How reviews work
Reviews on Mypetzilla help buyers choose a breeder. This page explains who can write them, how we check them and how the star rating is worked out.
Who can write a review
- Only licensed breeders can be reviewed: breeders who have given us the details of their licence.
- Only a buyer the breeder confirmed they sold to can write a review. The breeder confirms the sale in the Mypetzilla conversation they had with the buyer, which is how we know the buyer is real.
- A buyer can have one review of a breeder at a time.
- Breeders, and anyone who can act for a breeder's account, cannot review themselves.
How we check reviews
Our team reads every review, and every breeder reply, before it is published. We check that it comes from a real sale through Mypetzilla and that it follows the rules below. We publish negative reviews just as we publish positive ones: we never refuse or remove a review because it is critical, and breeders cannot pay to remove or hide reviews.
We do not publish a review, or we remove it, when:
- It includes personal information, such as a name, phone number or address.
- It includes offensive, abusive or discriminatory language.
- It is not about your own experience of buying from this seller.
- We could not confirm that it is a genuine review.
- It makes serious allegations we cannot publish; report these to us or the authorities instead.
If we do not publish a review, we email the buyer to say why, and they can write a new one.
Photos
A buyer can add up to four photos of their pet. We remove hidden information, including location data, from every photo. Photos stay private until we publish the review, and our team checks them against the same rules. We delete a photo that shows a person's face, a house number, a car registration or anything else these rules do not allow; that does not change the review itself. Photos are deleted if we refuse or remove the review, or if the buyer's or the breeder's account is deleted.
No incentives
Breeders must not offer anything, such as money, discounts or gifts, in return for a review, or ask for only positive reviews. Buyers confirm that nobody offered them anything when they send a review. If we find a review was paid for or written by someone without a real purchase, we remove it and may take action against the account.
Breeder replies
A breeder can post one public reply to each published review. We check replies against the same rules before they are shown, and email the breeder when we have decided.
The star rating
A breeder's rating is the simple average of the stars in all their published reviews, rounded to one decimal place. Every published review counts equally, and reviews are listed newest first. We do not hide, reorder or weight reviews. The same rating and number of reviews are shown on the breeder's adverts and in search results.
What a review is not
A review is the buyer's own opinion. It is not a check by Mypetzilla of the breeder, the animal, its health or its parentage. The checks we have completed for a seller are shown separately on their page.
Concerns about a review
If you think a review is fake, misleading or breaks these rules, use the “Report this review” link under it. You do not need an account, and nobody is told who reported it. The review stays up while we check it against these rules; we remove it only if it breaks them, never because the breeder disagrees with it. Buyers can also ask us to remove their own review at any time. How we handle the personal information in reviews is explained in our privacy policy.