All content on TravelCommentator: posts, comments, articles, reviews and responses must follow our Posting Guidelines. These guidelines apply to all site members: review and article authors, post commenters and responding brand managers.
Tips on posting comments
In addition to our Posting Guidelines set out further below, your comment responses should be:
- Calm – Don’t be irrational. Please post with a cool head and avoid callous comments.
- Impartial – Try not to take sides. Understand the author’s or commenter’s point of view, even if you disagree with them.
- Professional – For those responding on behalf of a business please do so according to your company’s customer service policies.
- Respectful – Treat others fairly: don’t personally attack or insult others.
- Relevant – Comments should directly address the topic at hand.
- Mindful of Privacy – Unless a reviewer or poster has chosen to disclose their personal details, please avoid posting information that could identify them.
- Non-commercial – Don’t post promotional material. We reserve the right to remove any external links we deem inappropriate.
What should be reported
There are several forms of content in posts and reviews that you should report. These include:
The post or review contains personal details – This includes names of employees, their email addresses, phone numbers and postal details.
The posts and reviews that contain personal attacks, swearing, and vilifying comments – Posts that contain personal attacks against authors, TravelCommentator staff and commenters should be reported. Posts and reviews that contain offensive language and comments that can be considered vilifying should also be reported.
The review has been published on the wrong product or service – If the review has been posted on the wrong topic, the editorial team can move it to the correct listing.
The reviewer did not use the service or product – Products: the reviewer did not use the product they are reviewing. Services: if the reviewer did not use the service at all. Please note that the review may still be deemed valid if the reviewer has used a part of the service, i.e: the reviewer has experienced the pre-sale aspects of a service but did not go ahead and purchase it or experience it.
A number of reviews that are overly positive or contain ‘marketing speakʼ – If it feels like there is a strange pattern in positive reviews report this so our content team to look into this further.
The reviewer is affiliated with the business, service or product – If it’s obvious from the content that reviewer is somehow affiliated with the business, product or service please report this.
What shouldn’t be reported
There are several forms of content that you should not report. These include:
Claiming that our memberʼs username does not match-up in a brand’s customer database – A number of our genuine reviewers choose to use nonidentifying nicknames or pen names, this does not mean that they are not genuine customers.
The reviewer is not being factually accurate or has stated several mistruths in their review – TravelCommentator cannot act as a fact checker and as such does not arbitrate or referee factual disputes. We recommend Brand Managers respond to the review stating your side of the story.
A reviewer has only submitted one review – This is not an uncommon pattern with reviewers and is insufficient evidence and does not constitute that a review is fake.
The reviewer has not responded – Some reviewers choose not to respond to Brand Managers’ replies. This can happen for a number of valid reasons and does not mean that the reviewer is not a genuine customer. However, a well-written response shows that you are proactive in finding a solution to promote consumer trust.
Please note that our content team reserves the right to a final decision to any submitted reports.
Posting Guidelines
These posting guidelines are subject to change without notice, from time to time at our sole discretion. Please read them carefully as we reserve the right to remove reviews, posts or other content, remove or lock listings and links, and deactivate member accounts.
Brand Managers: please read our fake reviews, incentivised reviews and legal threat policies.
Irrelevant content
If you are reviewing a business, be detailed about your experience with the business as opposed to commenting on the purchased product or service. In some cases, we may not accept reviews if we believe the main feature(s) of the service or product have not been used or experienced.
Comments should be related to the review you are posting under and answers should be informative and be relevant to the question you are answering.
Don’t post reviews with overly positive or “marketing-speak” writing styles. Our content team has the final say on what is considered to be marketing-speak.
Personal attacks
Don’t post personal attacks, threats or insults directed at other people. There is also no need to respond to personal attacks in a similar manner as your account may be removed too. Instead, report the content or the member using the site’s flag icons at the bottom left-hand corner of posts.
Personal reprisals against staff or business owners
Don’t post personal reprisals against staff or business owners. If your business has been affected by a personal vendetta you should report the review to our content team using the flag icon and provide as much evidence as you can.
Intolerance and vilification
Don’t post content that contains intolerance or vilification of other people’s race, culture, beliefs, physical or mental conditions, gender, religion, age, etc.
