Review policy

Requires legal review before production publication. This policy describes how reviews work on LokalMatch today. It isn't final legal language and may change before LokalMatch launches publicly.

Reviews are for people who've had a real experience with a pro, such as getting a quote or having work done. You need to be signed in, you can review each pro once, and you can't review your own business.

You don't need to have found the pro through LokalMatch. Reviews that aren't linked to a LokalMatch connection go through the same moderation, but they don't show the “Connected through a LokalMatch request” label.

Some reviews show “Connected through a LokalMatch request”. It means the review is linked to a request the reviewer sent through LokalMatch, and that this pro connected with that request. It confirms that connection only. It doesn't confirm that the job was done or paid for, or how it went.

About two to four weeks after a pro connects with a request, we email the homeowner once to invite a review of that pro, whatever their experience. We don't check whether someone is happy before inviting them, and pros can't choose who is invited or stop invitations. Homeowners who've turned off emails about their requests don't get invitations.

LokalMatch doesn't offer money, credits, discounts or prize draw entries for writing a review. Lokal Rewards and referral rewards never depend on leaving a review or on what it says.

Pros may not offer anything in exchange for a review, a particular rating, or changing or removing a review. If we ever offer an incentive for reviews, it will be the same whatever the rating, and every review that received one will be clearly labelled.

A person checks every review before it's published. Automated checks flag things like links and contact details for a closer look. Positive and negative reviews go through the same checks and the same standards.

We also look for patterns that can point to fake reviews, such as many reviews of one pro in a short time, or a reviewer linked to the pro's own account. These are signals for our team to check, not automatic decisions.

We don't edit what reviewers write: we publish a review as written, or not at all.

You can edit your review for 30 days after you submit it, from Reviews in your account. An edited review goes through the same checks as a new one: it's hidden, and left out of the pro's rating, until a person has checked it again.

Once it's back, it keeps its original date and shows that it was edited and when. We keep every previous version. A removed review can't be edited, but you can appeal the removal.

We don't publish, or we remove, a review that:

A pro's rating is the average of their published reviews, with or without the “Connected through a LokalMatch request” label, shown with the number of reviews it's based on. Pending, hidden and removed reviews don't count, and the rating and count are updated whenever a review is published, hidden, edited or removed.

Each profile shows the reviews written in the language of the page.

Pros can post one public response to each review of their business, and update it later. Responses must be factual and polite, and must not include threats, accusations of fraud or anyone's personal information. Phone numbers, email addresses and links are hidden automatically before a response appears.

We remove responses that break these rules. The pro is told which rule applied and can appeal once. To report a response, write to trust@lokalmatch.com.

Anyone can report a review with the report link on it, without an account, or by writing to trust@lokalmatch.com. You can report a review as fake, as a conflict of interest, as offensive, as containing personal information or as being about the wrong business, or tell us about something else.

Every report goes to our moderation team, and a person looks at it. A report on its own never hides a review: it stays visible while we check. The only exception is a review that contains contact details or a link, which we hide until a person has checked it. We then remove reviews that break this policy and keep the ones that don't.

When we remove a review, or decide not to publish it, we tell its author which rule of this policy applied. When we remove a pro's response, we tell the pro.

The author of a removed review, or the pro whose response was removed, can appeal once from their account. A person looks at the appeal and either restores the review or response, or keeps the decision. A restored review keeps its original date. We tell the person who appealed, and that decision is final.

Pros who post, buy or arrange fake reviews, offer rewards for reviews or pressure reviewers may lose verification labels, have their account restricted or be suspended.

Each review shows the reviewer's display name, the date it was published, whether and when it was edited and, where available, the project type, the city or region and the “Connected through a LokalMatch request” label. We never show a reviewer's street address or contact details.