Purplebricks rebuts allegations of "playing the game" with Trustpilot reviews

Property portal giant, Purplebricks, rebuts all claims that it has manipulated Trustpilot reviews to a larger positive feedback from reviewers. 

It has also denied that it invites customers to post their reviews at too early a stage of transactions. Its comments come after publication Wired ran a highly critical story under the headline: “Are Purplebricks’ glowing Trustpilot reviews too good to be true?”

The sub-headline says an investigation has “found evidence” that Purplebricks “selectively screens” reviews. The article says that of 69,000 reviews on Trustpilot, 89% are as positive as they could be.

“[They] achieve the top rung of Trustpilot’s five-point rating system: excellent.”

There are 7% ‘great’ reviews, 1% ‘average’, 1% poor, and 3% ‘bad’ says the article. The article compares Purplebricks’ reviews on Trustpilot with those it receives elsewhere, including on allAgents.

Wired says it asked KwikChex, a website it describes as tackling “online distortion”, to investigate, and says it found evidence that Purplebricks is mostly likely “gaming the system”.

KwikChex Director Chris Emmins said: “That doesn’t necessarily mean that thousands of fake reviews are being published, but there are ways to game or manipulate the system to achieve very strong results.”

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