Swearing
Don’t swear! Whether the swear word is an acronym or you’re using asterisks or the word is somehow misspelt but the meaning is evident.
Words like “crap”, “damn”, etc. are not considered swear words, but we do encourage expressive and meaningful language as this adds more value to your review.
Advertising
Don’t post advertising in your reviews, comments, etc. This includes viral advertising, links, promotions, etc. Product recommendations are acceptable depending on the context.
Our content team has the final say in ambiguous cases.
External links
Don’t post external links that are irrelevant or lead to unsafe/offensive websites.
Affiliation to a business
Don’t review a business if you are affiliated with or were affiliated with it in the past. This includes past or present employees, family and friends of employees. Please read our fake submissions policy and don’t risk your business being penalised.
Pointless posting sprees
There is no reason to flood TravelCommentator with multiple comments, questions or answers that add no value to the discussion.
We reserve the right to remove your content in bulk and ban your account.
Multiple accounts
Don’t create multiple accounts. You can update your email address in your account settings.
Review verification and requests for additional information
Our content team may run checks at their discretion to confirm if a reviewer has used the product or service they are reviewing. As part of these efforts, some members will need to provide additional information to confirm that they have purchased a product or have been a customer of the service they are reviewing. This information is kept confidential as per our Privacy Policy.
Legal threats policy
Removal Requests
We consider reasoned and polite requests regarding content removal. If you believe a review or other content should be removed for breaching our Posting Guidelines, infringing or violating someoneʼs rights or otherwise violating the law, you should report this by clicking on the flag icon under the posts. Be detailed and factual as to why you think the content needs to be removed. The more evidence you provide, the easier it is for us to make a decision. Although we won’t be able to reply to every request, rest assured that we investigate every one of them.
Threatening requests
We take a zero tolerance approach to threatening requests sent to TravelCommentator and reserve the right to take any or all of the following actions:
Placing a large notice of the threat(s) on your business, product or service review.
Locking the review to any future submissions. Publicising the legal threats and associated correspondence on your business, product or service.
Passing on details of correspondence that appears to be an attempt to abuse our policies concerning removal to the consumer authorities.
Fake positive reviews
If it becomes evident to TravelCommentator that a business has been posting fake reviews for their products or services, we reserve the right to take any or all of the following actions:
- Placing a large notice on the review notifying users of fake reviews.
- Locking your review to any future submissions.
- Deny access to posting further reviews.
- Submitting the case to the local consumer authority.
Submitting the case to the consumer authority of your jurisdiction.
We have a number of tools and procedures to identify fake submissions and reserve the right to impose these penalties on any business trying to manipulate our rating system. We reserve the right to submit all our findings to the consumer authority. Note that consumer authorities can issue fines for fake review submissions.
In Australia, the jurisdiction where TravelCommentator is located, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) can issue an infringement notice where it has reasonable grounds to believe that a person has contravened certain consumer protection laws. For serious misconduct, the ACCC can seek court penalties. The maximum penalty is $220,000 for an individual and $1.1 million for a body corporate, per breach.
https://www.accc.gov.au/business/advertising-promoting-your-business/managing-online-reviews
Fake negative reviews
If you have evidence that a negative review for your listing is fake, please report it by using the contact form or by clicking on the flag icon at the bottom left-hand corner of posts. Provide as much evidence as you can to support your claims.
Claiming that our member’s username does not match-up in your customer database is insufficient evidence that a review is fake.
We take a zero tolerance approach to competitors submitting negative reviews on other businesses and have ways to identifying such fake reviews. We reserve the right to take any or all of the following actions:
- Placing a large notice on the listing notifying users of fake reviews.
- Locking your listing to any future submissions.
- Deny access to posting further reviews.
- Submitting the case to the local consumer authority, in our instance the ACCC.
Incentivised consumer reviews
Incentives should only be offered in exchange for reviews of your business (its products or services) if:
Incentives are offered equally to consumers likely to be complementary and consumers likely to be critical, and positive and negative reviews are treated the same.
The reviewer is expressly told that the incentive is available whether the review is positive or negative. The incentive is prominently disclosed to users who rely on affected reviews.
