What reviews can and cannot say

What reviews can say

Vendably Trust is a platform for genuine buyer feedback. We take a permissive approach to content that reflects a real purchase experience, even when that feedback is negative or strongly worded.

A review may include any of the following:

• The reviewer's genuine experience based on a real purchase, including positive, neutral, or negative assessments
• Criticism, including strong criticism, of the product, service, delivery, customer support, or the merchant as a business
• Factual comparison to other merchants or products, provided the comparison is the reviewer's honest opinion and not a fabrication
• Photos of the product received, its packaging, or its condition on arrival
• Mention of price, shipping cost, or delivery time as part of the purchase experience
• The reviewer's own opinion on whether they would buy from the merchant again
• Names of individual staff members when praising or describing a service interaction; this is a legitimate part of a buyer's experience

A negative review is not a policy violation. A review that criticises a merchant's pricing, questions their quality, or recommends against a purchase is permitted content, provided it is an honest account of the reviewer's experience.

What reviews cannot contain

The categories below are grounds for removal. Each is applied consistently across every review on the platform, regardless of the reviewer's identity, the merchant's standing, or the review's rating.

Defamation

A review may not contain false statements of fact presented as truth, where those statements would harm the reputation of a person or business. The relevant threshold is the legal standard for defamation in the reviewer's jurisdiction.

Genuine opinion, even strongly negative opinion, is not defamation. Stating that a product broke after one use is opinion and experience. Stating that a merchant deliberately sells counterfeit goods, when that is not true, is a false statement of fact.

Threats and incitement

A review may not contain physical threats against any person, threats of violence, or content that incites others to harass or harm a specific individual or group. This applies regardless of whether the threat is directed at the merchant, their staff, or a third party.

Illegal content

A review may not contain admissions of illegal activity, solicitation of illegal activity, or content that is itself unlawful in the reviewer's jurisdiction or in the United Kingdom.

Personal data (PII)

A review may not include the names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, payment details, or government identification numbers of anyone other than the reviewer themselves. Reviewers may include their own name; they may not include another person's identifying information without that person's explicit consent.

PII found in a review is flagged automatically and the review is held pending manual removal of the sensitive content or rejection of the review entirely.

Spam

A review may not be promotional content, content unrelated to the purchase, a link dump, or a repetition of content already submitted by the same reviewer for the same merchant. Reviews that exist solely to promote a competing product or service are spam under this definition.

Hate speech and discrimination

A review may not contain content targeting a protected characteristic, including race, religion, nationality, sexuality, gender identity, disability, or age. This applies whether the content targets the merchant, their staff, or any other person.

Sexual content

A review may not contain explicit sexual content in any form. Reviews of adult products are permitted; descriptions of sexual acts are not. The distinction is between reviewing a product category and producing sexual content within a review.

Gratuitous profanity

Mild expressions of frustration in context are generally acceptable. Gratuitous or repeated strong profanity is not. Auto-moderation handles profanity-tier reviews; all such decisions are appealable.

Off-topic content

A review must be about the merchant or the product purchased from that merchant. Content that has no connection to the purchase experience, including general personal commentary, political statements, or reviews of a different business, is off-topic and will be removed.

Conflict of interest

A review may not be submitted by the merchant themselves, an employee of the merchant, a direct competitor, or any person with an undisclosed financial relationship to the merchant. Reviews submitted under a conflict of interest are treated as fake reviews (see below) and are subject to account action.

Fake reviews

A review of a purchase that did not happen, or a review containing a fabricated experience, is a fake review. Verified purchase reviews are protected against this category by the invitation token mechanism: a reviewer cannot hold a valid token without being the recipient of a signed purchase invitation. Open submissions are subject to additional fraud checks for this reason.

Manipulated content

Any review produced by a paid review-editing service, a coordinated campaign, a review-swap arrangement between buyers, or AI-generated text presented as a genuine reviewer's own experience is manipulated content. Detection of coordinated manipulation triggers immediate account suspension without warning.

Copyright infringement

A review may not reproduce substantial portions of copyrighted text (including product descriptions, marketing copy, or third-party articles) without a licence to do so. Brief quotations for the purpose of comment or comparison are generally acceptable; wholesale reproduction is not.

Misleading product or service claims

A review may not assert as fact that a product does something it demonstrably does not do, particularly where the claim could mislead other shoppers into purchasing on false grounds. This applies even where the reviewer genuinely believes the claim. Examples include health claims not supported by the product's specification, or capability claims contradicted by the product's documentation.

How we moderate

Every submitted review passes through an automated moderation pipeline before it is published. See our methodology page for the full pipeline diagram and detail.

