PortlandOregon.com is the most comprehensive Portland website for the exchange of information on all aspects of life in Portland.

We believe that the effective exchange of information at a local level strengthens our city and the communities throughout our metro. We also believe that promoting and supporting local Portland businesses strengthens our local economy and thus our community.

PortlandOregon.com is designed with a proprietary, Portland-specific search algorithm which allows Portlanders to search for Portland businesses, events, organizations, places of interest, news and community information more effectively.

We have designed PortlandOregon.com for all Portlanders!

There are over 5000 business categories to search from, over 500 community pages to participate in, thousands of places of interest to review and research, and dozens of local discussions about all aspects of life in Portland to join at anytime! Then add the most comprehensive lost and found search in the country combined with Portland's most dynamic events calendar and photo gallery and you have a local website with something for everyone! Invite your friends, family and colleagues!

PDXPERTs are people who use PortlandOregon.com extensively. We take the designation seriously and provide the recognition to our users who have played a critical role in shaping PortlandOregon.com.

For more information about our PDXPERT services and designation, visit http://www.portlandoregon.com/pdxpert

If you think you or some you know should be recognized as a PDXPERT, please send us an email telling us why to pdxperts@portlandoregon.com.

First you need to have an email address. If you have an email address all you have to do to sign up is choose a unique screen name and supply your name and zip code. That's it! Go to: www.portlandoregon.com/signup

Once you have completed our user sign up process, we will send you an email with a special confirmation link that will verify your email address. Click that link to verify your account and finalize your registration. You can also copy and paste that link into your browser if you prefer. You may want to check your junk mail in the event you don't see this email soon after signing up. It will arrive in your email not long after you submit your initial sign up information.

If you would like to change any portion of your profile or your account preferences (receiving email or newsletters), simply log in and click on the "My Account" link that appears at the top of any page on the site. You will be able to edit your profile or account preferences here anytime you like.

Your email is found under your profile which can be accessed from the "my account" link at the top of the homepage when you are logged in. If you would like to update your email you can edit it in your profile by clicking on the "edit your profile" link and changing the email address field to reflect the email address you now want your account assigned to. Look for the confirmation link once you do this. Until we confirm your new email through your receipt and activation of our email registration link, your profile will not be able to be accessed again.

We allow you to display your first name and last initial or to choose a screen name if you prefer more anonymity. If you have additional questions about the display or dissemination of personal information please see our privacy policy. Users who want to receive PDXPERT status will need to allow the display of their first name and last initial.

We do not allow a single person to have multiple accounts. If we find that you have multiple accounts we will delete both accounts and consider banning you from future use of PortlandOregon.com.

If you are logged in, click on the "My Account" link in the upper right hand of any page. On the left navigation of your account page you will see a link titled "My Friends". From there you can remove a particular friend from your account.

For any review, discussion post, business page or place of interest page you wish to share on your Facebook or twitter page you can simply click the Facebook share or Twitter "retweet" buttons for that particular post or page. You can also use the "share" button which also has links to share that post or page on Facebook or Twitter.

To cancel your PortlandOregon.com membership, please click here.

We would love to hear why you are leaving. We are constantly striving to make PortlandOregon.com better; your feedback can be integral to evolving the site.

Whether your friends live in Portland or beyond, we welcome everyone. We are calling on all Portlanders to build the country's best, largest community portal. The more Portlanders who use PortlandOregon.com, the more valuable the content will be.

We have created several tools to make inviting your friends easier. Go to your account page by clicking on the "my account" link on any page. Once there, click the "invite friends" link. From there you can import your friends from your address books in Gmail, Hotmail, AOL mail, Yahoo mail or Facebook. If you prefer you can also input your friends' emails one by one from the "invite friends" link on your account profile page. We have created an invitation message you can use or customize as you wish once you have input your friends' emails.

Reminder: In an effort to provide locals with only local information we filter all our user's reviews, comments and postings by their location so that if another user only wants to read reviews from Portlanders regarding their experience with a specific contractor they will be able to do so.

