Guidelines for Reviewers

Who Can Write a Review — and Who Can’t

If you're 18 or older and have had a recent, genuine interaction with a business, you're welcome to leave a review. An experience isn’t limited to a purchase — it can include communication like a phone call, email, live chat, or browsing an online store, even if no transaction occurred. Generally, “recent” refers to events within the past 12 months.

Reviews must reflect your personal experience unless you're writing on behalf of someone unable to do so themselves, such as a person under your care.

Incentivized reviews aren’t allowed. You can’t write a review if you’ve received — or been offered — any benefit in exchange, like discounts, vouchers, refunds, freebies, prize draw entries, or other perks. Likewise, you shouldn’t post a review if you have a close connection to the business, such as being the owner, a relative, employee, business partner, shareholder, or competitor. This helps ensure reviews on CertMeUp stay fair and unbiased.

Can a Business Ask Me for Information?

Yes, businesses may request additional details—like your name, email, phone number, or reference number—to better understand your review and follow up if needed. If you choose to respond, the information you provide will be shared with that business.

If you wrote your review without an invitation, the business may not have your contact info. Providing it helps them reach out and address any concerns. We enable this to encourage constructive communication between businesses and consumers. However, sharing your details is completely optional.

If you decide not to respond, the business might flag your review. In such cases, we may contact you to confirm your experience and ensure it meets our guidelines.

Why Can a Review Be Flagged?

At CertMeUp, we expect all reviews to be respectful and appropriate. A review may be flagged and potentially removed for the following reasons:

1. Harmful or Illegal Content
We don’t allow content that’s harmful or against the law, such as:

• Hate speech or discrimination targeting individuals or groups based on identity (e.g., religion, race, gender).

• Terrorism-related content, including promotion of hate groups or denial of hate crimes.

• Threats or violence, including abusive language, encouragement of harm, or gang references.

• Obscene or explicit content, including strong profanity, nudity, or adult material.

• Defamation, but only businesses can report it—this refers to false claims causing reputational and financial harm.

When flagged for harmful or illegal content, the review may temporarily been hidden while we investigate.

2. Personal Information
Reviews must not include another person’s private details, such as names of employees, phone numbers, email addresses, or images of others.

• Public information from a company’s CertMeUp profile or website is allowed.

• While we advise against including your own personal info, this won’t lead to removal. You can edit your review if needed.

3. Promotional or Advertising Content
Reviews should focus on your experience and not include:

• Promotion of unrelated businesses, products, discount codes, or links.

• Political, religious, or social commentary unrelated to a genuine experience.

• Scams, such as "get rich quick" schemes or fake incentives.

• Spam, gibberish, or clickbait content.

• Misinformation or impersonation, including unverified claims or AI-generated reviews.

• Mentions of other businesses or comparisons are fine, as long as they’re relevant.

4. Not Based on a Real Experience
Reviews must reflect an actual experience. Automated systems and businesses may flag reviews they believe are inauthentic. We may ask you to verify your experience, so retain any proof of interaction.

5. Wrong Business
Double-check that you’re reviewing the correct company and country site. We may remove or move a review if it clearly refers to another business or domain. Generic reviews that lack business names aren’t removed but may be less helpful to readers.

What Happens When Your Review Is Flagged?

At CertMeUp, fairness is central to how we manage reviews. Our guidelines apply equally to all users, and flagged reviews are reviewed consistently—regardless of who they're about or whether the business uses CertMeUp's paid features.

We’ll remove a review if it violates our guidelines or if we’re legally obligated to do so—for instance, if it includes offensive content, promotes scams, or shares someone’s private address. However, businesses cannot influence review removals, even if they’re paying customers, and we won’t take down a review simply because a business disagrees with it.

If your review is flagged, we may ask you to revise it or provide evidence to confirm your experience.

Can CertMeUp Remove My Account?

You can close your CertMeUp account at any time. You’ll still be able to browse and read reviews, but you won’t be able to post your own.

Most people use our platform responsibly, but misuse isn’t tolerated. This includes repeatedly posting harmful content, threatening businesses, or using our data for commercial purposes without permission (known as “data scraping”). If you violate these rules, we may restrict your account, block access, or take legal action if necessary.