How Trust and Safety Works on Agoo Reviews

This guide explains how it all fits together. For one job at a time, the short articles in this topic have the exact steps.

Agoo Reviews is an open review site: anyone can read it, and anyone with a confirmed account can write a review or report something. Trust and safety is the part that keeps it honest and keeps people safe, from fake reviews to the scams that take people's money before they ever reach a business.

People Decide, the Same Way for Everyone

• Trained moderators at Agoo read every report. Nothing is removed, and no warning shows, because of how many people report something: a pile of reports never decides anything on its own.
• A report counts for its reporter's track record. Someone whose earlier reports were confirmed is read sooner; nobody's report is ever confirmed or turned down because of who they are.
• Every decision can be appealed, once, to a moderator who didn't make it.
• Nobody pays. No business can pay to remove a review, hide a warning or move up the queue.

Reviews and Pages

Reviews, replies, photos, questions and pages are reported with Report beside them. A moderator decides by the published guidelines: within 1 working day for a threat, a child's safety or extortion, and within 5 for everything else. Legal complaints have their own form. See Report a review, a photo or a page.

Check Before You Pay

Many scams never involve a shop with a sign. The money goes to a mobile money number, or to a seller who exists only on Instagram, TikTok or WhatsApp. At agoo.reviews/check, anyone can type a phone or MoMo number (any usual way of writing it), an @handle or a link to an account, a website, or a MoMo merchant name, and see:

• Which business pages list it, as a phone, WhatsApp, branch number, social account or website, and whether each business is verified (Agoo checked who owns it).
• Verified official numbers, which the business proved with a code Agoo texted to the number, or a merchant name Agoo's team checked.
• A warning, when moderators have confirmed scam reports about that exact number, account or website: how many, what kind, the months they cover, and sometimes a short summary in the moderators' own words.
• An honest "we know nothing about this yet" when nothing matches, with what to check before paying. Nothing known is never a sign of safety.

Nobody needs an account to check, and what you type is never kept. There's a limit of 30 checks an hour from one connection (60 for a signed-in account). See Check before you pay.

Scam Reports, Checked

Anyone with an Agoo Reviews account can report a scam: the number, account or website, what happened (paid and nothing arrived; pretended to be a business; a fake MoMo reversal or "sent by mistake"; an investment or loan scam; a fake job or visa; something else), their own account of it, and optionally the amount, the date and screenshots.

• Nothing is public until a moderator confirms it. A moderator can confirm it, turn it down with a reason, or ask the reporter a question.
• Numbers are never listed publicly. A warning shows only to someone who types that exact number, account or website. Anywhere else a number appears, it's masked, like 024 *** 3456.
• Reporters stay anonymous. Their names and stories are never shown. Screenshots stay with the moderators.
• Warnings fade. A warning shows while its latest confirmed report is less than 24 months old: numbers change hands.
• Reporters are kept informed by email and in their account, and can answer, appeal or take a report back.

Fake Accounts Using a Real Business's Name

When moderators confirm that a number, account or website pretended to be a business on Agoo Reviews, the real business's page shows Beware of Fake Accounts: how many fakes Agoo has confirmed and the contacts the page itself shows. The business is emailed and sees the fakes, masked, in its business area. It never changes the business's score. See fake accounts using your business's name.

When a Warning Is Wrong

Networks reissue numbers and accounts get taken over. Whoever holds a number, account or website with a warning can ask us to look again. While we look, the warning says it's disputed. If the moderator agrees, the warning lifts and the reporters are told; if not, the holder can appeal to a different moderator.

Evidence and the Police

Agoo keeps what's needed to prevent fraud and no more. Lookups are kept 30 days as counts only, never what was asked. Reports that weren't confirmed are deleted 12 months after the decision; confirmed reports are kept six years after it. Agoo answers lawful requests from the police, with every disclosure recorded, and may keep evidence longer while an investigation is open.

If You've Been Scammed

Call your network's fraud line first, then the police (18555 or 191) and the Cyber Security Authority (292, or WhatsApp 0501603111). Our guide What to Do After a Scam at agoo.reviews/guides has the details, and guides to the common scams sit beside it.