Community Guidelines

What a Vouch is

A Vouch is a public account of your direct professional experience with one person: a star rating, a few optional details, and a note if you like. It belongs to that professional’s record and stays on it from job to job, tied to the business, role and date where the work happened.

Every Vouch starts with one question, with the professional’s first name in it: “Did you personally work with Sofia?” If the answer is no, there’s no Vouch. A Vouch isn’t a place to comment on someone you’ve only heard about, or on a business in general.

What belongs in a Vouch

• How the professional helped, communicated and followed through.
• What the professional knew, and how straight the professional was with you.
• What happened, in your own words: the specifics are what help the next person.
• Criticism, when it’s honest and about the work. A fair three-star Vouch is as useful as a five-star one.

If you also rate the business on the same visit, that part is about the place: booking, paperwork, the facility, the front desk. It appears on the business’s page, separate from the professional.

What isn’t allowed

Not a real interaction

Vouching for someone you didn’t personally work with, or writing on someone else’s behalf.

Fake, paid or incentivized Vouches

Vouches offered or requested in exchange for money, discounts, gifts, giveaway entries or anything else of value. Asking friends to post, or trading Vouches.

Conflicts of interest

Vouching for yourself, a family member, someone you manage or employ, or staff at a business you own or manage. Negative Vouches about a competitor.

Personal and private information

Phone numbers, email addresses, home addresses, VINs, license plates, deal, loan or account numbers, and health or financial details, about anyone, including you.

Harassment and hate

Threats, insults, slurs, or attacks on anyone over race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age or any other part of who a person is. Comments on someone’s looks or private life.

Spam and promotion

Links, ads, promo codes, and the same text posted across many profiles.

Off topic

Anything that isn’t about the professional’s work with you, like politics, or a review of a product the business sells.

Illegal or sexual content, and impersonation

Content that breaks the law, sexual content, or pretending to be someone else.

What gets held for review

Before a Vouch is published, VouchMe checks the text. If it seems to contain a phone number, an email address, a link or a VIN, it’s held for review instead of going live, so private details never appear publicly. A moderator then publishes it or removes it. Vouches can’t be edited after posting, so leave private details out before you post.

A held Vouch isn’t visible to anyone else and doesn’t count toward a rating.

What we remove, and what we don’t

We remove Vouches and other content that break these guidelines or our Terms. For serious or repeated problems, such as a scheme of fake or paid Vouches, we may also limit or close the accounts and profiles involved.

We don’t remove a Vouch because it’s critical, because the professional or business disagrees with it, or because it’s from an earlier job. Money, subscriptions or partnerships never change these decisions.

Disputes, for professionals

You can’t edit or delete a Vouch on your profile, but you can answer it with a public reply. If you believe one breaks these guidelines, for example it isn’t from someone you worked with, or it shares private details, report it: open the Vouch on your profile and choose Report this Vouch, then pick the reason that fits. Add details that will help a moderator, like why you don’t think the interaction happened.

Reporting doesn’t hide a Vouch by itself. A moderator reviews it. If it needs a closer look, it’s marked as under review: hidden from your profile and left out of your rating until a decision is made. You’ll see it on your dashboard as disputed.

Decisions are based on these guidelines, not on the rating. If you think we got one wrong, email info@vouche.pro with the link.

Replies and private notes

Replies are public and moderated like Vouches. Keep personal details out of private notes.

• A reply is one public answer from the professional under a Vouch: a thank-you, some context, what happened next. The rules above apply to it too. A reply with a phone number, an email address, a link or a VIN is held for review before it goes live, and a reply a moderator removes stays removed.
• A private note is the professional’s own, never shown to the customer or anyone else. Even so, keep it to the work: what helped, what to follow up on. Leave out phone numbers, addresses, account numbers, and health or money details.

Photos of your work

• Show your own work: a delivery, a finished job, a happy customer, the details you’re proud of.
• Add a photo only if everyone in it agreed to be shown on your profile, customers and coworkers included. You confirm this every time you add photos.
• Leave out license plates, VINs, paperwork, screens and anything else with someone’s private details. Captions follow the same rules as Vouches and can’t include phone numbers, emails or links.
• We remove the location data phones store in photos before a photo is published, so a picture never says where it was taken.

If you’re in a photo you didn’t agree to, or a photo breaks these guidelines, report it (see below). A moderator removes a photo that breaks them, and it leaves the profile at once.

Asking for Vouches

• Ask the customers you actually served, soon after the work, while it’s fresh.
• Ask everyone you helped, not only the people you expect to be happy.
• Don’t offer anything in return, and don’t stand over a customer who is writing one.
• Never ask anyone to change or remove a Vouch.

A personal request link from your dashboard is the best way to ask. Every Vouch posts only after its author confirms a mobile number with a text code. When that’s the number you sent the request to, the Vouch shows Phone verified. VouchMe doesn’t confirm the service or sale itself, and Verified transaction appears only when a business confirms the sale.

Business pages and owners

A rating of a business is about the place: booking, paperwork, the facility, the front desk. The same rules apply to it as to a Vouch, and it shows on the business’s page with the same first name and last initial.

For the people who run a business page

• Ask every customer, the same way. One link and QR code for every customer, sent after every visit, not just the happy ones. Never ask only the customers you expect to be pleased.
• Never reward a rating. No discounts, gifts, prize entries, service perks or staff quotas, for a good rating or for changing a bad one.
• No insiders. Owners and managers with access to the page can’t rate the business or Vouch for its pros, and neither can anyone whose claim or access request is open or in review. Coworkers can Vouch for each other only as “Yes, professionally”, which the Vouch shows.
• Reply, don’t retaliate. One public reply per rating, about the visit. No customer’s name, contact details, deal or account numbers or VINs, and nothing that pressures or threatens. A reply with contact details, a link or an offer tied to a rating is held for review, and a reply a moderator removes stays removed.
• No gag clauses. Contracts, forms and sales terms can’t stop customers from posting honest ratings.
• Businesses can’t edit, hide, reorder, pre-approve or remove ratings, and nobody can pay to. If a rating breaks these guidelines, report it, and a moderator decides.
• Keep the page true. Hours, photos, the website and About must describe the business as it is. Photos must be the business’s own, without customers’ private details. The name, phone and address change only after our team checks them.

These rules follow the FTC’s rules and guides on reviews (16 CFR Parts 465 and 255) and the Consumer Review Fairness Act. The full business rules are in the Terms.

How to report

A Vouch: open it on the professional’s profile and choose Report this Vouch. You don’t need an account. Pick the closest reason:

• Not a real interaction
• Shares personal information
• Harassment or hate
• Spam or promotion
• Conflict of interest
• Off topic
• Something else

A reply: open the Vouch it answers and choose Report this reply.

A photo: open it on the professional’s profile, tap the … button and choose Report this photo, then pick the closest reason. You don’t need an account.

A profile: open it and choose Report this profile, for example if it’s fake or pretends to be someone.

A business page, a rating of a business or a business’s reply: on the business’s page, choose Report this page in the … menu, or Report this rating or Report the reply in a rating’s … menu. Use “Someone who doesn’t run this business claimed it” for a page taken over by the wrong person: those reports go first. Use “This isn’t a real business” for a page that shouldn’t exist. Pages professionals add appear before our team reviews them, so these reports help. Info out of date, or a duplicate page? Suggest an edit instead. Where a page doesn’t show these options, email info@vouche.pro with a link.

Anything else, like a Contact message: email info@vouche.pro with a link and a short description. A professional can also block a sender who keeps sending Contact messages.

VouchMe moderators review every report. If someone is in danger, contact your local emergency services first.