A Bad Rating Doesn't Mean the Review Qualifies for Removal

Can Businesses Remove Trustpilot Reviews?

Yes, but only in specific cases. Trustpilot removes reviews that violate its guidelines — not reviews that are simply negative, unfair, or damaging to a star rating. A genuine customer describing a genuine bad experience generally has the right to say so publicly, even if the business disputes how they characterized it.

Which Trustpilot Reviews Can Be Removed?

Trustpilot evaluates a flagged review against specific categories, regardless of how positive or negative it is. A review is a genuine candidate for removal if:

• It doesn't reflect a genuine transaction or interaction with your business — no purchase, no booking, no verifiable relationship at all.
• It comes from an undisclosed conflict of interest — a competitor, or a current or former employee posing as a customer.
• It contains hate speech, threats, or discriminatory language.
• It discloses another person's private information without consent.
• It's defamatory or makes an unsubstantiated criminal accusation that goes beyond describing a bad experience.
• It's spam, duplicated, or clearly about a different business.

For the full breakdown — including the misconceptions that waste the most time and how to build a flagging case that's actually likely to work — see the complete guide: Can Businesses Remove Trustpilot Reviews?

How to Report or Flag a Trustpilot Review

Reporting works best when the flag names a specific, checkable guideline violation rather than simply disagreeing with the review — "this reviewer has no matching order in our system" is actionable; "this review is unfair" is not. Trustpilot doesn't publish a fixed turnaround time for flagged content, and investigation for anything beyond an obvious violation (an identifiable competitor account, explicit hate speech) can take real time.

Can You Remove a Fake Trustpilot Review?

Yes, if it genuinely doesn't reflect a real transaction — that's a fundamentally different, and much stronger, claim than disputing how a genuine customer described their experience. Evidence that no matching order or account activity exists carries far more weight than a general assertion that a review "seems fake" because it's short or harsh.

What If Trustpilot Refuses to Remove the Review?

If the review doesn't violate Trustpilot's guidelines, removing it may not be an available option — that's the realistic outcome for most negative reviews, since being genuine and unflattering isn't a policy violation. In that situation, the focus shifts from deletion to the overall profile: a thoughtful public response to the review that stays up, and a larger base of genuine reviews so a single negative one carries proportionally less weight in the TrustScore average.