Reviews on MeritVeri are only useful if they are genuine. This policy explains who can write a review, how reviews are collected and moderated, what the verification labels mean, and how anyone can report a review.
Who can write a review
To write a review you need a MeritVeri account with a confirmed email address. Anonymous reviews are not accepted. You choose how you know the company:
- customer;
- current employee or former employee;
- supplier, contractor or business partner;
- other relationship.
Current and former employees can add their job title, department and period of employment. They may also add private supporting evidence; this evidence is only seen by MeritVeri and is never published.
You can write one review per company. If your opinion changes, you edit your existing review instead of writing a new one.
What we do not allow
- Conflicts of interest. Before submitting, you confirm that you are not the owner of the company, not acting on its behalf and not a competitor. Current and former employees may review their employer as employees. People who manage a company on MeritVeri cannot review that company.
- Incentivised reviews. You confirm that you have not been paid, rewarded or offered anything in exchange for your review. Companies may not offer incentives for reviews.
- Content that is not about a real experience with the company, or that is spam or advertising.
- Personal information about other people, such as names of individual employees, private contact details or health information.
- Illegal, abusive, discriminatory or threatening content.
How reviews are moderated
Every review is checked by MeritVeri before it is published. The possible outcomes are:
- Published — the review is approved, publicly visible and counts towards the rating of the company.
- Information needed — we ask you a question in your dashboard; the review is published only after it has been approved.
- Rejected — the review is not published. We always tell you the reason.
- Hidden — a published review is removed from public view, for example after a justified report. We always tell you the reason.
Only approved reviews are shown publicly and count towards the average rating and the number of reviews. Negative reviews are not suppressed: a review is never rejected because it is critical.
Reviews are shown in the language in which they were written, with a language label. We do not translate them automatically.
Editing and deleting
You can edit your review at any time. After an edit, the review goes back to moderation and is not shown until it has been approved again; it then carries an "edited" label. You can also delete your review from your dashboard. We keep a minimal record of moderation decisions where this is legally necessary.
What the labels mean
We do not use a single "verified review" label, because it would be ambiguous. Instead, a review can carry these separate labels:
| Label | What it means |
|---|---|
| Email verified | The reviewer's account has a confirmed email address. This says nothing about the relationship with the company. |
| Employment verified | MeritVeri has manually checked that the reviewer works or worked at the company. |
| Customer verified | MeritVeri has manually checked that the reviewer is or was a customer of the company. |
| Business relationship verified | MeritVeri has manually checked the business relationship stated by the reviewer, for example as a supplier or partner. |
A relationship label only appears after an actual manual check. Approving a review for publication is a separate decision: it means the review complies with this policy, not that every statement in it has been proven.
Company responses
A company that has claimed its profile can publish one official response per review and edit it later. Responses are clearly shown as coming from the company. Companies cannot approve, reject, edit, hide, remove or reorder reviews. Like anyone, they can report a review that breaks this policy; MeritVeri decides. Responses must follow the same rules as reviews; we can hide a response that does not.
Reporting a review or a response
Every published review and every company response has a Report button. Anyone can report, with or without an account; if you are not signed in, we ask for your email address so we can tell you the outcome. If you report illegal content, please explain why you believe it is illegal and confirm that your report is accurate and made in good faith.
A report never removes content automatically. MeritVeri assesses every report and informs the reporter of the outcome. If a review is hidden or rejected, its author receives the reason.
Contesting a decision
If you disagree with a moderation decision, reply to the email in which we informed you of it, or write to us through the contact page. We will look at the decision again and tell you the result.
Questions about this document?
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