The following categories are auto-flagged and held pending manual review before any publishing decision is made: PII, hate speech, threats, illegal content, and defamation. Reviews in these categories are never auto-published, even if the overall toxicity score is low.

Profanity-tier reviews are handled differently: auto-moderation applies a threshold and may either auto-publish (low profanity), hold for review (borderline), or auto-reject (severe). Auto-moderation decisions on profanity are appealable by the reviewer.

Auto-moderation applies the same thresholds to every review. No merchant can request that the thresholds be relaxed for their profile, and no commercial relationship with Vendably affects how the pipeline is configured.

How long moderation takes

The following service level agreements apply from the point a review is flagged or enters the manual review queue:

Reviewers are notified by email within 24 hours of any removal action taken on their review. Merchants are notified within 24 hours of the outcome of a dispute they raised.

Appealing a moderation decision

Reviewer appeals

If your review is removed, you will receive an email with a link to the appeal form. You may submit additional context or evidence to support your case. Appeals must be submitted within 30 days of the removal notification.

Your appeal will be reviewed by a member of the Vendably moderation team who was not involved in the original decision. The review team considers the same content policy set out on this page, applied to any new evidence you have provided.

Merchant appeals

Merchants cannot appeal a review simply because they dislike its content or rating. A merchant's recourse is to flag a review under one of the categories described in the prohibited content section above. The moderation team applies the policy to the flagged review independently.

A merchant dispute that is resolved in favour of the review (the review stays up) cannot be re-raised on the same review for the same reason. The dispute mechanism exists to apply the content policy, not to give merchants repeated opportunities to challenge reviews they disagree with.

Final decisions

Decisions on appeal are final. There is no further internal escalation path. Reviewers who believe a removal was unlawful have the right to seek independent legal advice.

Our removal policy

The following parties may request removal of a review:

• The reviewer themselves: at any time, for any reason. Reviewers own their content and may withdraw it without explanation.
• A subject of the review whose personal data appears without consent: any individual whose PII is included in a review without their agreement may request removal of that PII. This is a right under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
• A court order or legitimate legal process: Vendably will comply with valid orders from courts of competent jurisdiction.
• Vendably moderators: applying the content policy rules set out above, applied uniformly and without commercial influence.

No other party may successfully request removal. A merchant on any plan, regardless of their commercial value to Vendably, has no right to remove a review that complies with this policy.

Removal is recorded

Every review removal on Vendably Trust is logged with the following information:

• The reason for removal (mapped to one of the categories in this policy)
• The identity of the moderator who actioned the decision (internal staff ID)
• The timestamp of the decision
• A snapshot of the review content at the time of removal

This log is not publicly visible, but it is the authoritative record used in appeals and is available on subject-access request by the reviewer under UK GDPR.

Quarterly statistics

Vendably publishes aggregate moderation statistics on a quarterly basis. These statistics include the total number of reviews removed, broken down by policy category, and the outcomes of appeals (upheld, overturned, withdrawn). Individual review details are not included in aggregate statistics.

Subject access requests

A reviewer may request a copy of the moderation log entry relating to their own review under UK GDPR Article 15 (right of access). Subject access requests should be directed to Vendably's Data Protection contact. Vendably will respond within 30 days.

What happens when a reviewer breaches these rules repeatedly

The following escalation policy applies to reviewers whose content is removed for policy breaches:

• First offence: the review is removed and the reviewer is notified by email with the reason and the appeal link.
• Second offence within 12 months: the review is removed, a formal warning is issued, and future submissions from the same email address or account are automatically flagged for manual review before publication.
• Third offence within 12 months: the account is suspended and the email address is blocked from submitting further reviews. The reviewer is notified.

Spam and coordinated manipulation are treated differently: detection of either results in immediate suspension, without prior warning, at any point in the escalation ladder. Coordinated manipulation in particular poses a systemic risk to the platform's integrity and is not subject to the graduated approach above.

Suspensions may be appealed using the same process described in the appeals section above.

How we change this policy

This policy is versioned. The date at the foot of this page records when the policy was last materially updated.

Material changes to this policy are announced at least 30 days before they take effect, via:

• An email notification to all merchant account Owners
• A prominent banner on this page for the duration of the notice period

Minor changes, such as clarifications that do not alter the substance of a rule, corrections of typographical errors, or rewording for improved clarity, may be made without a notice period. Any such change will still update the version date.

Archived versions of this policy are available on request. Contact Vendably if you need a copy of the policy as it stood on a specific date.

Found a review that violates these rules? Flag it. Visit the merchant's profile, open the review, and use the flag action on the review card.