As of December 2025, Trustpilot claims to have 361 million active reviews, where 100% of the submitted reviews were checked by automated systems. In simpler terms, while Trustpilot claims its vision to be a universal symbol of trust, it is not a passive noticeboard where customers can just leave their reviews.
It is an algorithmic, commercially motivated system that decides how customer reviews are collected and displayed, and even how they can be challenged and removed. Trustpilot has reported that in 2024, more than 61 million reviews were collected by the platform, and in the same year, Trustpilot had to remove 4.5 million reviews detected as fake, which makes up 7.4% of the reviews of that year points out how deeply biased the opinions collected by the platform can be.
In its 2024 annual report, TrustPliot reported $210.7 million in revenue and annual recurring revenue of $230.9 million. This points out to a severe conflict of interest. The paid review invitation system also directly impacts how different companies are presented to and judged by customers on the platform. While a $99 plan allows 100 review invitations per month, an enterprise pricing plan can offer unlimited review invitations. The increased presence gained by spending more money on these plans eventually misleads potential customers into associating more reviews and better ratings with better products/services.
The question regarding Trustpilot’s neutrality is not just theoretical. In 2026, the Italian Competition Authority fined Trustpilot €4 million, stating that Trustpilot allowed businesses to select which customers received invitation reviews. Furthermore, there is a clear disparity between the tools available to paid and free accounts when it comes to flag/ dispute reviews. All of these factors directly manipulate how businesses are viewed on the platform by potential customers, where brand image and trust might be based on subscription plans rather than genuine consumer experience.
The Squeaky Wheel Problem — Psychology of Who Reviews
One of the biggest shortcomings of review platforms is that they attract customers with extreme emotions much more than they attract regular customers. This is more important because customers tend to react more with negative emotions than happy or satisfied ones, which is the biggest driver of poor ratings in review platforms, rather than real experiences with the customers.
According to Zendesk research, 95% of customers who had a bad experience with a business shared it with other potential customers compared to 87% in cases of customers with good experiences. The same study also found that bad customer experiences had a 50% more chance of being shared on social media platforms than good experiences. Another survey has found that unhappy customers are 10 times more likely to write a review without ever being asked than satisfied customers.
With large numbers of reviews being written every day, the small percentage differences become huge in numbers and often give the idea to potential customers that the industry might be failing to offer proper products and services to the customers.
The psychology of reviewers and the negativity bias of people as a whole can have a strong effect and show their impacts in big review platforms such as Trustpilot. This is much more emphasized because the pain of losing something or losing in a deal is taken to be twice as powerful as the satisfaction gained from winning something. So, a faulty product, a lost refund, or even a failed transaction motivates customers much more to write negative reviews than a good transaction would have on them.
The banks and the travel agencies fall victim to this much more than the other industries. This is because in these two industries, most of the interactions are small and minimal enough to be rarely mentioned and often don’t inspire a review from satisfied customers. But a delayed transaction, a frozen account, or a delayed flight can easily enrage customers and motivate them to drop image-harming reviews for the brand on Trustpilot.
Many businesses take help from reputation specialists like TheSMMExpert to manage their brand reputation due to negative bias scews.
Why Banks Specifically Rate So Poorly
Banks perform surprisingly poorly on Trustpilot, and there are two major reasons behind it. One is real-life genuine service failures, and the second one is poor or neglectful profile management.
When it comes to the banking sector, the complaints often feature major issues because they involve sensitive factors such as money, identity, fraud, hidden fees, etc. According to JD Power, unexpected fees have been the number one cause of U.S. retail bank dissatisfaction for years. A 2024 study found that 13% bank customers were likely to switch institutions within 12 months. This reiterates the fact that the low ratings of the banking industry are not without merit.
Traditional banks don’t manage their profiles
A major cause behind the poor ratings of banks is that legacy banks often treat Trustpilot as irrelevant. According to Cambridge EPRG research, the top half of the claimed domains on Trustpilot have an approximate trust score of 7.9 out of 10.
Among this Amongst these banks, 75% subscribe to Trustpilot, while 83% collect reviews and respond to customer reviews. On the other hand, the other half of the banks averaged a TrustScore of 1.5 out of 10, with zero subscriptions, review corrections, or responses to customer reviews.
This clearly sheds light on the poor ratings of banks. While the banks keep ignoring their profiles and responding to customer complaints, the related profiles slowly fill up with bad reviews from angry customers.
For banks and other financial institutions sitting on neglected profiles, having genuine positive feedback matters to improvee their Trustpilot ratings as a part of their reputation management effort.
The neobank comparison
Neobanks are very different from legacy banks as they were born in the era of neobee platforms. Currently, Atom Bank has a rating of 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot with a total review count of about 19.5k. Similarly, Oaknorth has a 4.8-star rating with about 19.6k reviews.
On the other hand, Wells Fargo has a trust score of only 1.4 out of 5. The situation is similar for the HSBC regional profiles, which all have low ratings, such as HSBC Hong Kong, which has a rating of 1.6 out of 5.
