Compensated Reviews & Reciprocal Reviews


BPN does not accept reviews that have been posted in exchange for a favor, discount, or any other type of compensation.

  • A compensated review is a review of a school or business that was posted in exchange for a discount, gift, or credit, including:
    • a review of a school that encourages parents to post reviews in order to fulfill parent volunteer hours
    • a review of a school that offers a tuition discount for new applicants that mention the review
    • a review of a business that offers a discount or additional services to clients that post a review

  • A reciprocal review is a review of a business that was posted by someone who expects to receive a favorable review of their own business in return, for example:
    • A parent subscriber who is a member of a business booster group that posts reviews of fellow members
    • A  business owner who posts a review of another business as a parent, and in turn receives a review of their own business

Why we don't accept these: BPN's mission is to be a helpful resource for parents. Parents submit reviews to help fellow parents make better decisions about local services, businesses and schools, not because they expect to benefit from the review. That's why reviews on BPN are less biased and more reliable than the ones found on other consumer review sites.  When reviews are posted in exchange for a favor, gift, or any other type of compensation, or on behalf of a reciprocal review group, they diminish the value of all the reviews on BPN's website. They have less value for parents since they are biased, and they are counter to BPN's not-for-profit mission.

If we find that a review was posted in exchange for any type of compensation, we unsubscribe the person who posted. We remove all reviews for the business or school that was reviewed, and we don't accept further posts about that business or school. See Deceptive Reviews for more information.