Trust & Safety
Sparehawk is a spare-parts marketplace for every industry. Because a counterfeit or misdescribed part can bring a machine to a stop, we check what we can, label what we cannot, and act quickly on reports. This page explains exactly what that means.
01
Built for people who keep plants running
- 1.1Verified suppliers
- Suppliers that pass our company check carry a Verified badge. Serious or repeated rule breaks get a supplier blocked.
- 1.2Replacements with provenance
- Successors and alternatives name their source: a manufacturer document or a check by our team. Suggestions from the community or from AI are labelled as such.
- 1.3Your contact stays private
- Suppliers see the request, never your email address. Your contact details go only to the supplier whose quote you pick.
- 1.4Neutral by design
- Sparehawk does not sell parts and does not set prices. Suppliers quote, you decide.
02
Badges
Badges are never sold. Each one is either granted after an admin checks real documents, or calculated every night from the supplier’s response history and time on Sparehawk. A supplier without badges can still be a good supplier: badges are extra evidence, not a condition for selling.
- 2.1Verified company
- An admin reviewed a company registration extract or VAT certificate and confirmed the business is real and legally registered at the address on file.
- 2.2Fast responder
- Computed nightly: this supplier’s median response time to a request for quote is under 6 hours, measured over at least 10 recent requests.
- 2.3Top quoter
- Computed nightly: this supplier responds (with a quote or a clear decline) to more than 85% of the requests they receive, measured over at least 20 recent requests.
- 2.4Trusted 5+ years
- This supplier has had an active Sparehawk storefront for five years or more.
- 2.5ISO 9001
- An admin reviewed a current ISO 9001 quality-management certificate for this company.
- 2.6Authorised distributor
- An admin reviewed a letter or contract naming this company as an authorised distributor for the manufacturer brands it lists.
03
Reviews
- 3.1
Verified purchases only
- Only a buyer who chose a supplier’s quote on an RFQ, or accepted the supplier’s proposal on a wanted request, can review that supplier. Suppliers cannot buy reviews or ask for them. We email the buyer a review invitation automatically, 10 days after the deal closes, never earlier.
- 3.2
Every review is screened
- Every review starts hidden from the public and is checked for links and abusive language. A review that raises no flags is published automatically after 48 hours if no admin has acted on it sooner; a flagged review waits for a human decision. A supplier may reply once to a published review; the reply goes through the same check. The rating shown on a storefront is the average of published reviews only — a pending, rejected or hidden review is never counted.
- 3.3
Editing and removal
- A buyer can edit their own review for 14 days after posting; after that it is final. Anyone, not only the supplier being reviewed, can report a review that looks fake, abusive or off-topic. When three different people report the same review, it is hidden automatically until an admin decides.
- 3.4
No incentives, ever
- Sparehawk never pays for reviews, never offers a discount or fee waiver for a positive one, and never lets a supplier see who left a review before it is published. A supplier caught soliciting reviews in exchange for anything of value loses its verification badges and is referred for a full account review.
04
Counterfeit parts
- 4.1
What we check, and what we don’t
- Sparehawk is a marketplace, not a parts lab. We never hold stock, so we cannot inspect it before it is listed: every part ships from the supplier who owns it. What we check is the supplier. When an EU supplier registers, we look up its VAT number in the EU VAT database (VIES). For each badge on a storefront, an admin reviews documents by hand: a company registration extract or VAT certificate for Verified company, an ISO 9001 certificate, or a manufacturer’s authorised-distributor letter. Badges make a supplier more accountable. They do not prove that a specific part is genuine.
- 4.2
What to do if you suspect a counterfeit
- Use the report link on the offer, the supplier’s storefront or the review, and choose the reason “Counterfeit”. If you already paid for a part you think is counterfeit, open a dispute for that order instead (Account → Disputes). In a dispute you write to the supplier on Sparehawk. If the supplier does not reply within 7 days, our team takes over automatically.
- 4.3
What happens after a counterfeit report
- One report is enough. Reports on an offer, a supplier or a wanted request go straight to an admin’s queue, oldest first. If an admin confirms a counterfeit, they can hide the offer or review and block the supplier’s account. If a report was made in bad faith, they can suspend the reporter’s account instead. Reviews work slightly differently: a review is hidden automatically once three different people report it, until an admin decides. You do not need to open a case anywhere else.
See something wrong? Report it from the listing, review or message itself — look for the report link. Read the marketplace rules