Not everyone writes a helpful review. Because some reviews aren't helpful to others or violate the guidelines and terms of our website we always reserve the right to remove a review. In some cases a user's review has been flagged as inappropriate by enough users for our staff to consider it inappropriate. In some cases the review is considered unhelpful by enough users to warrant removal by our staff. We want to give everyone the opportunity to improve the effectiveness of their reviews so we allow you access to all your reviews when logged in if you decide you want to edit them for public consumption.

We allow all registered users to add limited business information in the event a business has yet to register for membership. This includes the following business information:
Business Name, Address, Cross Streets, Neighborhood, Phone and User Submitted Photos. Our staff will verify submittal before allowing our search engine to index the information.

We recommend that you meet the minimum requirements of the form. If you don't know any of the inputs please look them up. Thanks!

If you want to upload a photo to a business page please follow these guidelines:
1) Photos should be of the business itself. Interior or exterior photos of the business are what we and other users are looking for. Add them with you in the picture! If you are submitting a close up, submit it to your profile page if another user can't tell where you are in the picture.
2) Photos should not be reflective of your review. If you didn't like a restaurant, taking a picture of yourself with your thumb down and loading it to the business page is a violation of our guidelines and grounds for resignation of your membership.
3) Captions of pictures should reflect the picture or business name.

A Saved Favorite is similar to a bookmark. We allow you to save your favorite businesses and places of interest in your account and profile. It also gives that particular business or place of interest a fan score for each user who saves it as a favorite. Fan scores allows other users to see the popularity of a particular business or place of interest. Share your favorite businesses and places of interest with your friends or family. If you have folks visiting Portland, just point them to your profile page (which will display your favorites) for recommendations on where to eat, what to visit, where to stay, etc.!

Our search results are based on an algorithm that we have created to deliver more intuitive, locally relevant results. Our algorithm is constantly changing as we strive to deliver Portlanders with the best results for business, activity, community, news, discussion and member searches. We believe we have the best set of search filters of any website delivering locally relevant content to Portlanders.

Sponsored results are paid advertisements from local businesses. In order for a sponsored result to be displayed, a user's search must yield the result through use of our standard algorithms and search methodologies. In other words, we don't display sponsored results unless they relate to a user's search.

Let's cut to the chase. WE HATE SPAM and WE TAKE PRIVACY VERY SERIOUSLY!

Please take the time to review our Privacy Policy. Our privacy policy outlines what we do with your personal information.
If you ever receive spam from another PortlandOregon.com user or business member which is abusive or violates our Terms of Service, we ask that you forward that message to our staff immediately at concerns@portlandoregon.com

A good review is one that represents a personal experience, including details about the experience as well as suggestions or local tips on the business or place of interest. Specifics are good, facts are imperative and ultimately a good review is written for the benefit of another Portlander who is considering that particular business or visiting the place of interest. Think about what you would want to hear about a restaurant, a therapist, a plumber or a trail and try to give insights for helping others make an informed decision.

You can review any local business, service provider or place of interest in Portland and the surrounding cities. Review a realtor. Review an Electrician. Review a Restaurant, Coffee Shop or Bar. Review a trail, a playground, a community center or even a bus stop!

No. Do not review your own business, a business you work for or have worked for or one which you have any interest in.

Sadly it would be against our business advertising guidelines, which we ask our business members to follow. You shouldn't take anything from a business in exchange for a review of any kind. If you write a review after receiving a gift or discount you should disclose that you received special consideration from that business. We want you to have great experiences at whatever local business you visit, but we only want honest, unbiased reviews on PortlandOregon.com.

Of course! We want to hear about the good and the bad. Our goal is to provide Portlanders with a forum to offer insight and advice on where to go and where you may not want to go, who to employ and who you may want to think twice about. As long as you represent the facts then your review is welcome.

