Properties on booking.com now showing External reviews

Ive noticed new properties on booking have reviews from External sources. EG, a new property to booking.com may not have 3 reviews so thererfore booking.com haven't got the average review score yet, so now booking.com use external reviews.

Problem is now our and other properties on booking.com are pushed back to last pages in 'Review score and Price ' search option because these new properties use External reviews. I asked our booking.com account manager where these external reviews come from, and she couldn't answer. All she said is the external reviews come from a 'Trusted OTA'.

These new properties have 2 reviews on booking.com at 8.0 score, but have 20+ reviews from OTA with 10/10 review scores, which then bumps these properties up in the search option.

Ive checked all OTA and these other properties aren't listed there. Is this another Trivago scam where booking.com move these properties up who pay more commissions?

It just seems extremely suss that these properties are able to get 20+ reviews from Trusted OTAS for 10/10 score but unable to get more then 2 booking.com reviews at 8.0/10..