Since 2003, we’ve worked hard to create the highest quality consumer opinion site for Australians, through industry-leading moderation processes & practices — which more than 4 million Australians each month rely on. Here are a few of the most popular misconceptions about our site and why they’re inaccurate.
“Brands can see and filter reviews before they’re published.”
Companies and brands only know you’ve written a review after your review is approved and published. Even if you opt in to our Review Mediation service (where available), you'll always have the choice of submitting your review at any time. As long as the review meets our Posting Guidelines, brands are never allowed to filter or remove reviews.
“Brands can pay for reviews to be removed.”
This is not true. We don’t remove reviews on ProductReview.com.au that meet our Posting Guidelines. Any commercial relationships that we may have with brands have zero influence on our moderation processes.
“ProductReview.com.au gets paid to write reviews.”
We’re powered by our community, for our community. As a company, we don’t write reviews ourselves, nor do we get paid for the opinion or quantity of reviews (see our Operating Model). Each and every review you see on ProductReview.com.au is a genuine consumer opinion.
“Most people only write a review to rant because they're angry or annoyed.”
Our numbers actually tell a completely different story. Reviews on our site average around 3.2 stars and overall opinion data is neither overtly positive or negative, which means Australians share their experiences, good or bad. We think that’s valuable, because it truly reflects the sentiment of the product or service. Our users keep coming back to ProductReview.com.au for the balanced opinions.
“It’s easy for companies to put fake reviews on ProductReview.com.au.”
This is not true. We don’t allow fake reviews on our site and never will. We have a sophisticated content algorithm and a team of moderators that identify and block fake or suspicious reviews, so that only genuine reviews are published on ProductReview.com.au. We also refer any instances of fake reviews to relevant authorities and government bodies like the ACCC.
You can read more about what we do with these reviews in our Moderation Process article. Our reputation is built on your trust, so there is no incentive for us to encourage fake reviews on our platform.
“I’ve had a bad experience with a particular product or brand, but they have a lot of positive reviews on ProductReview.com.au — these must be fake reviews.”
Your experience may not be the same as those of other consumers, so please keep that in mind. We encourage everyone to leave a review for products and services they’ve used — regardless of if they've had a positive or negative experience. Additionally, some brands actively ask their customers for feedback and accumulate a large number of reviews. These reviews are still subject to all our verification processes.
“Some reviewers only post one review, and it's on the same day they register — their reviews must be fake.”
ProductReview.com.au is a free-to-view website, so you're not required to create an account in order to read any reviews. We only require a user to create an account when they want to submit a review (or a comment, question, etc.). This is why it's common for a user to register an account at the same time they make their first submission to the site.
A product or service listing that has many reviews submitted by accounts that have only submitted one review doesn't mean that these reviews are fake. In most cases, it’s due to companies actively asking for feedback from their customers. We assess many other private data points to determine whether a review is fake.
A listing that has many reviews published on it within a couple of days also doesn’t mean that these reviews are fake. This is usually due to a company doing a large email sendout to their customers asking for feedback.
“ProductReview.com.au shares and sells personal information to brands.”
We don’t reveal your personal information to any third party unless it’s required by a court of law, or if you provide explicit permission to do so.
Regarding proof of purchase documents, we never share the documents you provide with brands or companies; we only use them to verify that you have actually purchased the product or service. To learn more about how we handle your documents, please read our article explaining our Moderation Process.