Version 1, effective July 8, 2026. Every contractor accepts this pledge before applying to be listed. It is short on purpose. Our counsel’s review continues, and every change gets posted here with a new date.

The Integrity Pledge

Ironclad Verified works for exactly one reason: every review here is real. A contractor who fakes even one review is stealing trust from every homeowner and every honest contractor on this marketplace. So the deal is written down, it has teeth, and everyone signs the same one.

What you agree to

• No fake reviews. You will never write, buy, trade, or solicit a review for a job that did not happen, or from a person who was not the customer.
• No self-reviews. Not you, not your employees, not your family, not your friends posing as customers, not a competitor takedown in the other direction.
• No paying for sentiment. No discounts, refunds, gift cards, or favors offered in exchange for a good review or for deleting a bad one. Asking a real customer to review a real job is always fine, whatever they might say.
• No gaming the record. No fabricated job confirmations, no borrowed customer identities, no coordinated review rings.

What happens if you break it

This is the part you are signing for, in plain words:

• Permanent delisting. One confirmed fabrication and your listing comes down for good. Not suspended: banned, forever. Our system is built so a banned business cannot be quietly re-enrolled.
• You agree we can recover damages. By accepting this pledge you agree that each fabricated review or fabricated job confirmation entitles Ironclad Verified to liquidated damages of $25,000, plus our costs of enforcement, because faked trust damages this marketplace in ways that are real but hard to count one by one. We built this remedy so we never have to pretend a fake review is a small thing.
• We refer it to the government. Fake consumer reviews are a federal violation (FTC rule 16 CFR Part 465), with civil penalties that can exceed $50,000 per violation. Confirmed fabrication gets referred to the FTC and, where it applies, your state attorney general, with our evidence: the tokens, the timestamps, the audit trail.
• The removal is public. Every fraud removal is logged and counted in our recurring fairness report. Honest contractors never appear there. That is the point.

What we owe you back

The same honesty, in the other direction:

• A real negative review will never be removed. Reviews come down only for fraud, under this published policy. You cannot pay us to delete one, and neither can anyone else. Your protection is your response: answer a rough review fast and well, and the Score’s Owning Mistakes signal credits you for it.
• Nobody can buy a rank above you. The Ironclad Score has no money field. Your competitors cannot outspend you here; they can only outwork you.
• Accusations are checked by a human. A fraud finding requires evidence, not an anonymous complaint. You will always be able to see the published policy this pledge refers to, and disputed findings get human review with a 48-hour first-response target.

The signature

Accepting this pledge is required to apply for a listing, and the acceptance is recorded with a timestamp. It binds the business you list, and it covers everyone who works under your name here. If any single part of this pledge is ever found unenforceable, the rest of it stands untouched. If any of it is unclear, ask us first. If it reads as obvious, good: it should.