PLEASE NOTE! Posting false information can have legal implications with regard to slander. We recommend you think seriously about what you post. Making slanderous posts is a serious issue. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel

We do not remove reviews very often, but in the event a review doesn't follow our review guidelines we consider removal of the review or a request for editing from the user. Here are our review guidelines:

• Reviews that do not abide by our Terms of Service or Privacy Policy will be removed.
• Short or empty reviews. A review without text or with little helpful content isn't of help to others and we may elect to remove it. Take the time to write at least a couple sentences about your experience.
• Personal attacks of any kind are not tolerated. No matter how frustrated you may be with a business owner or service provider remain objective and professional. There is no place for reviews which are personally directed at an individual in a way that is offensive, hateful, slanderous or bigoted.
• Reviews must be unbiased and represent an objective firsthand experience
• Reviews cannot be anecdotal, reflective of hearsay or based on a second hand experience.
• Reviews should be relevant to the place or business being reviewed.
• Reviews should not reflect the opinions or beliefs of a business, rather the experience you had using their services. Even if you think their political beliefs led to the service you received you should remain objective and write a review that is reflective of a normal experience using that business or visiting that place of interest.
• Plagiarism is not acceptable. Write your own review using your own words based on your own personal experience.

No. Sorry. Reviews of PortlandOregon.com business members and non-members are treated the exact same way. Our Review Guidelines and Terms of Service apply to all reviews and businesses.

Business members are given the option to choose the first review that shows up on their business page and they are given the ability to communicate with reviewers who have agreed to allow them to communicate with them.

You are also given the ability as a paid business member to respond to reviews. It is strongly advised you read our advice on responding to reviews.

Please remember, negative reviews are normal and very much a part of doing business. Again, it can be virtually impossible to make everyone happy. We do recommend that you look for constructive feedback in less than positive reviews and track your reviews to see if there is a theme that is repeated ("takes too long to be seated", "Steak is amazing but their fries need work", "they are great for cosmetic remodeling, but watch out if you have them remodel your kitchen").

PortlandOregon.com allows business owner's to display their favorite review at the top of the reviews which are posted on their business page. All other reviews are displayed in the order they were submitted by our users.

Reviews may not be featured on your business page for a few different reasons:

We track all reviews on PortlandOregon.com. We allow our user community to decide which reviews are helpful and which are not. If a review receives 10 "not helpful" votes by 10 different users of PortlandOregon.com it will be flagged in our system and we will give our editors the option to remove it or continuing displaying it. The reviews can still be found on the reviewer's personal profile page however.

A review may also be removed from your business page for violating our "Review Guidelines" or our Terms of Service.

A user may have removed his or her review. We give every user the option to remove their reviews at anytime. While they may have a good experience one day, they may have a bad experience the next and we afford them the option to edit or remove their reviews at anytime. *We do however retain all reviews in our system.

It wouldn't be fair if we didn't let a business owner weigh in on a review of their business if they wanted to thank someone or felt the review didn't factually represent a customer's experience. We are one big community here in Portland and we think that communication (remember you do have the option to block communication between you and a business if you choose to) can be good for a business so we allow a business to reach out to a user who reviewed their business in accordance with our guidelines for that communication.

A Place of Interest is essentially anything in Portland with a physical location or presence. This includes any place from Forest Park to the bus stop at NE 27^th and NE Sumner to the playground at any park or school throughout the Portland metro.

We have created a gigantic directory of Places of Interest throughout the Portland metro and beyond Portland in areas throughout Oregon. If you don't see an intersection, a trail or a bus line on the website, add it!

Any photo so long as it abides by our Terms of Service and reflects the Place itself someway in the image.

YES, YES and YES! That is why we designed this aspect of the site. Think of it as a giant Wiki that we can all build together!

PortlandOregon.com's Chit Chat page is a place for users to discuss and chat about any topic relating to Portland and sometimes Events or News beyond Portland. We have also posted your comments and conversations on the related Place of Interest and/or Community pages on PortlandOregon.com so users can view conversations from the Places and Communities in Portland they relate to all over the website!!

Enjoy honest, candid, real discussions from Portlanders in and beyond your immediate community! You comments can be read by anyone visiting PortlandOregon.com.