According to YouGov’s 2025 bank report, new banks account for five of the seven highest satisfaction scores, where Revolut stands at 60% net satisfaction, and Navy Federal Credit Union and USAA at 70%.
High-stakes complaints create high-intensity reviews. Banking failures devastated people both emotionally and financially, as the stakes are often personal and financial, such as fraud denials, frozen accounts, hidden fees, failed transfers, or unexplained closures.
According to Federal Reserve consumer complaint data in 2024, 66.2% of customers cited violations involving regulation issues such as blocked accounts, fraud, or error resolution, etc. According to Caliber Financial Services’ Reputation Research, 50% of customers associate traditional banking with negative experiences.
Why Travel Agencies Have It Even Worse
A) The Middleman in a Crisis Problem
Online travel agencies often bear the brunt of customers’ ire because they act as middlemen between customers and suppliers. When a customer’s long-awaited flight is canceled, the customer doesn’t immediately blame the airline but thinks about the online travel agency and how it should refund them.
This train of thought disregards the fact that the airline or the supplier might be controlling the rules or criteria for refund or the cancellation process. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, consumers are entitled to refunds if the airline cancels the flights or makes any significant changes. But it also adds that if the ticket was bought through an online travel agency, the burden of refund can depend on who the “merchant of record” is.
This creates an irritating loop with the customer in the middle, where the airline tells them to contact the agency, and the agency says that they are waiting for the airline, leaving a customer who is left there with no money, no holiday, and where the only option to show their anger is the review page of the travel agency.
Volume Math Creates Statistical Certainty of Complaints
The bigger the platform is, the more a travel agency will incur complaints, regardless of how small the percentage of their complaints may be. For example, in 2024, Booking Holdings reported 1.1 billion room nights. $165.6 billion in gross bookings and $23.7 billion in revenue. Even if an OTA had a stellar 99% success rate, one percent failure on 1.1 billion rooms would result in 11 million potential unsatisfactory experiences.
Furthermore, if we consider flights, rentals, refunds, and all other countless problems that can originate from the whole experience, the number of potential complaints and bad reviews grows exponentially. And while most of the happy customers tend to just disappear, unsatisfied customers are much, much more likely to go on to the travel agency’s page to drop scathing reviews and ratings.
The COVID Scar
The COVID pandemic alone left a long-term reputational scar on the OTAs. According to the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK, it received approximately 23,000 complaints from customers related to terminated contracts on package travel, all due to the pandemic.
It also reported complaints about refund denials, misleading information, offering vouchers instead of cash refunds, or delayed refunds. The whole experience during the pandemic harmed the reputation of the OTAs as a whole, even if in many situations, the bottlenecks were the actual suppliers and not the OTAs.
The Subscription Trap (eDreams Case Study)
While some travel agency ratings may be due to statistical bias or negativity bias, some are actually results of bad conduct. In 2026, eDreams was fined €9 million by the Italian Competition Authority due to unfair practices involving its Prime subscription.
The agency was claimed to use misleading information and artificial scarcity to steer consumers into Prime subscription and keep them subscribed, sometimes even unknowingly. The users were then expected to pay exorbitantly high fees. Furthermore, Euroconsumers stated that complaints across Europe clearly showed that the issue was systematic and not just a fluke.
This goes to show that while travel agencies are structurally more prone to be exposed to angry reviewers, not all of them are due to bias; some of them have actual, concrete evidence or customer experiences backing them.
What the Cambridge Research Shows
According to Cambridge Judge Business School EPRG Working Paper 2025 findings, Trustpilot ratings are not only affected by genuine customer experiences, but also by platform management by said businesses.
The research paper studied Trustpilot profiles across four different UK sectors, such as supermarkets, banking, mobile phones, and retail energy, and found clear patterns indicating that companies that had claimed profiles, subscribed to Trustpilot plans, invited reviews, and engaged with customer feedback generally had a higher Trustscore compared to unclaimed or inactive profiles.
The findings are backed by clear data. As of April 2019, the top half bank profiles claimed on Trustpilot had a trust score of 7.9 out of 10, while the bottom half had a mean trust score of only 3.1 out of 10.
Furthermore, six unclaimed profiles had an average trust score of 1.5 out of 10. The same patterns emerged when looking at telecoms as well. This clearly goes to show that while businesses can have very similar customer service, they can have very different ratings on review platforms such as Trustpilot.
Why Some Companies in These Sectors Rate Well — And What It Tells Us
While many banks and online travel agencies fail to maintain a perfect rating or managed profile on review platforms, there are exceptions as well that tell a different story. Trailfinder, for example, has a 5-star rating on Trustpilot with a review count exceeding 66,000.
It operates in 47 different travel centers and is staffed by experienced consultants who offer their services seven days a week. Why this matters is that Trailfinder sells a human-assisted complex travel experience and not just anonymous ticket processing. This is why many of their reviews mention their staff by name while sharing genuine experiences.
