How to check whether we're telling you the truth.
Marketplaces are easy to fake. Everything below is either something you can verify yourself or something we've told you we don't do.
Verification is a claim we stand behind
A verified badge means someone at Loclis read the actual document. Right now 0 of 0 submitted credentials are verified, and 0 of 1 active businesses are business-verified. Unverified claims appear as "provider-reported".
Reviews require a transaction
All 0 published reviews are attached to a completed, paid order. There is no other way to write one. Providers can respond publicly but cannot delete a review.
Ranking has published weights
The factors and their weights are listed below and repeated on every ranked page. Where the evidence is too thin to rank fairly, Loclis says so and lists providers alphabetically instead.
How Loclis ranks providers
When Loclis puts one provider above another, this is why. Every factor is computed from something that actually happened in the marketplace.
Verified review rating
Average star rating, from reviews that can only be left after a completed Loclis transaction.
Completed jobs on Loclis
How much work this provider has actually finished through the marketplace. Uses a log scale so a long track record counts without letting the biggest shop win by default.
Number of verified reviews
More independent reviews means more confidence in the rating.
Verified credentials
Licenses, insurance and certifications Loclis has actually confirmed. Unverified claims score zero.
Response time
Median time to reply to a customer message.
Serves this area
Whether the provider lists this city in their service area and has availability.
What Loclis does
- Verifies email and phone on every account
- Verifies business registration, licenses and insurance where a provider submits them
- Shows a licence with its number, class and the date it was checked, or labels it provider-reported
- Collects your payment as the provider's agent, so paying Loclis pays the provider
- Decides payment disputes, issues full and partial refunds, and reverses both fees proportionally
- May refund its own fees when a job goes wrong, at its discretion
- Reverses referral credit when the underlying transaction is refunded
- Blocks self-referral, same-household referral and rapid referral farming
- Publishes the ranking methodology on every page where ranking is applied
What Loclis does not do
- Sell leads, or charge a business for the chance of work
- Sell ranking, featured placement or advertising
- Perform, manage or supervise any of the services itself
- Set or mark up a provider's price
- Guarantee, warrant or insure a provider's work
- Display a verification badge for anything it has not actually verified
- Publish a review that isn't attached to a completed order
- Rank providers when there isn't enough evidence to rank them fairly
- Submit a government proposal, or make any claim on a provider's behalf, without their explicit approval
Something wrong?
Open a dispute directly from the order in your dashboard. Disputes are reviewed by a person, not a rule.
For anything outside an order, such as a listing that misrepresents itself, a review that doesn’t look real or a message that shouldn’t have been sent, email contact@loclis.com. There is no report button on Loclis pages yet. Email is the way, and it reaches a person.
Common questions
- What does 'verified' mean on Loclis?
- It means a person at Loclis looked at the underlying document, such as a licence, an insurance certificate or a business registration, and confirmed it on a date shown beside it. Anything a provider has told us but we have not confirmed is labelled 'provider-reported', never shown as verified.
- Can anyone leave a review?
- No. A review can only be written by the customer on a completed, paid Loclis order. There is no way to post a review without a transaction behind it, which also means there is no way to buy one.
- Can a provider pay to rank higher or be called 'the best'?
- No. Ranking comes from marketplace evidence only, with published weights. Loclis has no advertising product and no featured placement to sell.
- What if a job goes wrong?
- Open a dispute from the order in your dashboard. A person at Loclis reads both sides and can refund all or part of what you paid, taking the provider's share back from the provider's payment account. Separately, Loclis may choose to refund its own fees on a job that went wrong. That is a refund of Loclis's fees, capped at what Loclis charged. It is not insurance, and it is not a promise about the provider's work.
- Does Loclis perform the work?
- No. Every service is performed by an independent local business, and you contract with that business directly. Loclis runs the marketplace and collects your payment as the provider's agent. It does not do, manage or supervise the work, and it is not a contractor.
- How do I know a provider is licensed?
- For trades that need a Virginia contractor licence, the provider's page shows the licence number, class and the date it was checked, when Loclis has them. A licence Loclis has not checked is labelled provider-reported. Licence status can change after it is checked, so look the business up on DPOR's licence lookup before a large job.