I posted a very negative but completely honest and fair review of a UK leisure balloon flight (non)provider on Trustpilot. The review was there for possibly over a year. Then I was contacted and informed that the company had reported my review, claiming I was not a genuine customer. Trustpilot has removed (i.e. censored) my review. I have been required to provide evidence of my custom and my experiences. I suspect the company reporting my review imagined that, after such a long time, I wouldn't have kept any proof of my experiences. They were wrong. I have provided lots of evidence and am now waiting to see if Trustpilot will reinstate my review. What concerns me is that Trustpilot claims "No company can delete or otherwise censor reviews." However, companies are apparently subverting that, with the collusion of Trustpilot. After the email requiring me to prove that I was indeed a genuine customer, I checked out the Trustpilot review page for the company in question. Lo & behold, the company - which elsewhere has a shocking reputation for customer dissatisfaction, on account of charging a lot of money for balloon flights that it never provides - has a five-star rating on Trustpilot. Not a negative review among 'em! It is not unreasonable to conclude that the reason there are no negative reviews is because the company is de facto 'deleting' or censoring them, via misuse of Trustpilot's bias reporting system, which apparently favours paying clients. Trustpilot works as a User Generated Content product, selling the idea that the public are helping one another to make informed choices by sharing their consumer experiences via reviews they provide, free of charge, to Trustpilot. At the same time, Trustpilot sells those reviews to companies to improve those companies' reputations. Consumers naively imagine they are reading fair, impartial reviews, being allowed to see the whole picture, and therefore being enabled to make informed decisions. When Trustpilot colludes with its paying clients - businesses - to misrepresent those companies to the public by presenting an unbalanced picture, then it is actually disempowering and misleading consumers. And that ain't trustworthy.