Fake reviews and fraud policy

What counts as review fraud

Fake reviews

Any review not based on the writer’s genuine experience of the business — positive or negative. That includes reviews written by the business, its owners, staff, their friends or family, and reviews written about a competitor.

Hidden incentives

A review given in exchange for payment, a discount, a gift, a free product, a prize-draw entry or a refund, where that is not stated in the review. Disclosed incentives are allowed; hidden ones are not.

Buying, selling or swapping reviews

Paying for reviews, selling them, trading them in review-exchange groups, or using any service that writes or posts reviews for you.

Fake accounts and coordinated campaigns

One person using several accounts, networks of accounts posting together, and organised efforts to push a rating up or pull it down.

Selective invitations

Only inviting customers you expect to be happy, or screening customers first and inviting only those who respond well. Every eligible customer must receive the same invitation.

Pressure and extortion

A business pressuring someone to change or remove a review, or offering something to do so — and a customer threatening a negative review unless they get a refund or other benefit.

Misusing reviews and ratings

Presenting Vouch Rate reviews or ratings misleadingly elsewhere — edited, selectively chosen to hide criticism, out of date but shown as current, or with badges and widgets that were never earned.

Getting around our checks

Deliberately avoiding or probing our fraud detection, for example by disguising devices or networks to hide who wrote a review.

A negative review is not fraud because a business disagrees with it. Honest criticism stays up — see what we never remove.

How we find it

• Checking reviews against real orders and bookings, so a verified review is tied to a genuine dealing.
• Scoring every new review for signs it may not be genuine, before it is published.
• Device and network checks when people sign up, sign in and write reviews, which show when several accounts belong to one person — described in our privacy policy.
• Looking for near-identical wording, and for sudden bursts of reviews far above a business’s normal pattern.
• Reports from readers, reviewers and businesses — including the form below.
• Investigation by trained moderators. Automated checks only raise a question; a person makes every decision.

We do not publish exactly how each check works, because doing so would help people get around it. We do publish what we find: every removal is counted in our quarterly reports.

Suspicion is not a finding

Real customers sometimes look unusual. A review our checks are unsure about is held for a moderator, or labelled “Under review” while one looks at it. We never label a review “fake” publicly, and we never act against a person or a business on an automated score alone.

What happens to the reviews

A review we find to be fake, or to hide an incentive, is removed from the profile and from the rating, which is recalculated straight away. Genuine reviews on the same profile — including negative ones — are never removed as part of dealing with fraud.

What happens to reviewers

• The review is removed and the reviewer is told why.
• We check the account’s other reviews.
• Deliberate or repeated fraud — fake accounts, paid reviews, coordinated campaigns — leads to a ban.
• A reviewer can appeal, and a different moderator decides the appeal.

What happens to businesses

When we find that a business was responsible for fake reviews, hidden incentives, selective invitations or pressure on reviewers, the reviews involved are removed and we apply sanctions in proportion to what happened:

1. 1. Warning

   For a first, limited breach. We explain in writing what we found, what we removed and what must change.

2. 2. Public notice on the profile

   For a serious or repeated breach. A notice on the business’s profile tells readers that we removed reviews after finding manipulation. It stays for 90 days as standard, and longer in the most serious cases.

3. 3. Tools suspended

   For continued or large-scale manipulation. Review invitations, campaigns, widgets and API access are switched off. The profile stays public and customers can still review the business.

4. 4. Further action

   Where the law may have been broken, we may end our contract with the business under our terms, and report what we found to the Competition and Markets Authority or Trading Standards.

A business can go straight to a later step when the evidence is strong and the harm is serious. Whatever the step, we tell the business what we found and give it a chance to respond. We never hide a profile, remove genuine reviews or suppress criticism as a sanction — doing so would only mislead the customers the sanction is meant to protect.

Challenging a decision

Reviewers appeal through the appeals process. A business that receives a warning, notice or suspension can reply to our email within 14 days with anything it wants us to consider; a moderator who took no part in the original decision reviews it. We record every decision, and the reasons for it.

Report suspected manipulation

Offered something for a review? Asked to change or remove one? Seen someone selling reviews, or a business writing its own? Tell us. To report one particular review, use the Report link on the review itself instead.

Keeping this policy honest

We publish the number of reviews removed for fraud or manipulation every quarter, review how well our checks are working at least once a year, and date every change to this page.