• Start a conversation about an event or regular occurrence in your community? Are you seeing more graffiti and want to discuss what can be done with others in your community?
• Do you think your neighborhood should coordinate a park clean up and want to make the suggestion to others in your community? Then start a conversation about it on your community page
• Do you want to join other sports fans that are eager to talk about how Brandon Roy is leading the Blazers? Start a conversation if you think Forest Park should open up its trails to single track Mountain Biking and want to discuss the hotly debated topic with others?
• Start a conversation if you think Forest Park should open up its trails to single track Mountain Biking and want to discuss the hotly debated topic with others?
• Do you want to get the word out about an upcoming event or grand opening and ask others for feedback or whether they plan on coming? Then start a conversation about it!
• Speak up about a new Restaurant or Business in Portland!
• Ask a local question and see other users respond or answer someone else's question by posting a comment.

WE BELIEVE GOOD COMMUNICATION IN OUR COMMUNITY DRIVES A HEALTHIER COMMUNITY!

WE (OUR STAFF) REGULARLY JOIN OR START CONVERSATIONS AND POST THEM TO OUR OWN NEIGHBORHOOD PAGES!

We built the "chit chat" page or what we commonly refer to as the Conversations page to allow Portlanders to start and participate in conversations on virtually any topic. We created a categorization and a framework that allows our users to post a new discussion topic related to a specific Place of Interest or Community in Portland to that particular page on PortlandOregon.com. In other words, if you are excited to go to the Japanese Garden this coming spring and want to check in to see what others have been talking about relative to the garden, you can go to the Japanese Garden page and read, start or join conversations about the garden that are dated based on the last participants comments.

Your account may be suspended if you participate in any of the following ways:

• Posting comments which offer little context or value to the conversation.
• Posting hate speech of any kind (Racial Slurs, Bigotry, etc.)
• Posting any content or material which is personally identifiable (full names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, website links, etc.)
• Promotional content of any kind related to a business, event or personality not associated with the conversation specifically.
• Posting any content which is off-topic.
• Start your own conversation if necessary, but don't post to another when what you are offering isn't relevant.
• Posting any vicious or lewd comments, including but not limited to, name-calling.
• Threatening anyone with harm. Threats are not acceptable, ever.
• Argumentative fighting or harassment of another user.

Stay on topic, be constructive, humorous, helpful, insightful, polite and even debate another user if necessary. This is our community, this in large part is their voice, so keep it constructive and be diplomatic if necessary.

An open forum can be an absolute blast so stay within these guidelines and we assure you, you will enjoy the threads and conversations whether just a reader or as a participant. Thank you!

Reviews may not be featured on your business page for a few different reasons:
We track all reviews on PortlandOregon.com. We allow our user community to decide which reviews are helpful and which are not. If a review receives 10 "not helpful" votes by 10 different users of PortlandOregon.com it will be flagged in our system and we will give our editors the option to remove it or continuing displaying it. The reviews can still be found on the reviewer's personal profile page however.

A review may also be removed from your business page for violating our "Review Guidelines" or our Terms of Service.

A user may have removed his or her review. We give every user the option to remove their reviews at anytime. While they may have a good experience one day, they may have a bad experience the next and we afford them the option to edit or remove their reviews at anytime. *We do however retain all reviews in our system.

You may not always agree with the reviews posted about your business or the claims made in the reviews. Please know that not every review your business receives will be positive. The old adage, "you can't make everyone happy" is true with consumers in Portland and our user community. You likely know this already as a business owner. What we can tell you is that our users know to look at the average review rating you have for all reviews received and people seek advice in numbers, so work to receive strong reviews from all your customers and you will likely see the bad reviews to be few in number and infrequently received.

ADVICE!
One reason we built PortlandOregon.com to include consumer reviews was because we, as a small business know the value in getting feedback. Our system is designed to advocate local businesses and local commerce while helping local businesses better address consumer demands and expectations. Getting feedback is imperative to strengthening any business so take the negative reviews with a grain of salt, but also look at them as an opportunity to resolve a customer's perception or experience and make it better. Consumers like to be heard and we assure you that if you keep an open mind you will likely gain some allegiant customers by constructively accepting their negative feedback and working to resolve some of the circumstances that made it so.

