Shady Tactics? Chillblast makes their Trustpilot Score worthless

Chillblast tried soliciting Trustpilot reviews using a PC giveaway, and that’s kinda shady

Earlier today we found out about a PC giveaway from Chillblast and CCL Computers, and it had an unusual request for those who enter. Chillblast were using this giveaway to solicit reviews for their website on Trustpilot. In fact, leaving a review would net giveaway participants more entries than all other entry methods combined.

Thankfully, Chillblast have since come to their senses and have removed this entry condition from their competition. To say the least, that felt a little shady. After all, this contest was likely to result in tonnes of illegitimate Trustpilot reviews. After all, leaving a review gave giveaway participants a tonne of entries. While Chillblast did not ask for positive reviews, you can bet that a lot of competition entrants would have left 5 star review ratings without a second thought. Its easy to see the influx of reviews just from today, it did make us laugh that somepeople did actually use the review to state it was from a competition though so Chillblast cant even hide away from this one.

(They want a Trustpilot review for competition entries? Strange)

Can you trust Chillblast’s Trustpilot reviews anymore?

Looking at Chillblast’s Trustpilot page, we can see that the company has received a huge number of positive reviews since their competition went live. These reviews will inflate Chillblast’s Trustpilot rating, and this leaves us with a simple question. How many of these new reviews are real, and how many are fake?

What are Chillblast’s older Trustpilot review scores like? If we set our eyes to Chillblast’s pre-competition reviews, we can see that the company has had a lot of negative reviews lately. If we search specifically for 1-star reviews, we can see reviews that were posted on April 10th, April 8th, April 7th, April 4th, April 3rd, and April 2nd. That’s not a good look.

While Chillblast has removed Trustpilot review requests from their PC giveaway, the damage has been done. Their Trustpilot page is now filled with reviews that cannot be trusted.

A strange time for Chillblast and CCL Computers

Chillblast and CCL Computers are both under the ownership of “Chillblast Ltd”, a newly formed entity that was incorporated in February 2024. In fact, what was CCL Computers Limited entered administration last week, with “Chillblast Ltd” becoming the new owners of the assets and branding of CCL Computers, Chillblast, and Tactus Group.

Previously, CCL Computers, Chillblast, and Box were all owned by the same parent company. As many UK PC enthusiasts will know, Box closed down at the start of this year.

Tactus Limited claims that they were financially damaged by their acquisition of Box Ltd in 2022. Currently, there is an ongoing legal battle between Tactus and five of Box’s former directors over this issue. Currently, it is unknown to us what Box’s directors allegedly did. That said, their alleged acts seems to have resulted in major financial issues that have lead to the closure of Box and broader problems within the Tactus Group. These financial issues have been addressed thanks to the formation of “Chillblast Ltd” and new funding. More information about this is available here.

(Can we trust Chillblast’s Trustpilot reviews anymore?)

Want to play Chillblast at their own Trustpilot game?

Were Chillblast attempting to use their Vault Gaming PC Giveaway to boost their Trustpilot score? Who knows. All that we know is that the competition has resulted in a huge number of positive reviews. These reviews conveniently cover up recent list of negative reviews for the site. Honestly, this is not a good tactic to be engaging in. We feel that Chillblast knows this given their removal of this entry mechanism for their competition.

Can we trust their Trustpilot rating anymore?

You can join the discussion on Chillblast soliciting reviews using a PC giveaway on the OC3D Forums.

Update – Comments from Chillblast

Chillblast released a statement on their “error in judgement”, taking ownership of the error and action that will remove any “incorrect reviews” from Trustpilot.

We are glad that Chillblast are being open and honest about this mistake. It is also great to see that they are working with Trustpilot to remove any false reviews.

Below is the company’s full statement.

In our recent competition to “Win a Chillblast Vault PC”, an unfortunate error in judgement was made by a member of our marketing team that resulted in a “Trust Pilot Review” entry mechanic being added to the competition. This was quickly removed once noticed by senior management before this article was published.

Our customers have had to wait slightly longer than they would usually due to our restructure and new ownership, which has led to some customers leaving negative reviews. Our colleague in marketing made a decision, in isolation, to try and reverse this trend by adding this entry mechanic to the competition. We completely acknowledge that this was not the right decision. We have built our reputation on trust and brilliant products over the last 23 years and to make any knowing attempt to falsify reviews goes against the core values of our business.

We are currently in consultation with Trustpilot and hope to have this cleared up extremely quickly, with any incorrect reviews incentivised by the competition removed.