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(Sharecast News) - Trustpilot hit back on Friday after a report by short seller Grizzly Bear a day earlier sent shares in the review site tumbling.
Grizzly Bear said in the report that it was short the stock and that it had uncovered "mafia-style" extortion campaigns against non-paying businesses.
Shares in the company tanked on the back of the report, as Grizzly Research said it had found that Trustpilot creates unsolicited review profiles for all kinds of businesses "with the intention to attract hyper-negative reviews and force these businesses into paying subscription deals to 'more actively manage' the reviews".
"Paid-for profiles see their review score magically lift from under 2 of 5 stars to over 4 of 5 stars. Industry experts call this scheme the 'Trustpilot Mafia'," it said.
Grizzly said reviewers find their genuine negative reviews "spuriously challenged" or removed for companies that pay Trustpilot. On the other hand, it found countless obviously fake positive reviews and reviewers for paying companies.
"Trustpilot is either doing a very bad job at policing their website or is wilfully negligent when convenient," it said.
Responding to the allegations on Friday, Trustpilot said it categorically rejects the claims made by Grizzly Research.
"Their report contains factual inaccuracies and false claims, which were intended to adversely impact the company's share price," it said, adding that it had not been contacted for comment.
Trustpilot said the report was built on "a basic misunderstanding" of the company's business model, ignoring publicly available information about the group's scale, policies, data, and enforcement, and making a series of "demonstrably false" accusations.
The company said it was false of Grizzly to claim that it creates unsolicited review profiles to sell subscriptions.
"Over 97% of businesses on the platform do not pay for a subscription," it said. "Consumers and businesses create profiles for free. 70% of reviews on free profiles are 5 stars."
It also insisted that all businesses - whether free or paid - must comply with the same guidelines and are held to the same moderation principles.
The company said Grizzly was wrong to suggest that Trustpilot has traded the integrity of reviews for revenue.
"We have circa 200 people focused on ensuring trust and integrity across our platform and have removed 6.7m reviews from the platform so far this year," it said. "We have successfully brought lawsuits against bad actor businesses and review sellers."