Review Rules & Moderation Policy

1. Who can leave a review

You may leave a review only if you have first-hand experience as a client of the veterinary practice — you or a member of your household took an animal to that specific branch. You must be an adult (16+) with a verified email address.

You must not review a practice if you are (or were within the last 12 months) an employee, owner, contractor, supplier, family member of staff, or a competitor.

2. What is prohibited

• Fake reviews — reviews that do not reflect a genuine consumer experience, including invented reviews, AI-generated fake reviews, competitor attacks and staff-praise reviews.
• Concealed incentivised reviews — reviews written in exchange for money, discounts, vouchers, refunds, free treatment or any other benefit, where that incentive is not disclosed. On Compare-Vets we go further: incentivised reviews are prohibited entirely, disclosed or not.
• Commissioning fake or incentivised reviews, or offering services that facilitate them.
• Misleading review information — coordinated attempts to distort a practice's rating, review count or ranking.
• Unlawful content — defamation, harassment, threats, discrimination, contempt of court.
• Serious allegations stated as proven fact — e.g. "the vet killed my dog", "they committed fraud", "they falsified records", "they were negligent". You may describe your experience and how it made you feel, but you must not present clinical or legal conclusions as certainties. Report suspected clinical negligence to the RCVS concerns process.
• Personal data of third parties — names of individual staff members, other clients or their pets, phone numbers, addresses, clinical letters or medical records.
• Off-topic content, promotional content, links, or duplicated reviews across accounts or practices.

3. Negative reviews are welcome

Honest negative reviews are a legitimate and important part of this platform. We will not route you into a private complaints channel to suppress a genuine negative review. If your review complies with these rules it will be published, whatever the star rating.

4. How we moderate — reasonable and proportionate steps

Every review passes through a controlled chain before it appears on the site:

1. Submission gate — verified account, mandatory reviewer declarations (first-hand experience, no incentive, no conflict, truthful facts).
2. Automated screening — pattern detection for spam, duplication, IP/device anomalies, review-bombing spikes and prohibited content.
3. Human moderation queue — every review is read by a moderator against these rules before publication.
4. Triage — publish, publish with redactions, hold pending evidence, exclude from rating pending investigation, or remove.
5. Evidence — for higher-risk reviews we may (with your consent) request proportionate proof of a genuine visit: an appointment confirmation, an invoice number or an email from the practice. We never ask for identity documents or clinical records.
6. Right of reply — see the Practice Right of Reply Policy.
7. Audit log — decisions, evidence, notifications and rating impact are recorded.

5. Evidence uploads are private by default

Any file you upload as proof of visit is stored privately, seen only by our moderation team, and never published on your review or shared with the practice. Please redact anything you do not need to share (names of other people, unrelated pricing detail, addresses).

6. Sanctions

Reviewers or practices who breach these rules may face: warning, removal of the review, exclusion from rating calculations, suspension of the account, permanent ban, and — where the conduct is unlawful — referral to the CMA, the ICO or the police.

7. Detection controls we operate

• Account verification, submission-history logging and device fingerprints.
• Volume and velocity monitoring to detect review bombing and coordinated attacks.
• Prohibited-content and defamation screening.
• A "Report this review" button on every published review for both users and practices.
• Periodic re-scoring: reviews later found to be fake are removed and excluded from ratings retroactively.

8. How ratings are affected

See the Rating & Ranking Explanation for exactly how star ratings are calculated and how removed, held or excluded reviews affect the public score.

9. Report a review

Anyone can report a review they believe breaches these rules using the "Report" link on the review, or by emailing moderation@compare-vets.org. See the Complaints & Takedown Policy for timescales and escalation.

10. Governance

Compare-Vets.org treats itself as a consumer-review publisher for the purposes of CMA208 and the DMCC Act 2024. We maintain an internal fake-review risk assessment, moderation manual, defamation escalation procedure, DPIA, evidence handling procedure, audit log, sanctions register and rating-adjustment log. These are reviewed regularly as the site grows.

See also: Full review policy · Complaints & takedown · Ratings explained · Right of reply · Terms · Privacy.