These guidelines (the “Guidelines”) apply to any use of BunkerTrust’s websites by our community, such as bunkertrust.com, app.bunkertrust.com, blog.bunkertrust.com and similar (“our Website”). We refer to users of our rating system throughout the Guidelines as “you” and “your”. Examples of users can be, but is not limited to Captains, Chief Engineers, Surveyors, Operators, Technical Managers. The denominating requirement is that the users have been involved in the specific delivery of marine fuel for which ratings are given.

Terminology:
Bunkers is the marine fuel delivered to the receiving vessel
Bunker Barge is the vessel supplying marine fuel to the receiving vessel.
Review or Rating is the feedback given to a Bunker Barge or Company on the basis of the Service Experience.

1.  When can you write a review?

1.1  You can write a review on BunkerTrust about a Company or Bunker Barge if you have had a buying or service experience with that Company or Bunker Barge, which means that:

• you have purchased a product or service from a company, an organisation, a web service, etc. (“the Company”), or
• you have placed an order with the Company, or
• you can document through a Bunker Delivery Note, Bunker Delivery Receipt, Order Confirmation, Invoice or similar that the specific bunker barge or Company has delivered bunkers to a receiving vessel under your management.
• you can otherwise document your use of the Company’s or bunker barge’s service, including via correspondence or other interaction with the Company.

(these are collectively referred to as “Service Experience” in the following.)

1.2  You may only write about your own personal Service Experience. You are not permitted to write a review about somebody else’s Service Experience.

1.3  You may not write a review about a Company or bunker barge you have previously owned, currently own, or if you are an executive or employee of that Company, or work for the Company. Similarly, you may not write a review about a direct competitor to the Company you own, are employed by or work for.

1.4  Your Service Experience with the Company must have occurred within the last 12 months. This means within 12 months from the date on which you write the review. If you have signed up for an ongoing service, the Service Experience begins immediately upon sign up and continues until the service is no longer provided by the Company. You are free to write a review immediately after sign up or at any point up to 12 months after the service ends.

1.5  To write a review on BunkerTrust, you need a user profile and account or be employed by a shipowner with a profile (such as for example a Captain, a Chief Engineer, an Operator or a Surveyor). This must be attached to a valid email address that we can use to contact you directly.

1.6 The review/rating can either be done through the BunkerTrust validated process, through a third party or through API.

2.  What should you write about?

2.1  Your review should be about your Service Experience.

2.2  Your review must reflect your own or your affiliated vessels’ Service Experience from within the last 12 months. You are encouraged to be specific and factual, and include relevant points about your Service Experience, for example the customer service and other aspects such as the ordering process and delivery.

2.3  Our Website is for service reviews, not product reviews or reviews about website layout. However, it is acceptable to evaluate the purchased product’s quantity and quality (was the product within the quality specifications etc.) – provided that your review also mentions your Service Experience.

2.4  You are not permitted to submit reviews or ratings if you or affiliate vessels have been offered an incentive by the Company to write a review. Incentives include the Company offering you a gift, reward, discount or advantage for writing a review about the Company on our Website.

3.  When do we ask you to provide proof of your Service Experience, and what should you send us?

If we need to verify your review, we may contact you and ask for documentation that shows that you have had a Service Experience with the Company or bunker barge that you have reviewed. We therefore recommend that you keep such documentation for 12 months from the date of your review.

We may have pass on your reference number and documentation to the Company, unless you explicitly ask us not to.

4.  When can you edit your review?

You can update or edit your review at any time by sending an email to rating@bunkertrust.com

5.  When do we remove your review?

5.1  We do not censor reviews, but will in specific cases add additional data and information to a review/rating. Additionally we employ 3 sets of safeguards, which will help us validate the authenticity of the data provided:

• We run automatic checks for the proximity of 2 vessels at the time of bunker delivery. If this check fails it doesn’t mean that the rating cannot be approved, but will be manually checked by the site admin.
• We check for foul language and ensure that discriminating statements are excluded.
• We have build in check to validate the factual information given. These factual checks are spot checks and cannot guarantee the factual accuracy of all data given. Additionally please see our Terms & Conditions.

As a general rule, we do not remove reviews from our Website. However, we reserve the right to remove reviews that we determine violate these Guidelines, our Terms & Conditions* and/or applicable laws or regulations, or reviews that are inappropriate for an online review community. Examples of when we may remove your review include, but are not limited to:

5.2  You can be asked to change your review if it has been flagged for any of the following reasons and we agree or cannot reject the report as unfounded:

• Your review contains language that is accusatory and likely to be viewed as inflammatory, includes defamatory statements, or otherwise violates our Guidelines or applicable laws
• Your review contains violent or coarse language, or has a sexist or racial character
• The content of your review appears to be solely concerned with ethical, political and/or value-laden opinion, as opposed to a Service Experience
• Your review includes personal information about another individual, such as a person’s name, address, phone number, email address, credit card information or any other information that could be used to track, identify, contact or impersonate someone
• Your review includes promotional references (including links) 
• Your buying experience cannot be validated, which means that we cannot confirm that a transaction has taken place or we have not been able to reach the sender of the rating for a confirmation of the buying experience.
• Your review contains personal email addresses or links, or
• Your review is not a review about your Service Experience because it exclusively describes the functionality of the purchased product or of the website’s layout.

