How to flag a Trustpilot review and make them prove it
Trustpilot is the one major platform where you can shift the burden of proof onto the reviewer. Flag a review as lacking a genuine experience and Trustpilot asks them for documentation. A fabricated review usually has nothing behind it.
How do you flag a review on Trustpilot?
From your Trustpilot business account, open the review and click Flag, then select the guideline it breaches and explain why. Where you flag that there was no genuine buying or service experience, Trustpilot asks the reviewer for documentation and removes the review if they cannot supply it within the deadline. Reviews must also concern an experience within the last 12 months.
Have these ready
- A Trustpilot business account with access to the reviews
- Your order, booking or support records for the period described
- The date the experience allegedly happened — the 12-month rule turns on it
- Trustpilot’s guidelines for reviewers, open alongside
- 1
Check the date first
Trustpilot expects a review to describe an experience within the previous twelve months. If the review describes something older, that is a ground on its own and the easiest one to evidence.
- 2
Search your records for the reviewer
Before flagging for no genuine experience, actually look. Search the display name, the email if visible, and the date range. If you find an order, this is not the right ground and flagging it anyway wastes your credibility.
- 3
Pick the guideline
Flag against one specific guideline. A flag that says "this is unfair" is closed without consideration.
- No genuine buying or service experience
- Experience older than 12 months
- About a different company or misattributed
- Contains personal data — a named employee, contact details, order numbers
- Harmful, defamatory or unlawful content
- Promotional, or posted in exchange for something
- Conflict of interest — a competitor or former employee
- 4
Write the flag properly
Two or three factual sentences. State the guideline, state the fact that breaches it, state the evidence you hold. No adjectives, no history of the dispute.
- Good: "No record of any order under this name or email between January and March. Flagging under no genuine experience."
- Bad: "This person is clearly a competitor trying to damage us and the claims are completely false."
- 5
Let the evidence window run
Where you flagged a missing experience, Trustpilot contacts the reviewer and asks them to prove it. Many simply do not reply, and the review comes down. Do not chase during this period.
- 6
Escalate once if declined
If the flag is rejected and you have something new, take it to Trustpilot’s content integrity team. If you have nothing new, stop — repeat flagging damages your standing with them.
- 7
Reply to the ones that stay
A reply is free, appears directly under the review, and is read by everyone who reads the review. On a genuine complaint it does more than removal ever would.
What goes wrong
- Flagging every negative review. Trustpilot tracks this and penalises businesses that mass-flag without grounds.
- Review gating — inviting only happy customers. It is a violation in itself and Trustpilot acts on it visibly.
- Flagging for no genuine experience without checking your own records first.
- Arguing the facts of the complaint in the flag. Trustpilot is not adjudicating who was right.
When this stops being a DIY job
If you have several reviews, or the evidence has to be reconstructed across systems, or a flag has been declined and you think it was wrong, the remaining work is documentation and escalation. We charge per review and only for the ones with grounds.
Trustpilot review removalQuestions
Terms used here
Last reviewed . Platform processes change; we re-check every guide quarterly.