Trustpilot is the only site which combines all consumer reviews on the internet with media reports and certifications in one easy-to-access format to deliver an objective, balanced view of a company to a customer. Our company is entirely consumer driven: consumers will find different opinions from different people, which together help them to answer one vital question, should I buy from this company or not?

For consumers, Trustpilot aims to help internet shopping become easier, safer, and more quality driven and transparent. There are many thousands of reviews written online each day: Trustpilot gathers these to steer consumers away from the bad and into the arms of the good.

For companies, Trustpilot offers a useful marketing and differentiation tool. It helps to shift the focus from price to that of quality and service, giving companies an opportunity to stand out from their competitors.

For the e-commerce community, Trustpilot aims to promote safer, more reliable internet shopping so that companies and consumers can continue to enjoy the many opportunities available online.

Trustpilot is a free and easy way to avoid being ripped off when you shop online. Search results are given a check mark in green or red. Green means the site has a high rating and many positive reviews, red is a sign to stay away — the site has mostly negative reviews and lots of user complaints. Trustpilot gives its ratings based on reviews and media stories it collects from the web. At the present time, it has over 1 million reviews and stories. The download is quick and free and is unobtrusive. All you see is a green check mark on your browser info bar (next to the home icon on IE7). Google searches will show the check marks next to sites Trustpilot has info on, and if you visit an E-tail site directly you can use the check mark to see what the Trustpilot rating is. It’s a quick and easy way to find out if a site is safe to buy from or not.

Every day Trustpilot receives thousands of new reviews. As the number of reviews grows, the accuracy rises. Please be aware that Trustpilot cannot give a representative view of sites with few reviews.

Due to the time interval in the scanning, small variations can occur. If you notice any large discrepancies, please email info@trustpilot.co.uk and we will look into it.

The aggregated collection of information on a specific company or website is called the TrustScore. This tells potential customers what all other consumers think about the company that you are considering purchasing from, helping you shop safely on the Internet.

Trustpilot creates an aggregated index number that represents the average of all the ratings and reviews that Trustpilot has been able to identify and collect. This results in a very simple and understandable number, on a scale of 0 to 10. The higher the score, the more happy consumers are about the company being rated.

All other consumer reviews on the internet are scanned, along with reviews from our own site. Trustpilot is able to show you the sources of the reviews that it uses. This TrustScore is combined with other sources. We check company records for certifications and accreditations, such as the Advertising Standards Authority. We alert the consumer to media stories involving the company that have been highlighted by our researchers.

Trustpilot uses advanced technology to scan the internet for relevant information such as reviews, media articles and certifications. Our users provide reviews and alert others to media articles featuring a particular company.

A company cannot pay to improve its Trustscore or to remove negative consumer reviews. Trustpilot provides an objective, impartial view on each company. However, responsible companies can post immediate responses to negative reviews on Trustpilot.

The best thing that a company can do to improve its TrustScore is to take responsibility for its customer service from the start, and to take care to resolve complaints and disputes as they occur.

All star ratings are given the same weight, regardless of further comments. However, reviews will be of greater use to future customers, as well as the company, if they provide as much detail as possible.

Reviews on our site are given the same weighting as reviews on other sites. However, we believe the ability to leave a review is a valuable service to our customers as it allows you to have an input into the site. It also ensures that as many companies as possible are covered by our reviews.

Due to a time interval between scanning and display of the reviews, there may be a slight discrepancy between the two numbers.

The only way that a company can deal with a bad review is to deal with the complaint directly with the customer themselves. If they are able to resolve the issue, they can politely request that the customer amend their review and star rating. Most reviewers are happy to do this.

The most effective way of minimising the damage of a negative review, is to make sure that all customers are asked to review. If a company has mostly satisfied customers, negative reviews should be in the minority, and this will be reflected accordingly in the Trustscore. The most effective way of doing this is to sign up to the Trustpilot partner package.

If you do receive a bad review, you can post a response which will appear immediately, directly under the review in question. This gives you an opportunity to display your good customer service in action. You might want to invite the reviewer to contact you as soon as possible, or if you have been unable to resolve the issue and you feel that the review is unfair, to represent your side of the story. This allows your potential customers to access a balanced view of the issue in question.

Dealing with reviews which violate review guidelines: You can report reviews which violate our review guidelines by clicking on 'report abuse' under the review in question. This will then be investigated by our support team.

Dealing with suspected fraudulent reviews: The security features of the partner package if utilised correctly, should provide complete protection from review fraud. If however, you suspect that a review is fraudulent (not from a genuine customer), you are advised to post a response requesting that the reviewer contact you within 3 days, as well as clicking on 'report abuse' next to the review in question. Remember to provide a full explanation of why you believe the review is fraudulent. The support team will then contact the reviewer, and contact you to resolve the issue.

There are a number of barriers we set in place to make sure that our service is trustworthy and secure.

One of the major challenges is to exclude false reviews from company employees. The use of a greater number of sources of reviews means that our software is more likely to detect “fake” reviews from company employees: often characterized by short comments, and users generating one good review posted with one bad review of the rival company. These reviews are given less weight in the calculation of the TrustScore than other reviews. Trustpilot also will be alerted if an identical review is being posted on more than one site.

All other sites have their filters to reduce the number of abusive or untrue claims, which are reflected in the material that Trustpilot collects from them.

Of course, the TrustScore is not a guarantee, and a consumer should still be responsible, objective and critical of all written reviews. Nonetheless, Trustpilot takes a larger sample of reviews than any other review site, so the margin of error in the Trustscore is minimised as much as possible.

Primarily, Trustpilot collects personal information to ensure validity of reviews and for use in statistics, ensuring at all times that it is completely anonymous. You are not obliged to use you real or full name, and your e-mail-address will never be passed on to a third party for advertising or other purposes.

Trustpilot cannot give a complete guarantee of a satisfactory experience with a particular company. We offer the opportunity to access the greatest amount of information about a company before a purchase so that an informed choice can be made, based on the entire picture of the company. In this way, one of our main goals is to ensure a better experience for the maximum number of consumers.