We do not take sides in two party disagreements. If you believe a review violates our Review Guidelines then you should bring it to our attention by flagging the review and noting your business name, contact info. and the reviewer's name. An example of a reason to flag a review would be that it contains a racial slur, describes a second hand experience or makes a threat towards an individual. We will rarely remove a review. We do however encourage a business owner to contact a reviewer through our site (if that reviewer has agreed to be contacted by the business owner) or post a public response to the review in an effort to clear up what may be a misunderstanding.

Sure. Other sites discourage this, but we believe that good communication between you and your customers (even those who already love you!) is imperative to running a successful business. We know that in Portland word of mouth can be everything so giving your allegiant customers a louder voice is how we help you promote yourself!

A few things you should consider doing to encourage your customers to review your business are:

Post some of your PortlandOregon.com reviews in your place of business or on your business materials. Other customers will know where they can go to supplement those positive reviews and learn more about your business while also staying in touch regarding any events, sales or promotions you may be running.

If you have yet to establish your business account, we would encourage you to do so. By becoming a member of PortlandOregon.com you are given numerous tools you can use to communicate with past customers and our user community as a whole. When a review is submitted about your business, you are immediately notified of the review by email. We also allow you to control the first Review on your page, upload your business description, slogan, logos, photos, hours, specials and the list goes on. In addition to a customizable webpage your business is featured at the top of category searches relating to your business and any other keywords you may have chosen to describe your business.

We are truly sorry, but we won't remove any business from our website. Portlanders (consumers) have the right to talk about or review any business they like and the law supports this.

As a company who works with the public your best bet is to politely engage with your customers whether they are critical or not.

We place each business which shares a specific category search or keyword search at the top as often as we do for any other business within the same category or with the same keyword. You will notice that we have developed PortlandOregon.com so that our paid members are shuffled to the top based on page visits. If you share a category search or keyword with one other business you will see your business alternate the first position with that business each time you refresh the page or visit the page. We aren't aware of any other site that offers this. Most other sites take the highest bidder or display results in alphabetical order or based on when the advertiser signed up.

No. Sorry. Reviews of PortlandOregon.com business members and non-members are treated the exact same way. Our Review Guidelines and Terms of Service apply to all reviews and businesses.

Business members are given the option to choose the first review that shows up on their business page and they are given the ability to communicate with reviewers who have agreed to allow them to communicate with them.

You are also given the ability as a paid business member to respond to reviews. It is strongly advised you read our advice on responding to reviews.

Please remember, negative reviews are normal and very much a part of doing business. Again, it can be virtually impossible to make everyone happy. We do recommend that you look for constructive feedback in less than positive reviews and track your reviews to see if there is a theme that is repeated ("takes too long to be seated," Steak is amazing but their fries need work," "they are great for cosmetic remodeling, but watch out if you have them remodel your kitchen.").

Here is a list of what you can control as a Paid-Business Member.

• Business Name
• Address
• Neighborhood
• Cross Streets
• Business District
• Phone Number
• Secondary Phone and Fax Numbers
• Website Addresses (think SEO!)
• Email Addresses
• Hours of Operation
• Payments Accepted (Visa, MasterCard, etc.)
• Business History Information
• Business Description
• Business Slogan
• Products Offered
• Awards Received
• Certifications and Licenses
• Ownership and Personnel Information
• Amenities
• Customizable Promotion and Announcement Header
• PDXWEEKLY.com compatibility for Sales and Promotions.
• Photo Upload
• Logo Upload

For businesses who are not members, users or our editors upload their business information.

This includes:

• Business Name
• Address
• Cross Streets
• Neighborhood
• Phone
• User Submitted Photos.

Websites like PortlandOregon.com that allow consumers to review businesses and service providers are protected under federal law by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act).

If you aren't already familiar with the statute, you can start with Zeran v. AOL, 129 F. 3 327, 330 (4th Cir. 1997). Other websites like CitySearch.com, MerchantCircle.com and Yelp.com have proven that consumer reviews are widely regarded and protected.

