Review Policy

This Review Policy explains how reviews, ratings, review requests, private feedback and review moderation work on Know a Pro. It is designed to support genuine customer feedback while protecting reviewers, professionals and businesses from fraudulent, abusive, misleading or privacy-invasive content.

This Policy should be read together with our Terms & Conditions, Community Guidelines and Privacy Policy.

1. Who may submit a review

Reviews are intended for genuine customers or clients who have had a real service experience with the professional or business being reviewed.

A review may be invited by a professional through a Know a Pro review request or submitted through an available review journey linked to a completed customer interaction or profile, where the platform offers that option.

A review request does not entitle a professional to control the rating or wording of the review.

2. Reviews must be genuine

A review must reflect the reviewer's genuine experience and honest opinion. Reviews may be positive, neutral or negative.

Do not submit a review for a service experience that did not occur.

Do not review your own business or profile using another account or identity.

Do not ask employees, relatives, friends or other people to pose as customers where they did not have the relevant service experience.

Do not buy, sell, exchange or otherwise incentivise fabricated reviews.

Do not offer a reward, discount, refund or benefit only on condition that a customer leaves a positive review.

Do not threaten, pressure or harass a customer to change, remove or improve a genuine review.

Do not coordinate multiple reviews to artificially raise or lower a rating.

Do not use false identities, duplicate accounts or other methods to manipulate review results.

3. What a useful review should contain

A useful review focuses on the customer's own experience with the professional or business. Where relevant, it may describe the service provided, communication, reliability, professionalism, quality, value or other aspects of the experience.

Reviewers should keep statements factual where they present something as fact and make clear when something is their personal opinion or experience.

A review does not need to be positive to be published. Constructive negative reviews are permitted when they comply with this Policy.

4. Content that is not allowed

• Fabricated, misleading or materially deceptive content.
• Threats, harassment, intimidation or abusive personal attacks.
• Hate speech or unlawful discriminatory content.
• Obscene or sexually explicit material unrelated to the service experience.
• Unlawful allegations presented irresponsibly or content that Know a Pro reasonably believes creates a legal risk.
• Another person's private information, such as identity numbers, private addresses, banking details, private phone numbers, passwords or confidential communications, unless publication is lawful and genuinely necessary.
• Content that infringes copyright, privacy, confidentiality or other rights.
• Spam, advertising, promotional links or unrelated commercial content.
• Content unrelated to the professional, business or service experience being reviewed.
• Impersonation or false claims about the reviewer's identity or relationship to the service.
• Review manipulation or coordinated rating abuse.

5. Privacy and private feedback

Public reviews are visible to other users and may appear on the relevant professional or business profile. Reviewers should not include sensitive or unnecessary personal information in a public review.

Know a Pro may redact, restrict or remove personal information from a review where reasonably necessary to protect privacy, comply with law or apply this Policy, provided this does not materially distort the meaning of the review.

Private feedback, where offered, is separate from a public review and is not intended to be copied into or displayed as public review content.

Know a Pro will not disclose a reviewer's private contact or account information to a professional merely because the professional disagrees with the review. Information may be disclosed where authorised or required by law or reasonably necessary for an approved complaint, legal or security process.

6. Review submission and moderation

Submitted reviews may be placed into a Pending review status before publication. Know a Pro may use manual moderation or other reasonable checks before deciding whether a review should be published.

The platform does not promise a specific moderation turnaround time.

A review may be approved, rejected, restricted, removed or referred for further investigation depending on the content and information available.

Publication does not mean that Know a Pro independently verifies every factual statement in the review or guarantees that the review is correct in every respect.

7. Low ratings

Reviews of 3 stars or below may be automatically flagged for Know a Pro review. This is a moderation signal and does not mean that the review is automatically removed or that the professional has done anything wrong.

A low rating can still be published if it represents a genuine experience and complies with this Policy.

8. Review requests

Professionals may request reviews from genuine customers. Review requests should be sent only to people with a real service experience and must not be used to manufacture a misleading rating.

Professionals should not pressure customers to leave only positive feedback or condition a benefit on a positive review.

Where a customer already has an existing review request or has already submitted a review for the relevant interaction, the platform may prevent or discourage duplicate review journeys.

9. Reporting and disputing a review

A professional, reviewer or other affected person may ask Know a Pro to review content that they reasonably believe breaches this Policy, violates rights, contains private information or is otherwise unlawful.

A report should identify the review, explain the concern and provide relevant supporting information where available.

Reporting a review does not guarantee removal. Disagreement with a negative opinion, by itself, is not sufficient reason for removal.

Know a Pro may consider information from the reviewer, the professional or business, platform records and other relevant material when reviewing a dispute.

10. Removing or restricting reviews

Know a Pro may reject, unpublish, restrict or remove a review where we reasonably believe that it:

• is not based on a genuine service experience;
• was submitted through fraud, impersonation or manipulation;
• contains unlawful, abusive or prohibited content;
• unreasonably exposes another person's private information;
• infringes intellectual-property or other rights;
• is duplicated, spam or materially irrelevant;
• was posted in breach of the Terms, Community Guidelines or this Policy;
• must be removed or restricted to comply with law or a competent authority; or
• creates a legitimate security or platform-integrity risk.

Where appropriate, Know a Pro may remove only the problematic portion, redact personal information, request clarification or allow a corrected review rather than removing the entire review.

11. Negative reviews and paid subscriptions

A paid Know a Pro subscription does not give a professional or business the right to remove genuine negative reviews.

Moderation decisions are based on this Policy, the Terms, applicable law and the information reasonably available, not on whether a professional is a paying subscriber.

12. Responsibility of reviewers and professionals

Reviewers are responsible for the content they submit and should ensure it is based on their genuine experience and does not unlawfully infringe another person's rights.

Professionals and businesses must not retaliate against, harass or threaten a reviewer for leaving a compliant negative review. A professional who believes a review breaches this Policy should use the reporting or support process.

Repeated fraudulent, abusive or manipulative review activity may result in account or platform restrictions under the Terms and Community Guidelines.

13. Profile closure and review records

Reviews are associated with the relevant professional or business profile. If a profile is suspended, cancelled, hidden or removed, its public reviews may also cease to be publicly displayed.

Know a Pro may retain limited review and moderation records internally where reasonably necessary for complaints, disputes, fraud prevention, security, legal obligations or compliance, in accordance with the Privacy Policy and internal retention rules.

14. No guarantee created by reviews

Reviews are user-generated content and reflect the experiences and opinions of the people who submit them. Know a Pro does not guarantee that every user's experience will be the same.

Ratings and reviews are one source of information only. Customers should consider the professional's full profile, verification badges, relevant qualifications or registrations, quotes and any other checks they consider appropriate before appointing a professional.

15. Changes to this Policy

Know a Pro may update this Policy as the review system, moderation tools, community practices or legal requirements change. The current version and revision date will be published on the Know a Pro website.

16. Contact

To report a review or ask a question about review moderation, contact support@knowapro.co.za.

For privacy-related concerns involving review content, contact support@knowapro.co.za or the Information Officer at reandra@knowapro.co.za.

Website: https://knowapro.co.za