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Help · Trust & Safety

How Trust Scores work.

HFR Trust Scores summarize a seller's reliability using three canonical tiers — New/Building, Trust Established, and Elite/Exceptional — plus an optional Caution overlay when specific concerns exist. Every score is derived from public HFR activity: completed transactions, community ratings, verification, and issue history.

The Trust Score tiers

Every seller profile shows one of three tiers, plus an optional Caution overlay. The tier is always shown next to the number — never the number alone.

90–100
Elite/ExceptionalExtended clean history with consistent, above-median ratings across communication, condition accuracy, packing, and timeliness. Rare by design.
75–89
Trust EstablishedEstablished seller with a clean track record — multiple completed sales, no upheld condition flags, on-time delivery pattern.
Cold-start, or below 75
New/BuildingNew or low-data seller. A neutral, non-scaring label — not a warning sign. Verified identity carries what weight it can before transaction history accumulates. For accounts with zero completed transactions, the numeric score is de-emphasized rather than shown as a low number.

The Caution overlay

Caution is not a tier — it's an overlay shown alongside whatever tier the underlying history supports, and it appears only when a concrete negative signal exists:

  • At least one upheld condition flag on record
  • An unresolved dispute
  • Listing completion rate below 60%, after at least 3 completed listings
  • An admin-applied caution flag

Caution is never a default. A brand-new seller with no transaction history shows New/Building, never Caution — a low number or thin record on its own is not a negative signal.

What signals feed the score

  • Community ratings — four dimensions rated after every completed transaction: communication, condition accuracy, packing quality, and timeliness.
  • Verification — Founding Member status, PayPal Verified, and on-file identity verification.
  • Sale completion — completed transactions and listing-completion rate; unexplained withdrawals count against completion rate.
  • Community flags — issue flags adjudicated by an admin, not raw buyer complaints.
  • External reputation — imported context from Audiogon, US Audio Mart, and Discogs, when linked.

Lifetime vs. last 12 months

Every profile shows both a lifetime score and a last-12-months score. Recent activity carries more weight in the composite: the last 12 months count at full weight, 12–24 months at 50%, and anything older at 20%. The two figures diverge when a seller's recent pattern differs from their historical one — in either direction.

What sellers can do to improve their score

  • Describe condition accurately — the single highest-weight input.
  • Respond to buyer messages promptly.
  • Pack carefully and ship on the timeline stated in the listing.
  • Resolve disagreements directly and cooperatively before they become disputes.
  • Complete listings you publish — withdrawing listings after commitment lowers completion rate.

Score updates automatically as new transactions complete — usually within a day.

For the full methodology — how the underlying inputs are weighted, transaction-class bands, and how to appeal a specific input — see the Accountability Record & Trust Score FAQ.