Why we remove lapsed records instead of downgrading them
The obvious design for a verification register is a tiered one: gold, silver, bronze, or a score that drifts down as an audit ages. We considered it and rejected it, and the reasoning is worth setting out because it constrains everything else we publish.
- Filed by
- Dale Wexler
- Head of standards
- Published
- Length
- 2 min read
A verification is a claim about the present tense. It asserts that as of a particular date, an inspector confirmed a licence, walked the premises unannounced, validated insurance with the carrier, and reviewed complaint filings. That claim decays. Twelve months later the licence may have lapsed, the insurance may have been cancelled, and the premises may be empty.
The problem with tiers
- A lower tier still reads as an endorsement to most buyers, because any badge reads as an endorsement.
- Tiers create an incentive to buy up a level, which is the exact commercial pressure we exist to keep out.
- A decaying score conflates two unrelated things: how a dealer performed, and how long ago we checked.
- It gives us a reason to keep a record we can no longer stand behind, because a downgrade feels like action.
What this costs us
It makes the register smaller and slower to grow than a tiered one would be. It means a dealer who was excellent two years ago is simply absent rather than listed with a caveat. We accept both, because the alternative is a badge whose meaning erodes quietly while the graphic stays the same.
The same reasoning is why unaudited dealerships on the register carry no rating, no licence number, and no review history. They are listed because they exist and buyers search for them. Attaching a provisional score to a dealer no inspector has visited would be inventing the very thing the register is supposed to establish.