Love it - great idea
What might be useful is a ‘qualified tester’ badge, so we know when we’ve made the grade!
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I know I’m in a minority of one here, but I have one more thing to say about this.
When I first joined here, I joined because of the anonymity. I joined because there was no way of linking me back to my work life or my social life. For once, I was free to talk about anything I wanted to without judgement, and over the years, I have done. We buy stuff from here on my husband’s account, so as to make sure the link is not created. I know there about a dozen people in real life who know who I am, but I trust them and I’ve shagged most of them, but no one else knows, and as someone who is now quite well known in my work field and well known in my community, I don’t need my identity to get out, or the judgement that would follow it.
As I was looking at sites on sex subjects, I was put off joining any that had anything that signified a “Verified User”, as that meant anonymity was reduced and there was a risk of being identified. I would have been put off here.
So, as a content creator and poster of hopefully helpful advice at times, I’m left with two choices. (1) To verify and take the risk of being identified, or (2) to stay as non-verified and risk becoming a second class citizen with advice being ignored because I’m not verified. I know people here now know who I am, but new people will use the Verified system as a crutch and I may as well not bother giving any advice. Neither are palatable options.
Add to that my thoughts on divisions being created in a site that there is none, and overall, on consideration, it is a terrible idea, and will inevitably change what this place is, and I don’t want it to change. It is good as it is.
Anyway, enough serious stuff, I’m off to find some cake. To eat, not sit on. Although… xx
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This is actually a good shout it would be nice to see if people have done more than one random review and that people trust their opinion 
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I wouldn’t mind it but understand why some people may not be keen
This would be interesting.
You’ve been around long enough that people wouldn’t be worried if you didn’t take the “tag” of being verified. You are in my books.
It’s like paying for the blue checkmark in Twitter - lots of people don’t have it and they are the real person. The issue would be if someone started impersonating you and then outed you on the site… could go both ways.
My first thoughts are a bit of a mixed bag, so until I’m sure either way. I’ll be a no.
I think there will be a division within the forum and I’m not really sure how that will play out. I understand wanting to show who is genuine or not. But I don’t feel that people should have to make a purchase to prove themselves as genuine. What if people don’t have the disposable funds to do that?
I know the majority of regulars on here will meet the requirements but I do think that anyone without a 
is going to be viewed as suspicious. And I don’t agree with that.
Maybe its the term ‘verified user’ that grates on me, bc I do agree with @KinkyMira that it creates a ‘them and us’ and we’re a community and it shouldn’t be like that.
My suggestion instead is to show peoples trust levels. I think that it should show who is a mod, who is a regular, who comes on for a nosy every now and again, and who is new. But without the stigma of them and us. That way its based purely on forum engagement, which I think it should be.
We can currently change our title to whatever we want, I think. I know I can choose from a list and I’ve chosen Out of love for its dual meaning. But that doesn’t tell anyone anything about me. And anyone whose profile is hidden, doesn’t show their trust level and lots of people with hidden profiles probably don’t know that they’re hidden. I didn’t know until I checked.
I didn’t expect to write so much, but thats just how I see it. Wee badges for the mods and instead of titles, show the trust level. Could’ve just said that, but then it wouldn’t be me if I didn’t write a book 
I’ve talked myself into being a no for the
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I can see why the lovehoney team have suggested the and it is a good idea but i think it would create a big divide like @KinkyMira said. In my view why fix something that isnt broke? Why not just be more in-depth in the information needed when signing up to the forum so the love honey team can identify who they are without singling anybody out with a visual that way everybody looks the same to everybody else but only the moderator will see your and im sure the moderators will regulate these accounts just like if you put something in the wrong thread they move it within a few hours at most.
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Agree with @JoCat and was going to suggest the same thing about mod’s being more visible as being so.
I’m still not sure who is and who isn’t. 
I think people would take requests or advice a little less of an attack if it was shown to have come from a Mod.
Personally I’m not fussed about a 
next to our name or anyone else’s. People pay attention or ignore as they please!
I don’t see a tick making a difference.
If people are on here genuinely then 9/10 they would have read through a lot of threads (I know I did) you soon pick up on who’s opinion you can rely on.
