Trust and safety

Money never changes a score, an order or what a page shows. Paying businesses and everyone else get the same page, ranked the same way. Nobody can pay to hide, delay or remove a review.

Every review carries a label saying how it was checked, never that it’s true. The score is a published formula anyone can work out: how the score works. The rules are in the guidelines.

Automatic checks and an AI reading screen every review first; people decide. A moderator never changes a reviewer’s words.

• A review held for a person: within 2 working days.
• A report: within 5 working days; a threat, a child’s safety or extortion within 1 working day.
• A legal notice: acknowledged within 24 hours (at once, by email), forwarded within 48 hours; the reviewer has 5 days to answer.
• An appeal: within 5 working days, by a different moderator.
• A claim that needs a person: within 2 working days.

Working days are Monday to Friday in Ghana, not counting public holidays. One queue for everyone, oldest first.

Use Report under any review or reply, and Report this page on any page (wrong facts, closed, a duplicate, not a real place). You don’t need an account; leave an email address if you’d like our answer.

Extortion (“pay us or we post bad reviews”, or “pay us to remove one”) is urgent: report it from the page, never pay, and tell the police. A business that manages its page flags reviews the same way, and is told the outcome.

For defamation, your private data or a court order, send a legal notice. While it’s open, what it’s about can’t be deleted. We hear the reviewer’s side before we decide, and never reveal who they are without their consent or a court order.

Or write to Ardent Africa Foundation LBG, 10A Mega Street, Adentan Municipality, Accra, Ghana.

If we removed your review, or refused your claim of a page, you can ask us to look again within 30 days, from Your reviews or For businesses. A different moderator decides. One appeal per decision.

When a business games its reviews or threatens reviewers, we put a warning on its page, usually for six months. It never changes the score, and once it ends it stays on the page as history. The kinds:

• Reviews from people connected to the business
• Rewards offered for reviews
• Asking only happy customers
• Threats against reviewers
• Unusual activity
• In the news
• Pretending to be another business

During unusual activity, new reviews of the page may pause while we look. Reading carries on.

A business claims its page free, by an email at its own website’s domain, a code to the phone on the page (never one the claimant added), a registration document a moderator checks, or as the Owner of its Agoo organisation. Two people claiming one page always go to a person.

Verified business means the claim was proved with the website’s domain or a registration document, or that Agoo already knew who owns the business and verified it itself; it shows on the business’s page and as “Verified” on its cards in search and every list. Claimed means it was proved some other way. Neither changes anything about the reviews. For businesses

Agoo Reviews is run by Ardent, and some businesses listed here belong to or are connected with Ardent. Each of their pages says so in the same words:

Agoo Reviews is run by Ardent. This business belongs to or is connected with Ardent. Its reviews follow exactly the same rules.

Their reviews are checked by the same rules, their scores come from the same formula, and they’re ranked the same way: the part of Agoo that orders search and works out scores can’t even see which businesses they are.