Community guidelines

The community areas include user comments and reviews on our reports and news items on consumer.org.nz, user ratings of products and services, and other channels for users to interact.

Social media

Our social media accounts are a place for conversation, connection and sharing experiences. To ensure they are safe and constructive places for everyone, we ask that you follow some basic guidelines.

Be kind and respectful

Treat others how you’d like to be treated. We do not tolerate comments that are:

• Offensive, abusive or threatening towards others

• Defamatory or deceptive

• Violent or sexually explicit

• Racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory.

No spamming

Stay on topic. We may delete comments that aren’t relevant to the post, and will remove any marketing or commercial content. Fake accounts, bots and trolls will not be tolerated.

Don’t plagiarise

We love it when you share our content but please credit us by tagging or including our handle in your post.

Tell us if you’re concerned

We take the safety of our social media community seriously. If you see something you’re concerned about, let us know via private message, or email social@consumer.org.nz.

We will remove any posts that breach these guidelines and will block anyone repeatedly breaching the guidelines.

Our website

Website moderation

Our website is designed with review, comment and share functionality to allow interaction between users on current topics of consumer interest.

Consumer NZ may review contributions and moderate, where necessary, to maintain focus, assist with references to our information, remove possible defamatory or abusive comments, and to ensure that our guidelines are respected.

We encourage in-depth exploration of important consumer issues among users, and our experts may join in occasionally to add new information and perspective. However, our staff will not always be available for extended dialogue.

We reserve the right to remove or edit any comments from consumer.org.nz that we believe breach our guidelines, and to remove user access rights to consumer.org.nz where we think it is necessary.

Website rules

Show respect to others
Be polite and respect different points of view. Please do not swear or use insulting or offensive language. This applies to posts or replies, and any contact with Consumer NZ staff or other Consumer NZ users. Be aware that what you consider ironic or witty may not always seem so to others.

Stay on the topic
Please ensure that your posts are relevant to the topic under discussion.

No commercial promotion
You are welcome to post your views on specific products and services on consumer.org.nz but you cannot use consumer.org.nz to promote or advertise any products or services. If you have a commercial or financial interest in a product or service under discussion, you should disclose this in every post you make.

Use your judgement
We can't vouch for the accuracy or quality of comments posted on consumer.org.nz. You must use your own judgement to assess the usefulness of what you read there.

Copyright
Post only material that is yours, or material that you have the express permission of the copyright owner to post.

Safety
We do not allow comments that promote unsafe practices or information.

No spamming or malicious links
The same or similar messages posted more than once may be considered spam and removed. Please do not post links to objectionable or irrelevant sites, or malicious code.

Reporting abuse
If you see a comment you believe breaches these guidelines, please notify us by emailing info@consumer.org.nz or call customer services on 0800 266 786.

Privacy and legal matters

Privacy
When you submit a comment on consumer.org.nz, your username is shown with your comment. You can set up or change your username in your My Consumer profile at any time.

We do not publicly display any other personal information on consumer.org.nz. We strongly advise that you do not post your email address, home address, or phone number as part of your contributions on consumer.org.nz. See our privacy policy for more information.

Use of your posts
Any messages you post on consumer.org.nz may be used by Consumer NZ. We reserve the right to copy or quote them here or in other media.

New Zealand laws apply
New Zealand laws apply to contributions to our community. Please do not suggest or encourage illegal activity.