Moderation Standards

1. Moderation principle

PayProof AU is built around documents, dates, amounts, identity checks, and payment status. It is not a place for abuse, pile-ons, gossip, personal grudges, or broad claims about groups of people.

The safest public launch standard is simple: publish only factual payment information that is supported by records, and hold back anything that is unclear, overly personal, discriminatory, speculative, or legally sensitive.

2. Evidence we look for

• Invoice, quote, purchase order, statement of work, contract, delivery record, job completion record, or other proof that work or goods were supplied.
• Due date, payment terms, reminders, follow-up attempts, written payment promises, dispute correspondence, receipts, or redacted bank evidence.
• ABN, ACN, company name, business name, trading name, person or job-contact name, director or officeholder context, and public-record links where relevant.
• Clear connection between the reporter, the work, the invoice, the named business or person, and the payment status.

3. What can be published

• Neutral summaries of invoice date, due date, payment status, days late, amount or amount range, report count, evidence type, and verification status.
• Business identity context, such as ABN, ACN, business name, trading name, registration status, and related-entity checks where sourced appropriately.
• Person or job-contact names only where they are directly relevant to identifying who booked the work or who the reporter dealt with, are supported by evidence, and are presented as context rather than blame.
• Director or officeholder names only where they come from official public records, are directly relevant to identifying the entity, and are presented as context rather than blame.
• Public-record links or summaries where they are relevant and labelled as context only.
• A moderated business response, correction note, dispute label, or resolution update.

4. What will not be published

• Claims that a person is a scammer, thief, fraudster, criminal, liar, or dishonest unless those words are part of an official public record and legally reviewed.
• Race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, age, sex, gender, sexuality, family, health, or other protected-attribute comments.
• Threats, insults, personal abuse, doxxing, private addresses, full phone numbers, private emails, identity documents, tax file numbers, full bank details, passwords, or unrelated third-party information.
• Reports with insufficient evidence, unclear entity matching, genuine grey-area disputes, unresolved quality-of-work disputes, or signs of retaliation by a competitor.
• Duplicate reports designed to inflate a rating, coordinated pile-ons, incentivised reports that are not disclosed, or reports submitted by someone without direct knowledge.

5. Ratings and risk signals

Ratings and scores should be based on objective payment information, including number of reports, verified status, days late, unresolved exposure, payment status, and evidence quality.

Scores must not be based on personal identity, protected attributes, rumours, nationality, race, religion, family background, or stereotypes.

6. Verification levels

• Private intake: evidence received but not public.
• Evidence review: documents are being checked.
• Reply window open: the named business or affected person may respond before verification.
• Verified: key facts are supported by evidence and publication wording has passed moderation.
• Disputed: the named business or affected person has challenged the report or provided contrary evidence.
• Resolved: payment or settlement evidence shows the matter has been resolved.
• Rejected: the report is unsupported, unsafe, abusive, irrelevant, or unsuitable for publication.

7. Human review

Automated checks may assist with formatting, ABN validation, duplicate detection, and risk flags, but publication decisions should include human review before a report is verified or made public.

8. Conflicts and abuse prevention

• Competitor reports, anonymous pile-ons, unusually similar submissions, paid submissions, or revenge-style reports should receive extra review.
• Reporters may remain anonymous publicly, but PayProof AU should privately know enough to assess whether the reporter has direct knowledge of the invoice or payment issue.
• Users who submit false, abusive, discriminatory, or unlawful material may be blocked and their reports may be rejected or removed.