Reviews Policy

This policy covers reviews on booking sites run by Retavu: who can write one, what a review shows, the rules every review is held to, and how a review is reported or taken down. It applies the same way to every business and every review.

1. Who can write a review

Only a customer, about their own visit, from a link in an email we send them after it. There is no page where anybody can simply write one.

• The email goes about two hours after the appointment ends, so a missed appointment can be marked first — and never overnight: one due between 9pm and 8am waits until 8am. A customer gets one email a day from a business, however many appointments they had.
• Each business chooses who is asked: customers who booked on its booking site and paid online by card, or everyone who booked on its booking site. Bookings a business adds itself are never asked. Nobody is asked about an appointment that was cancelled or marked as missed, or who has stopped that business’s emails.
• The link works for 30 days, for that visit only. It isn’t a login: it opens the review page for that visit and nothing else.
• One review for each person you saw. A later visit with the same person doesn’t add a second review — it lets you update the one you wrote, which then shows as “Updated”.
• You can change your review within 30 days of the email (it then shows as “Edited”), and delete it at any time, from the “Manage your review” link in the email that confirmed it.

2. What a review shows

The name you choose — your first name and the initial of your surname, or “Verified customer” (“Customer” if you didn’t pay online) — your stars, your words if you wrote any, what you booked and with whom, and the date. “Verified customer” means you booked and paid online by card for that visit.

The business can see who wrote each review — your name and the booking it’s for — because it already has your booking. The public can’t.

3. The rules

Every review is held to the same rules:

• No accusing anyone of a crime — that’s for the police.
• No bad language.
• No personal details — no phone numbers, email or home addresses, and nobody else’s private information.
• Nothing fake — only the customer who visited can review, and only their own visit.
• Nothing that isn’t about the visit.

Web addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and bad language are stopped as a review is written, and the page says what to take out. Everything else is judged by a person, when a review is reported.

4. What a business can and can’t do

A business can:

• reply to a review once, in public, under it;
• report a review that breaks a rule;
• tell us that a statement of fact in a review is untrue (section 6).

A reply is held to rules of its own:

• Nothing that says who wrote the review beyond the name it shows — no surname, and no name at all for “Verified customer” or “Customer”.
• No personal details — not the customer’s, and nobody else’s.
• No accusing the customer of a crime.
• No bad language, links, email addresses or phone numbers.

The person who wrote the review is emailed the business’s first reply. A reply that breaks a rule is taken down and the business told why — the review itself stays up. If you think one does, tell us (section 5).

A business can’t:

• change, hide or take down a review;
• choose which reviews its booking site shows — it shows all of them, or none;
• offer anything for a review, or for changing or removing one, or pressure a customer about one.

5. Reporting a review

The business a review is about can report it from its dashboard, saying what’s wrong:

• It accuses someone of a crime
• It has bad language
• It has personal details in it
• It’s fake — not a real visit, or not by this customer
• It isn’t about the visit
• Something else

Anyone else who thinks a review or a reply breaks these rules — including someone a review is about — can email us at Contact address not published yet. Say which business’s booking site it is on and what it says, so we can find it.

A reported review stays up while we look at it, and comes down only if it breaks a rule — never for being negative. If it does, we take it down and email the person who wrote it to say why. Where the problem is in the words — an accusation, bad language, personal details, something not about the visit — they can post it again without the problem, within their 30 days. A fake review can’t be posted again.

6. “This review is untrue”

A business owner who says a statement of fact in a review is untrue can tell us, quoting the words and saying why they’re untrue. A rating, or an opinion of the visit, is the customer’s to give and can’t be untrue. This is what happens:

1. We take a first look. If the words are an opinion, the review stays up and that’s the end of it. If we haven’t looked within 2 working days, it carries on by itself.
2. We email the person who wrote the review, with the words and the reason. They can take the review down, or keep it up by giving their full name and postal address — which, they are told plainly, the business will be given.
3. If they don’t answer within 5 days, the review is taken down.
4. If they keep it up, we check the details (within 2 working days, or it carries on by itself) and give them to the business. Details that don’t look real mean the review comes down.

A business given a reviewer’s name and address may use them only to settle the matter with them or to take it to court — nothing else. We delete our copy 90 days after they were given, and keep only a record that it happened.

A review that accuses someone of a crime, or uses bad language, is dealt with under the rules (section 5), not this way. A business that keeps reporting opinions as untrue may be stopped from using it.

7. Court orders and legal requests

Court orders and other legal requests about a review come to us only through our own contact details — Contact address not published yet, or Postal address not published yet — never through a business’s dashboard. We act on a valid order ourselves.

8. When a review comes down

Reviews stay up for good. One comes down only when:

• the person who wrote it deletes it;
• it breaks a rule;
• the “this review is untrue” process ends with it coming down;
• a court orders it;
• the business stops using Retavu, or stops showing its reviews (they come back if it shows them again).

Asking us to remove your details — the “Remove my details” link on your booking — deletes your reviews too. A business removing your details at your request doesn’t remove your reviews.

9. Tips

Where the person you saw takes tips, the review page offers one. A tip is never asked for, never depends on your review, and isn’t linked to it. It goes straight to that person — never shared with anyone else, and never to the business instead.

10. Search engines

Reviews are for the people visiting a business’s booking site. We don’t mark them up as star ratings for search engines.

11. Questions

Questions about a review, or this policy: Contact address not published yet.