Defamation suits can be extremely expensive and very difficult to win. This may be obvious, but they also focus attention on the very issue you would prefer others ignore. You should also know that you run the risk of seeing an Anti-SLAPP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation) statute which can result in having to pay the other side's attorney's fees.

OUR ADVICE:

Try constructively addressing the reviewer and if they aren't responsive or don't allow contact with the business owner, post a constructive response to their post. We have suggestions on how to handle this. SEE: Responding to Reviews.

We encourage businesses to respond to reviews. Your vocal customers can be some of your best advocates. Responding to user reviews can also be a great way to resolve something that one of your customers could have been happier with. We allow paid business-owners to post responses to user reviews publically and through direct communication with the user (if the user agrees to it).
Responding to user reviews should always be handled with caution and careful consideration for how the user and other users of PortlandOregon.com receive and perceive your public or private response. We STRONGLY encourage you to be constructive with all reviews you choose to respond to and CAREFULLY consider our suggestions below.

To put it simply, just thank the reviewer for the positive review. If any aspect of it includes constructive criticism or is less than perfect, please just focus on the positive and simply acknowledge them and thank them for their review.

We discourage you from offering incentives, gift certificates, inviting them to be a part of a mailing list or to join you for an event. For most of our reviewers their audience is other Portlanders who may choose to use your services or products, not you specifically. Don't ask them for anything and don't offer them anything, just thank them. Gifts can be interpreted wrong. Nobody likes a paid promotion.

DON'T (WHAT NOT TO DO):

Don't ask a reviewer for personal information.
Don't offer them gift certificates, incentives or inclusion on mailing lists or events.

DON'T (WHAT NOT TO DO):

"Thanks for the great review! We would like to include you on our mailing list and send you a gift certificate as thanks. Please send us your address. John Doe, ACME Restaurant"

WHAT TO DO:

Thank them in simple terms.
Introduce yourself as part of the thank you.
Ask them for suggestions; make the user feel appreciated and involved.

EXAMPLE OF A GOOD RESPONSE

"Hello William. I am John Doe, the owner of ACME Restaurant. I just wanted to thank you for the positive review. We are glad to know you had a good experience and welcome any suggestions you may have on how we can continue to improve! Please feel free to ask for me next time you come to ACME for dinner. Thank you! John Doe, ACME Restaurant"

Responding to a negative review requires very careful consideration. It is easy to over think your response. We have been there, trust us. Just thank the user for their feedback, acknowledge them and let them know you welcome their return in an effort to ensure you provide them with a better experience.

FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS...

The reason we created this functionality was to allow you to work with your customers who may have been disappointed in an effort to retain their business. If your customers had a bad experience and never heard from you, then you really don't have any idea you did something wrong and you certainly don't have a medium for helping improve the situation with that person.

Your goal should be to help the situation and improve the customer's perspective of your business. Reasonable people will give you a second chance if you carefully acknowledge them, don't dispute their comments and simply invite them back for a better experience.

REMEMBER: Users can take your response and post it to blogs or other websites around the Web. When you write to them, remember that others can read your public posts and the user if you choose to address them privately can also take your response and post it elsewhere.

Try to regain the users trust by simply acknowledging them, if necessary apologizing and ultimately expressing a sincere effort to resolve their concerns or issues that impacted their experience.

DON'T (WHAT NOT TO DO):

Don't accuse the reviewer of lying or being inaccurate.
Don't ask them to remove the review in exchange for anything.
Don't threaten a reviewer, ever.

Remember if you offer to resolve the issues they had and constructively acknowledge their concerns you are far likelier to have them revise their review in the future. Remember, all users can revise their reviews at anytime.

EXAMPLE OF WHAT NOT TO DO

"Your review is ridiculous and patently false. We have never had such an issue and we request you remove your review immediately. John Doe, ACME Restaurant"

WHAT TO DO:

Thank them in simple terms for their feedback.
Introduce yourself and let them know you will work to ensure their next experience is more positive.

