Trust & safety
The score, the reviews and the rules behind them, written down so you can check our work.
How the trust score is calculated
Every dealer profile shows a trust score from 0 to 100. It is not an opinion and it is not an average of star ratings. It is the sum of a fixed set of verifiable factors, each worth a stated number of points, recomputed every night from the data on the profile. The factors and their points are stored with the score, which is why the tooltip on any profile can show you exactly where the number came from.
| Factor | Points | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| State license | +25 active · 0 unverified · -40 inactive | Confirmed against the state dealer licensing authority. Unverified means we have not checked it yet, not that anything is wrong. |
| Buyer reviews | up to +25 | A Bayesian average of published reviews on The Dealer Profile (a prior of 3.8 stars weighted like 10 reviews, so a single 5-star review cannot max it out), scaled between 2.5 and 5 stars. |
| Google rating | up to +20 | The dealer's Google rating scaled between 2.5 and 5 stars, weighted by how many Google reviews back it (full weight at 500). |
| Profile completeness | up to +10 | Hours (2), a first photo (2) and five photos (1), a website (2), a description of at least 80 characters (2), and listed services (1). |
| Verified ownership | +10 | The dealership claimed the profile and verified ownership with a phone code or documents checked by our team. The plan they are on is irrelevant. |
| Years in business | up to +5 | One point per 4 years, only when the figure comes from a real record such as a license issue date or a dealer-stated founding year. |
| Live inventory | +5 | An inventory feed that ran successfully, or vehicles in stock (from a feed or added by hand) updated, within the last 7 days. |
| Penalties | -2 per unresolved review flag (floor -10), plus moderation penalties | Flags raised against a dealer’s reviews that are still under review, and penalties applied by our team after an investigation. |
| Maximum | 100 points, clamped to 0–100 after penalties. Bands: 75+ high trust · 50+ moderate trust · 25+ limited signals · 0+ few signals | |
A low score usually means few signals, not a bad dealer: an unclaimed profile with no reviews and an unverified license starts near zero. As the state record is checked, reviews come in and the dealer verifies ownership, the score rises. An inactive license, unresolved review flags and moderation penalties applied by our team are the only things that subtract points.
Review policy
- First-hand only. Reviews must describe your own experience with that dealership. Reviews of a competitor, on behalf of someone else, or written by the dealer's staff are removed.
- One review per dealer every 90 days per account. After 90 days you can review the same dealer again.
- Moderation. Every submission is screened automatically for spam, off-topic content, personal data (phone numbers, plate numbers, full names of staff), harassment and signs of a fake review, and is given a risk score. Low-risk reviews from verified email addresses publish immediately; everything else waits for a person on our team. Nothing is auto-rejected.
- Dealers can respond or flag, never delete. A claimed dealer on a paid plan can post one public response per review, and any claimed dealer can flag a review they believe breaks these rules. Flags are reviewed by our team; a review is removed only if it violates the policy.
- Our rating and Google's rating are shown separately and always labelled, so you know which one you are looking at. We never blend them.
How to report a problem
If a profile shows wrong information, a review looks fake, or a dealer is operating without a license, use the contact form with the dealer's name and city and, where possible, a link. Dealers can also flag a review of their own dealership from their dashboard. Reports go to a person, not a queue that closes automatically, and we reply when the case is resolved. Please do not include your own personal details beyond an email address we can reply to.
Removal and deletion requests
Dealers. Profiles are created from public business information, so a listing generally stays public even if the dealer would prefer it did not, in the same way a business appears in a phone directory. A dealer can ask for personal information (an owner's name, a personal mobile number) to be removed, for a closed dealership to be marked closed, or for duplicate profiles to be merged. Requests are reviewed by our team and answered by email.
Buyers. You can delete your account from your settings or by writing to support@thedealerprofile.com. Reviews you wrote are anonymised (“Former user”) rather than deleted, so a dealer's history stays intact, unless removal is required by law.
What we do and do not show
If we do not know something, we leave it out. Profiles never show placeholder numbers, estimated years in business, or made-up inventory. Summaries labelled “Summary” are generated from structured data on the profile (type, services, hours, ratings) and never from claims we cannot check. The full list of sources is on the about page.