Similarly, Atom Bank holds a 4.8 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot and has a review count exceeding 20,000. In its profile, it asks its customers to share their genuine experiences regardless of whether they are positive or negative. OakNorth also shows a rating of 5 stars on its Trustpilot profile with a review count of approximately 19,600. Many of their reviews mention the customer’s satisfaction with their easy websites, a smooth account setup, and good communication.
All of these companies have three common traits. Firstly, they actively manage their Trustpilot profile instead of ignoring it and letting negative reviews pile up. Secondly, their business model is much less likely to create adversarial moments as there are no hidden fees or refund runarounds or unexplained account blockings. And finally, they offer personal human-assisted services where customers receive genuine help from specialists, resulting in a better customer experience and an influx of good reviews.
The Verdict — 6 Reasons Banks and Travel Agencies Rate Poorly
Angry customers review; happy ones don’t
There is probably nothing that more represents a negatively biased customer than an angry customer. A Zendesk survey has found that 95% of customers share their bad experiences on platforms compared to 87% who share good ones. This makes review platforms such as Trustpilot and Automatic hubs for negativity.
Most traditional banks and OTAs don’t manage their profiles
A big reason behind the poor ratings of traditional banks and online travel agencies is their lack of care for their Trustpilot profiles, where Cambridge EPRG found unclaimed banks to have an average rating of 1.5/10, with 0% claiming, subscribing, collecting reviews, or responding.
Business models create inherent adversarial moments (hidden fees, fraud disputes, refund runarounds)
The business model of banks has built-in conflict moments that arise through hidden fees, fraud disputes, blocked bank accounts, etc. According to JD Power, 13% of U.S. bank customers are likely to switch institutions within the next 12 months, while 29% cite that it is because of too many or too high fees.
High-stakes industries = high-emotion reviews
Banks and online travel agencies both operate in high-stakes industries. Losing access to your account when you need it the most, or having your holiday plans come crashing down with no refund being offered anytime soon, creates extreme emotions where the only path left for the customers to vent their emotions is sometimes the review platforms.
Trustpilot’s paid model advantages, active users
Trustpilot’s paid subscriptions offer significantly more advantages to its premium subscribers compared to free users. While two companies might be providing the exact same service and quality, their number of reviews and the ability to invite reviews at opportune moments can create vast gaps between the ratings and review counts of two different businesses.
COVID left a permanent scar on the travel industry
During the pandemic, the UK CMA received over 23,000 package travel fund-related complaints after March 2020. While it has been a long time, the negative reviews and ratings from that period still have an effect on the businesses in the travel industry.
What Should Consumers Do With This?
While Trustpilot gives consumers access to a considerable number of reviews or genuine customer experiences, Trustpilot ratings should at most be treated as directional signals and not final verdicts. Trustpilot itself says that a TrustScore is not just a simple average and depends on various factors, such as review volume, review recency, and a weighting system where Trustpilot starts a profile with seven reviews at 3.5 stars.
Just because a business has a 1.2-star rating does not mean that all of its customers had bad experiences; it might just mean that those who were unsatisfied were motivated enough to find the business’s profile to give a scathing review and rating. Similarly, a 4.8-star rating does not prove that a company is flawless. It might just mean that they are flawlessly inviting reviews only from customers who have had good experiences with them.
The best method in this situation is to look for patterns and not just star ratings. Customers should look for the complaints that repeat and identify any structural issues. Is every other customer mentioning a refund delay?
Are there constant mentions of hidden fees? Or are these just isolated incidents? Before making a critical judgment on any business, customers should cross-check on different platforms, such as Google reviews, BBB, and other niche platforms, before making a final decision. As for travel agencies, do not only focus on the reviews or negative reviews on the business, but also check to see how the business responds to those negative reviews publicly, and whether they are professional in the manner in which they approach the customers.
Do they show empathy? And do they generally take responsibility where they are clearly at fault? All of it matters.
FAQ
- Why do banks get 1 star on Trustpilot?
Customers dissatisfied with frozen accounts, poor support, and hidden fees become furious and write those reviews, whereas happy customers rarely leave reviews.
- Is Trustpilot reliable for judging banks and travel agencies?
Partially. Since most of the Trustpilot reviews for banks and travel agencies are negative, these reviews dominate because satisfied customers rarely leave reviews.
- Why do neobanks rate better than traditional banks on Trustpilot?
Neobanks invite reviews after the service to ensure a proper review experience for the customers. Traditional banks do not care about online reviews.
- Which travel agencies rate well on Trustpilot?
Travel agencies such as Trailfinders, TUI, Kuoni, and Hays Travel receive 4+ stars regularly for quality service, transparent pricing, and better customer support.
- Can Trustpilot scores be trusted at all?
You can trust them partially. However, read those reviews for information only and get actual data from someone who has already taken their services.
