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Developer sent ‘cease and desist’ letter by Trustpilot over five-star reviews
Ballymore has been sent a ’cease and desist’ letter and had a warning put on its Trustpilot page, after an investigation by the reviews platform determined that the luxury developer’s staff had posted five-star reviews about a flagship project.
Three reviews of the City Island scheme in east London from Ballymore’s page were removed after Trustpilot identified that they had been posted by the developer’s own staff.
On Wednesday, Ballymore leaseholders identified and flagged to Trustpilot the five-star posts, which appeared to be posted by senior staff at the company.
In one post from 2 December, the poster said that City Island gave “a perfect sense of escapism” and had “fantastic facilities”.
Another post last week, said he “didn’t understand all the negative reviews” and City Island was “superb”.
A final post said the reviewer “absolutely loved living at City Island”. In response, Ballymore replied: “Thanks, we appreciate the feedback.”
All posts, which have now been removed, were submitted in the names of senior members of the firm. Ballymore did not deny the allegations but said the staff members were genuine residents who live or have previously lived at the development and that the posts have been removed.
The £2.2bn City Island development is situated near the Royal Docks in east London and is one of Ballymore’s largest developments. The first phase opened to residents last year, with phase two currently under construction.
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Trustpilot said it had identified and removed two additional reviews it said were posted by Ballymore staff members.
After the investigation, Trustpilot wrote what it described as a “cease and desist” letter to Ballymore, warning it about its alleged actions. It has also put a warning on Ballymore’s Trustpilot page that says it is investigating the company and the reviews on the page.
According to Trustpilot policy, a formal cease and desist letter is the second stage of action carried out against companies when pages have been misused. It comes after a company is automatically warned electronically if suspicious reviews or behaviour is identified on the site. Trustpilot said that allowing staff members to write reviews is a conflict of interest and not allowed on the site.
Ballymore said in a statement that the staff members making the reviews were genuine residents and added: “While we are in an active communication with Trustpilot, as an employer, we have a duty of care to our staff and their well-being – regardless if they are a resident or not – and with this in mind, we felt it was appropriate to remove the reviews as each staff member has been experiencing personal harassment.”
Trustpilot is one of the world’s biggest reviewing platforms and allows customers across many industries to review and comment on the performance of companies. More than 111 million reviews are posted on the site worldwide.
The removal of the five-star posts has resulted in Ballymore’s overall Trustpilot score falling from 2.3 stars to 1.8 stars. Of the 75 reviews made on Trustpilot, eight are five-star, while 59 are one-star. Of the eight five-star reviews, four of these have been reviews invited by Ballymore in the last month.
The five-star posts come against a backdrop of a series of complaints by Ballymore leaseholders levelled at the company across its London developments.
In recent months, there have been several issues with water systems in some of its developments.
Inside Housing has seen evidence of burst pipes and flooding at Ballymore’s New Providence Wharf development in Poplar and its new Wardian development in Canary Wharf.
Responding to these issues, a spokesperson for Ballymore said the New Providence Wharf leak came from an individual flat and the issue was fixed within a couple of hours. It said that it closed the supply of water quickly at the Wardian development and remedial works were completed in a week. It said that it also offered residents accommodation at a hotel nearby.
Trustpilot's full statement on Ballymore reviews
“Protecting and promoting trust in online reviews is core to what we do at Trustpilot. We use a combination of technology and content integrity experts to uphold the integrity of the platform and what people read.
“We also allow consumers and businesses to flag reviews to us for free should they believe they breach our guidelines. These flagged reviews are then fully investigated by our team. We can confirm that a number of reviews were found to be written by staff members of the business.
“Allowing employees to write reviews about their own business is a conflict of interest and is not allowed on Trustpilot. We have issued a formal written warning to them. There is also a public consumer alert which has been placed on the company's profile page advising consumers of the investigation in progress.”
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