Trust & Safety

Provider Verification

Every provider must upload a driver's license or other government-issued photo ID during enrollment, which our staff review to confirm identity before any bid or payout. Separately, providers submit a state contractor license number where their state requires one for landscaping work, plus proof of liability insurance. Provider profiles carry a Trust Score built from identity/license/insurance status, verified completed-job count, on-time rate, and dispute history — not just a self-reported rating.

Whether a license is requested depends on the provider's state — this is based on general guidance, not legal advice, and may not reflect current local rules. It does not affect whether identity verification is required, which applies to every provider regardless of state.

Account Security

Two-factor verification is required on every account — homeowners, providers, and GroundBid staff alike — with no way to opt out. At signup and every sign-in, we email a one-time code to your address on file.

Escrow-Protected Payments

When a Poster accepts a bid, payment is collected immediately and held by GroundBid — not sent to the Provider — until the job is confirmed complete. Providers must attach a time-stamped completion photo before a job can move to the Poster's confirmation step.

Review Integrity

Reviews can only be created from a completed, paid job on the platform. There is no path for a self-submitted, purchased, or unverifiable review.

Sealed Bidding

Bid amounts are never visible to competing Providers — only the number of bids received. This is designed to encourage honest, well-considered pricing rather than last-minute undercutting.

Bidding Rules

Submitting a bid is a commitment to perform the job at that price and timeline if the Poster accepts it. A Provider who wins a bid and doesn't show up, or doesn't complete the work, is subject to the enforcement actions below — this applies whether or not the Poster formally opens a dispute. Placing a bid on a category that requires a state landscaping/contractor license, in a state where that license is required, requires the Provider's license status to be verified first — not just submitted; identity (photo ID) verification is required to bid or receive a payout regardless of category. A Provider may only have one active bid per job at a time — submitting a new bid on a job you've already bid on replaces your prior one rather than adding a second, sealed bid to create a false impression of separate providers.

Non-Performance by a Winning Provider

Once a Poster's payment is collected and held in escrow, two deadlines apply to the awarded Provider. First, the Provider must formally agree to the bid's terms and GroundBid's Terms of Service within 48 hours of payment landing in escrow. Second, once agreed, the Provider must submit completion within the bid's own quoted timeline plus a 7-day grace period to account for weather, material delays, and similar normal disruptions — capped at 30 days total from payment regardless of the quoted timeline.

If either deadline passes without the required action, this is treated as non-performance. The Poster's payment is not immediately refunded — it stays exactly where it is, held in GroundBid escrow, while the job is automatically reassigned:

The job reopens to a different Provider. Bidding reopens on the same job at the same escrowed amount — the Provider who failed cannot bid on that specific job again, though their account otherwise remains in good standing to bid on other jobs (subject to the strikes below). This can happen up to three times in a row on the same job, each time with a different Provider.

The Poster is refunded only after the third consecutive failure. If three different Providers in a row each fail to complete the same job, GroundBid stops trying to reassign it and refunds the Poster's full payment to their original payment method — no action required on their part — and they're free to repost the job immediately.

A fee is charged to the Provider — every time, not just on the final refund. Card-processing networks do not refund their transaction fee when a charge is eventually refunded, so GroundBid absorbs that real cost, and re-listing a job has a real administrative cost each time it happens. To keep non-performance from being cost-free, each failing Provider's account is charged a fee covering a share of that non-refundable processing cost plus a flat administrative fee. Providers do not have a card on file with GroundBid; instead this fee is deducted automatically from that Provider's next completed-job payout, and shows on the Provider's dashboard as a pending balance until then.

A strike is recorded on the Provider's own account for every failure. A first non-performance strike (on any job) results in a warning and the fee above. A second strike results in a 30-day account suspension — the Provider cannot sign in or place new bids until it lifts. A third strike results in permanent removal from GroundBid. These account-wide strikes are separate from, and accumulate independently of, the per-job reassignment count above — a Provider's 2nd or 3rd strike could just as easily happen on their first-ever job as on a job that's already been reassigned once.

Each time a Provider agrees to a job's terms — including a job that's been reassigned after an earlier Provider's failure — GroundBid generates a Bid Agreement summarizing the job, price, timeline, escrow/payment terms, and this non-performance policy, emailed to both the Poster and the current Provider. It is generated automatically from the job and account details on file and is not a substitute for either party's own legal advice.

Prohibited Conduct

The following are violations of these policies, regardless of category or job value:

Fee avoidance — soliciting or agreeing to off-platform payment to avoid GroundBid's commission, whether raised before, during, or instead of going through bidding and escrow. This applies to both Providers and Posters, removes the Poster's escrow protection, and is also a breach of the Terms of Service. Bid collusion — Providers coordinating with each other, directly or through shared ownership or duplicate accounts, to keep bids artificially high or divide up jobs rather than compete honestly. False disputes — disputing confirmed, photo-verified completed work to avoid releasing escrow where there's no genuine performance issue. Credential misrepresentation — claiming a license, insurance, or certification status that hasn't actually been granted or is out of date. Fake or duplicate accounts, review manipulation (structurally difficult since a review requires a completed, paid job, but still a violation to attempt), and harassment or abuse of any Poster, Provider, or GroundBid staff member.

Violations are handled on a graduated scale proportionate to severity and history: a warning for first-time, lower-severity issues; a temporary restriction on account capability (e.g., bidding paused pending a re-check); full suspension from signing in and all platform activity; or, for clear, serious, or repeated violations, permanent removal. Every suspension or removal is a staff decision made after reviewing the specific evidence — an automated flag alone never results in a suspension without a human reviewing it first. All enforcement actions are logged.

Dispute Resolution

Disputes move through three stages: direct resolution between Poster and Provider (in-app messaging), platform mediation using job photos and messages as evidence, and — if still unresolved — a final platform decision. Escrowed funds remain frozen throughout.

Reporting a Concern

To report a safety or trust concern, contact support@groundbid.app.