How Scammers Are Gaming Trustpilot’s Review System to Steal Your Money

Victor Ijomah
7 Min Read

The Big Picture: Investment scammers have found a powerful weapon in their arsenal — fake five-star reviews on Trustpilot. They’re using these bogus ratings to trick people into believing they’re dealing with legitimate companies, when in reality, they’re elaborate fraud operations designed to steal your money.

What’s Actually Happening

Imagine you’re looking for an investment company online. You check Trustpilot, see a 4.7-star rating with dozens of glowing reviews, and think you’ve found a trustworthy business. But here’s the catch — those reviews might be completely fake, posted by the scammers themselves.

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A recent investigation by KwikChex, a company that verifies businesses, uncovered a sophisticated scam network operating on Trustpilot. These aren’t just random fraudsters posting a few fake reviews. They’re running coordinated campaigns that include:

  • Review farms that post glowing feedback for multiple connected scam companies
  • Forged business certificates that look official but are completely fabricated
  • Cloned websites that copy legitimate businesses to appear credible
  • Fake law firms claiming they can recover lost money, despite having no legal authority

Real Examples That Should Worry You

Let’s look at some actual cases uncovered in the investigation:

Crypto-Benefits247: The Classic Bait and Switch

This company had a stellar 4.7-star rating on Trustpilot. Their strategy? Let victims make small, successful withdrawals at first to build trust. Once someone invested serious money — like one victim who lost over £65,000 — they suddenly invented fees for “certificates,” “upgrades,” and mysterious “activation keys.”

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After being exposed, their rating plummeted to 2.8 stars when Trustpilot removed the fake reviews.

Oakvests Crypto: Identity Theft at Its Worst

These scammers literally stole another company’s identity, using a video of the real Oakvest company’s CEO on their fake website. They maintained a 4.5-star rating until caught. The real company’s finance director, David Wells, only found out about the impersonation when KwikChex alerted them.

Quantum Recovery Law Group: The Fake Law Firm

Perhaps most disturbing, this group pretended to be lawyers who could help recover money lost to scams. They had 82 reviews and a 4.1-star rating, but the Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed they weren’t registered lawyers at all. They were scammers pretending to help scam victims — a particularly cruel twist.

How These Scams Actually Work

The scammers have turned fake reviews into a business model. Here’s their playbook:

  1. Create a professional-looking website using stolen content from real companies
  2. Deploy networks of fake reviewers who post coordinated positive reviews
  3. Attack competitors with negative reviews to make themselves look better
  4. Use virtual office addresses to appear legitimate without having a real location
  5. Forge official documents like incorporation certificates and regulatory approvals

Chris Emmins from KwikChex put it bluntly: “These scammers see Trustpilot as a vital part of their playbook.”

What Trustpilot Is Doing About It

Trustpilot isn’t sitting idle. They’re using artificial intelligence to detect fake reviews and removed 7.4% of all reviews submitted in 2024 (up from 6.1% the previous year). When presented with KwikChex’s findings, they:

  • Launched deeper investigations into the flagged companies
  • Removed fraudulent reviews, causing dramatic rating drops
  • Added consumer alerts to suspicious company profiles
  • Sent legal cease and desist letters to violators
  • In some cases, completely removed company pages

However, critics argue this isn’t enough. KwikChex wants Trustpilot to drop their “find a company you can trust” slogan and stop using “verified” labels, arguing the system is too easily exploited.

How to Protect Yourself

Red Flags to Watch For:

  • Too-good-to-be-true ratings with suspiciously similar positive reviews
  • Virtual office addresses instead of real business locations
  • Pressure to invest quickly before you can do proper research
  • Requests for fees to access your own money (certificates, upgrades, activation keys)
  • Companies claiming to be regulated without appearing on official regulatory lists

Before You Invest:

  1. Cross-check regulatory claims — If a company says they’re regulated, verify this directly with the regulatory body (like the FCA or SRA in the UK)
  2. Look for patterns in reviews — Multiple five-star reviews posted around the same time with similar language are suspicious
  3. Research the company beyond Trustpilot — Check multiple sources and look for news articles or warnings
  4. Start small if you must — But remember, scammers often allow small withdrawals initially to build trust
  5. If someone offers to recover lost money — Be extra cautious, as this is often a secondary scam targeting previous victims

The Bigger Picture

This isn’t just about a few bad actors gaming the system. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has made hosting or commissioning fake reviews illegal, but policing the massive online marketplace remains challenging.

The proliferation of fake reviews undermines every legitimate business that works hard to earn genuine customer trust. As Emmins notes: “The successful use of fake reviews undermines every legitimate business that works to earn a genuine reputation.”

What This Means for You

Trust online reviews, but verify everything independently. A five-star rating on Trustpilot — or any review platform — should be just one factor in your decision-making process, never the only one. When it comes to investments, especially in cryptocurrency or forex trading, extra caution can save you from devastating losses.

Remember: Scammers are counting on you to trust those stars. Don’t give them that power. Your money and financial future depend on looking beyond the ratings and doing proper due diligence.

Bottom Line: If you’re considering any online investment, treat five-star reviews with healthy skepticism. Verify every claim independently, check regulatory databases, and remember — if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

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Hey there! I'm Victor Ijomah, a tech enthusiast with a knack for making the complex world of technology fun and easy to understand.
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