Last updated 16 Oct 2026
A review site is only useful if you can believe what you read on it. This page explains, step by step, what happens to a review on ShopperChecked, and what we do when someone tries to game the system.
Step 1: screening before publication
Reviews are checked before they appear, not only once somebody complains. Software looks first. It checks the length, links, text written in capitals and personal details. It also looks at how many reviews the account and its connection have sent today, and how new the account is. If nothing looks wrong, the review goes live, normally within one working day. If something does look wrong, the review waits for a moderator to read it.
Step 2: checks for fake reviews
Fake reviews tend to leave the same traces, so we look for them:
- One voice per business. Each person can review a business once, and each account can post only a few reviews a day.
- Same connection, many names. We keep a scrambled, one-way fingerprint of the connection a review came from, never the IP address itself. That is enough to notice when several "different" customers send near-identical text from one place.
- New accounts count for less. A review from an account with no history carries less weight in the rating than one from a reviewer with a record. Accounts that keep getting reported lose more weight.
- Sudden waves. When a quiet business suddenly gets a run of five-star reviews, the latest ones are held until a person has looked at them.
Step 3: the business gets a say
A business can reply once it has claimed its page, which means proving it controls the company's website (see below). Its owner and team can answer any review, and the reviewer can answer back. Everything is public and labelled, so you can always tell who wrote what. When you're deciding whether to buy, how a company handles a complaint is often more useful than the complaint itself.
Step 4: anyone can report a review
Any member can report a review as spam, fake, abusive, off-topic, containing personal details, or for another reason. Once a review has three open reports, it is hidden until a moderator decides. A person reads every report. Accounts that send reports to bully a reviewer have their reporting restricted.
Step 5: a record of every decision
Whenever a moderator publishes, holds, hides, removes or restores a review, we record who did it and why. A removed review no longer counts towards the rating or appears in search, but we keep it. That way an appeal can put a mistake right, and repeated abuse can still be traced.
What money can't buy here
A business cannot pay to have an honest negative review taken down. That is true on every plan, through any partnership and over any phone call. Reviews come down only when they break our review rules, and the moderator who decides is not told whether the business is a paying customer.
How a business proves it is real
A page counts as claimed only after the owner shows they control the business's domain. They can do that with an email to an address on the domain, a DNS TXT or CNAME record, an HTML file, or a meta tag. Our servers run the check. Verification codes expire after 7 days. If a claim turns out to rest on false information, we withdraw it.
The limits, honestly
No system is perfect. Someone determined enough, using real accounts and real domains, can still slip a few fake reviews past us. We make that slow and costly, keep a complete record, and act quickly when you point a problem out. We won't pretend fakes never get through.
Seen something wrong?
For a single review, use Report this review next to it. For a suspicious account, a coordinated campaign or a security problem, contact us and a member of the team will look into it.