EXAMPLE OF A GOOD RESPONSE

"Hello William. I am John Doe, the owner of ACME Restaurant. I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to provide your feedback. We are truly disappointed to hear you had the experience you had and want you to know we are addressing your concerns and comments in an effort to ensure your next experience with us is positive. We hope you will consider coming back as we assure you we will strive to make your next experience one you enjoy. Please feel free to ask for me next time you come to ACME. Thank you! John Doe, ACME Restaurant"

We allow you to respond publically to a user's review. The response you post will display immediately after the user's review.

If you have yet to sign up for membership you will need to create your business account. Establishing your business account will allow you to respond to user reviews. Once you have set up your account, you can log in to your account panel where you will see "user reviews" in the left navigation column of the page. Click on that link and it will show you all your reviews. Select the review you want to respond to and click the "respond" button.

REMINDER: Keep your public comments simple, polite and constructive.

RECOMMENDATION: We recommend you respond to positive reviews privately not publically. We also recommend you don't respond to every review. Having a lot of responses to reviews on your business page will look odd to users.

You can respond if you feel a public comment is necessary, but PLEASE present your side politely and in a simple manner. DO NOT accuse or attack a reviewer, ever. You have past and future customers reading your reviews constantly so leave a positive impression every time you post a response.

DO NOT USE PUBLIC COMMENTS TO:

• Promote your business. We have created dozens of other services and functionality which allow you to create announcements, promotions and display specific business information to your clients. Responses to reviews are designed to allow you to constructively respond to a reviewer when you can't privately or in the event the facts were misrepresented or out of date.
• Offer incentives or gifts of any kind. Do not bribe a reviewer ever, proactively or in response to a review.
• Ask for personal information from a reviewer.
• Invite them to participate in a business event or mailer.
• Don't thank a reviewer by using the public comment feature.
• Make accusations, personal attacks and avoid name calling at all costs.
• Post a response to every review your business receives. This will look odd to our users and we retain the right to remove any response we believe isn't helpful to our community or conflicts with our terms of use and guidelines.

USE PUBLIC COMMENTS TO:

Offer your perspective of a specific situation in the event you can't contact the reviewer through our private contact method. Reminder: be kind, constructive and polite.

Provide factual, correct information in the event a review is inaccurate or their review is out of date.

Tell other PortlandOregon.com users what you have done to address the reviewers concerns or issues.

Unfortunately not everyone is honest and respectful of each other.

Scams are a frequent reality of the Internet. PortlandOregon.com works hard to provide a safe online community where users can easily contact one another with information relating to numerous aspects of life in Portland, however there is one precaution you should always keep in mind when communicating online with people you don't personally:

Consider the source of the party you are providing personal information to whether simply supplying your email, real name or other information that is personal in nature.

NEVER GIVE OUT FINANCIAL INFORMATION!
(This includes things such as your bank account number, social security number, eBay/PayPal information, etc.)

We do not review or screen user e-mails. Most users on PortlandOregon.com are legitimate, upstanding residents of Portland, however with any online community there are people who don't always represent themselves or their motives honestly. In an effort to reduce your exposure to activity from parties who may not have the correct intentions, please take several steps to protect yourself:

1) Deal Locally with folks you can meet in person if exchanging goods, services or information of any kind. Long distance inquiries, posts or offers are very frequently scams on the internet. Validate local phone numbers or business information in an effort to identify the party you are communicating with online.

2) NEVER wire funds via Western Union, Moneygram or any other wire service - anyone who asks you to do so is trying to scam you!

3) PortlandOregon.com is not involved in any transaction. We do not handle payments, guarantee transactions, provide escrow services, or offer "protections" of any kind. Any such representations or offers should be considered fraudulent activity.

4) NEVER GIVE OUT FINANCIAL INFORMATION!
(This includes things such as your bank account number, social security number, eBay, PayPal information, etc.)

Who to Contact for Possible Fraud:

• Federal Trade Commission - Free hotline: 877-FTC-HELP (877-382-4357)
• Federal Trade Commission Online Complaints - https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov
• Federal Bureau of Investigation's Internet Fraud Complaint Center - http://www.ic3.gov/default.aspx
• Non-emergency number for your local police department.