummet
Online customer review platform Trustpilot has been accused of running a “mafia-style extortion campaign” against businesses in a bid to force them to sign up for its services.
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Shares in the company plummeted on Thursday after it was accused of using “illegal tactics” to force businesses to join the platform.
Trustpilot has strongly denied the allegations, branding them “selective, misleading and framed to support a predetermined narrative.”
According to Grizzly Research, the Danish brand makes accounts for companies that do not subscribe for its services but will only let them respond to negative reviews if they pay.
“We believe Trustpilot has created a platform to attract bad reviews and customers must pay to dilute the bad reviews. This created a review system that only seems to express who pays Trustpilot,” Grizzly Research said.
It described this as “mafia-style extortion campaigns against non-paying businesses”.
The New York-based research company claims to have built its report after interviewing Trustpilot customers, former employees and other industry experts.
“We and many experts we consulted believe Trustpilot is ... actively using illegal tactics to manipulate review scores,” it added.
Disputing the allegations, Trustpilot said the report “omits key context and publicly available facts, creating a false impression and exhibits a lack of understanding of how Trustpilot works. Trust is our guiding principle and is central to everything we do.”
Despite this defence, Trustpilot’s stocks still plummeted by 32 per cent on Thursday, the biggest single-day decline in the company’s history, slashing more than £200m from its market value.
At least 1.4million companies use Trustpilot and many proudly display their positive reviews on their web pages.
The Telegraph has confirmed Grizzly Research had a short position on Trustpilot stocks, meaning it stands to benefit from the company’s downfall.