It was a fight! Last week, FinTelegram News was contacted by the Trustpilot Content Integrity Team which informed us that our review on WorldMarkets (www.worldmarkets.com) had been removed. WaMeng Ltd as the alleged operator of WorldMarkets had complained about alleged defamation by the review. The review had only factually pointed out that regulators warn against the WorldMarkets scheme. After discussions with Trustpilot our scam-warning review is back online.
Reputation Management Tool for Scammers
In the ensuing WorldMarkets discussion with Trustpilot, We have expressed our dismay that it is so easy for scammers to have critical reviews removed. Of course, the scammers complain about negative reviews. Maintaining a fabricated reputable image via Trustpilot is part of their activities to defraud people. This makes it all the more important, we argue, that rating and review platforms also publish these “official” warnings. In the case of WorldMarkets, at least four regulators have issued and/or published warnings against the scheme
- New Zealand FMA – https://www.fma.govt.nz/news-and-resources/warnings-and-alerts/world-markets/
- Italian CONSOB – http://www.consob.it/web/consob-and-its-activities/warnings?viewId=ultime_com_tutela
- UK FCA – https://www.fca.org.uk/news/warnings/world-markets
- Swiss FINMA – https://www.finma.ch/en/finma-public/warning-list/world-markets
Zero-scam-tolerance paradigm
In our view, Trustpilot would have to implement a proper KYC procedure that prevents scammers, as paying customers, from abusing the platform to gain the trust of consumers and investors. Trustpilot for sure has a responsibility in this respect. It is not acceptable that Trustpilot receives income from scammers and then protects them by removing objectively justified and/or “official” warnings.
In addition, Trustpilot should implement some sort of “Emergency Review” or “Emergency Rating” feature that allows registered Trustpilot reviewers to enter scam alerts that will be treated with the highest priority by the Trustpilot team.
In order not to deceive the trust of the visitors of Trustpilot, the platform should work with a “zero-scam-tolerance” paradigm.
Whether Trustpilot implements our recommendations remains to be seen. The fact is that our “Scam Warning Review” was put back online after we submitted the links to the various warnings.
Preliminary conclusion
Consumers and investors should not blindly trust the ratings and reviews on Trustpilot. We know from insiders that the scammers’ boiler rooms produce the reviews and ratings directly via fake IDs or motivate customers with rewards for positive ratings and reviews.