6.  When do we block your account and what does that mean?

We may block your account if you are misusing our Website or services. This can include, but is not limited to, excessive use of the notification option (flagging a high number of reviews without justification), writing fabricated reviews, threatening or abusive behaviour (see clause 11 below), spamming our Website with marketing material, or violating these Guidelines or our Terms & Conditions.

If we block your account, it will not be possible for you to sign in to our Website and use our services, including writing and notifying us about reviews. Your user profile will still exist and your reviews will stay online, but you will be unable to use our services. If your account is blocked and you want to delete your profile or reviews, you can send an email to admin@BunkerTrust.com and we’ll assist you.

7.  When do we delete your profile and account?

As a general rule, we don’t delete user profiles and accounts. However, we reserve the right to delete your profile and account if we believe that you are violating or have violated our Terms & Conditions, Guidelines and/or applicable laws, or if your profile is offensive or inappropriate.

Examples of when we may delete your user profile and account include, but are not limited to:

• It is not attached to a valid email address, including if the provided email address has expired or is no longer accessible by you. We need you to sign up to our services using a permanent, personal email address because we may need to get in touch with you. This means that we do not accept the use of temporary or disposable email addresses. If you have used such an email to create an account then we will delete your user profile and account.
• Your user profile contains an offensive or inappropriate picture or username.
• Your user profile or account has been used to create fabricated reviews or otherwise misuse our Website or services.
• You have created multiple user profiles. You may only have one user profile on BunkerTrust. If you create more than one user profile we will ask you which one you want to keep and delete the other profiles. If you don’t get back to us within the specified timeframe, we will remove all but one of your profiles at our discretion.   

If your user profile and account is deleted, the reviews attached to that user profile and account will also be deleted.

8.  Misuse of the notification function

All BunkerTrust users can notify us about reviews that violate these Guidelines (or applicable laws). However, we consider misuse of the notification function a material breach of our Terms & Conditions.

Examples of misuse include, but are not limited to:

• Carrying out unfounded or incorrect notification of many or all of the positive reviews of a Company or bunker barge that you have had a negative Service Experience with
• Carrying out unfounded or incorrect notification of many or all of the negative reviews of a Company or bunker barge that you have had a positive Service Experience with, or have a special relationship to, or
• Notifying us about the same review multiple times when it has already been assessed in accordance with our internal quality process, except in certain exceptional circumstances.

9.  When do we move your review from one company profile to another?

As a general rule, we don’t move reviews from one company profile or bunker barge profile to another.

But if we are notified by the Company, bunker barge or another user that your review has been left on the wrong company profile, we will ask you which company you intended to review. If you left your review on the wrong company profile, we will move your review to the correct company’s profile page on our Website.

We also reserve the right to move your review from one company’s profile page to another in special circumstances and to avoid confusion – such as, for example, where a company is rebranded or in situations where you have not responded to our contact requests.

10.  Fabricated reviews

Our aim is to create and maintain a best-in-class online review community where you can freely share your Service Experiences with the Company and bunker barge and thereby provide an informative and fair view of the Company’s services.

We use customised and advanced detection software to identify fabricated reviews on our platform. To support the software, we have a dedicated Compliance Team who safeguard trust by protecting our platform from fabricated reviews or other service misuse, and combat fraudulent behaviour.

We have a zero-tolerance policy against fabricated reviews. Trust is crucial to us and we cannot under any circumstances accept fabricated reviews. This includes reviews that are not an expression of a genuine Service Experience, for example because they are created by or on behalf of the Company.

We consider the creation of fabricated reviews a material breach of the Terms & Conditions you accept when you create a user profile and account on our Website.

Reviews that we deem false, fabricated or similar will be removed and can lead to the immediate blocking of your account and filing of a report with the relevant authorities. We also reserve the right to inform our community about any domains reviewed on BunkerTrust that have attracted a high number of fabricated reviews.

If you have evidence that a review is fabricated, we encourage you to notify us through our whistleblower function by sending an email to: admin@BunkerTrust.com.

We take all reports of fabricated reviews seriously and investigate them. As this is not an easy task, we ask you to provide us with as much information as possible, including documentation showing why you believe a review is fabricated.

11.  Threats against BunkerTrust employees and companies

We don’t accept threats against or abuse of BunkerTrust employees. Further, we don’t tolerate threats against or blackmail of other companies by our users. This includes users requesting monetary compensation in return for editing or deleting their BunkerTrust review(s).

We cannot accept such behaviour and we regard it as a material breach of the Terms & Conditions agreed between each user and BunkerTrust. This can lead to us immediately blocking your account and filing a report with the relevant authorities.

12.  Enforcement

We are committed to providing businesses and users with a fair and open online experience. We work extremely hard to maintain the integrity of our review community and the online review industry generally, nurturing a culture of trust and transparency and celebrating those businesses and users who use reviews to improve customer service standards and make the online retail environment more fair and open for everyone.

We reserve the right to enforce these Guidelines if we observe violations of them, or of applicable laws or regulations. The same applies if we observe behaviour that we believe or suspect to be inappropriate.

13.  Got questions, need more information or have feedback?

We welcome your questions and feedback about our services and these Guidelines. Please email us at: admin@BunkerTrust.com.

14.  Changes to these Guidelines

We may at any time and without notice make changes to these Guidelines. We will notify you about such changes via our Website. You agree that your continued use of the Website or our services after we have posted a new version of these Guidelines constitutes your acceptance of them.