(Mrs)
Okay, I personally don’t have an issue with being verified but have been won over by @JoCat 's argument to vote no, though I do think maybe showing all Trust Levels might be a good idea. If you then get sock puppet accounts arguing with themselves on a thread to push a point, they will almost always be Basic users which might make things a little more obvious?
I am not arguing this point at all, but am interested in exactly why? Are you concerned the companies might not be trustworthy and sell your info? Or be hacked by outside people? Or is it something else and I’m just being naive? Just trying to figure it out, why is anonymity reduced by being verified on the site when the company already has email address and personal details but they just aren’t published?
Agree with the division points though 
There has been a notable increase in sock puppets and strange activity recently 
Yeah, I get this. Perhaps the term should be Verified-Customer instead? The same as it is for email reviews
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I agree with comments from @Peitho regards the anonymous side of things. LH know e mail address and names etc but this info is never published so verified really makes no difference unless i’m missing something? This may pick up forum members that have used fake e mail address / names is that the issue? I really cannot see a issue and if it gets fake users removed all the better.
Actual good point here. Would it be feasible to have some sort of verification based on reviews? Or have something noted on the amount of likes, comments or responses to messages? Along the lines of the trust level but indicated slightly different 
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Sounds good to me 
Absolutely - sounds like a good idea in this world of trolls and fake accounts!
I’m still undecided. I think it’s a good idea to do something about the sock puppet problem but I’m not sure this would completely solve the problem because there will be some genuine people who can’t be verified who will then be assumed to be unreliable when this isn’t the case. Not everyone who uses the forum has necessarily purchased something from LH, for example someone who’s partner purchases products using a different account, students and young people who want advice about sex but can’t necessarily afford to make a purchase or can’t for fear of being seen by parents / house mates. I wouldn’t want to create a divided forum but then again, having trolls and fake accounts doesn’t give the forum a nice feel either. Might there be a way to become verified in extenuating circumstances for people with a valid reason for not having made a purchase but being known as an active member with a high trust level?
Understand the issue trying to be addressed by having verification. But we agree with @KinkyMira, @JoCat and others.
What is attractive about the forum is that it is totally anonymous, and people feel able to be very open about their sex lives, medical issues, mental health issues etc etc. But as soon as you link a totally anonymous forum account (assuming you don’t use a login that is used elsewhere) with a record of a purchase for the purposes of verification, be it a purchase order number or whatever, you immediately lose that anonymity, as somewhere within the Lovehoney IT world the forum account will now be linked with a purchase, and hence ultimately the purchaser’s name, delivery address, payment details etc etc.
Now we’re not for one moment suggesting that anyone at Lovehoney would misuse that link. But we only have to look at the news pretty much every week to know that even the most tech-savvy major corporations and government departments suffer data losses/data hacks from time to time. Having worked in IT for many years, I know that s*it happens. So why create this risk? I wouldn’t be willing to take the risk on linking our forum account to any other personally identifiable data, no matter how secure it is portrayed as being.
We also tend to agree that it runs the risk of creating a ‘them and us’ situation which would potentially change the character of the forum, and also discriminate against those who don’t want to purchase from LH, or who can’t afford to.
If some form of verification system is wanted, then perhaps it should be based on the trust levels and displaying those. That’s surely what they are about anyway isn’t it - i.e. recognizing that a forum user account has built trust over time by performing certain actions/not behaving in a negative manner?
All got a bit wordy - sorry about that.
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Completely understand that some people would not want to get a “Verified-Customer” badge, if it were to be introduced, it would be a badge that would need to be requested, it wouldn’t be automatically granted! 
It is currently quite easy to progress through the Trust Levels. We might need to make these harder to acquire if we were to use it as a stronger basis for how trustworthy a member is
I would hope that the members here wouldn’t exclude other people simply for not having a badge.
While the forum is open to all, no matter whether you are a customer or not (that won’t change), we want to reward the people who are customers. They are the reason we have the forum. If no one on the forum was a Lovehoney customer, then the forum wouldn’t exist
I’ll have a little think on how we could verify customers who use an alternate shopping account for privacy reasons. I’m sure there is a way!
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This sounds like a great idea