These Terms of Service ("Terms") constitute a legally binding agreement between you and DealerPulse Australia ("DealerPulse", "we", "us", "our"), operating at dealerpulse.com.au.

By accessing or using our platform you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms. If you are using the platform on behalf of a business, you represent that you have authority to bind that business.

These Terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia.

DealerPulse provides an independent online platform allowing members of the public to search for, read, and submit reviews of Australian car dealerships, and allowing dealerships to claim and manage their profile on paid subscription plans.

Reviews and ratings represent the opinions of individual users, not DealerPulse. We are not affiliated with any car manufacturer, dealer group, or automotive industry body.

We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of our services at any time with reasonable notice where practicable.

To use our platform you must be at least 15 years of age, have the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement, and not be prohibited from using our services under applicable law. Users aged 15–17 require parental or guardian consent.

By submitting a review, you represent that you have personally visited or transacted with the dealership you are reviewing and that the review reflects your genuine experience.

You do not need to create an account to browse the platform. To submit a review or claim a dealer profile, you must provide a valid email address for verification.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. You must notify us immediately of any unauthorised use.

When you submit a review you confirm it is based on a genuine personal experience, you have no undisclosed conflict of interest, and you consent to DealerPulse verifying and moderating your review before publication. Reviews are published only after admin approval, usually within a few hours during business hours.

Submitting, arranging or encouraging fake, incentivised or misleading reviews may breach the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2, Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)). DealerPulse's review rules are designed to align with ACCC guidance on online reviews. Where appropriate, we may cooperate with regulator enquiries about fake or misleading reviews.

All content must not be false, misleading, defamatory, harassing, spam, or in violation of any applicable law including the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW). Content submitted by employees reviewing their own employer or by competitors will be removed.

DealerPulse may remove non-compliant content without notice. Reviewers are personally liable for defamatory content they publish.

DealerPulse does not provide an automatic self-service removal option for published reviews, consistent with our commitment to an independent and unmanipulated review record. A reviewer or dealer may request removal or correction of a review by contacting us with a written explanation of the grounds for removal (for example, factual inaccuracy, a case resolved directly between the parties, or a breach of these content standards). Each request is assessed individually at DealerPulse's discretion, and we may request supporting information before making a decision.

• Free: Claim and manage your profile, receive approved reviews and display your public star rating — no charge
• Plus: $199/month (GST inclusive) — everything in Free plus public review replies, case and resolution tools, customer review invitations, full analytics and same-brand state comparison

We may change our subscription prices or the features included in any plan at any time. We will provide written notice (such as by email) of any change, which will take effect from your next billing cycle. If you do not agree to a change, you may cancel your subscription at any time in accordance with clause 7.3.

Subscriptions are billed monthly in advance via Stripe. By providing payment details, you authorise recurring monthly charges. Failed payments will be retried within 3 business days; continued failure may result in downgrade to the Free plan.

You may cancel at any time through your dealer dashboard or by contacting us. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. No refunds are provided for partial periods except where required by law.

Nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts, or modifies any right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law that cannot be excluded. Where permitted, our liability is limited to resupply of the service.

Dealers must not solicit or incentivise positive reviews, discourage customers from leaving reviews, submit reviews of their own dealership, or use the platform to harvest user data in breach of our Privacy Policy.

DealerPulse may compile de-identified, aggregated performance data — including review ratings, case rates, and case resolution timeframes — across dealerships, brands, and regions, and use or share this aggregate data for industry reporting, research, or commercial purposes. This aggregate data does not identify any individual customer, and dealership-level figures are only ever published in combination with brand- or region-wide statistics, not as a standalone public scorecard outside the normal profile and review features of the platform.

All DealerPulse platform content is owned by or licensed to DealerPulse and protected by Australian copyright law. By submitting a review, you grant DealerPulse a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual licence to publish, reproduce, and display your content in connection with the platform and in de-identified aggregate reports. You retain ownership of your review content.

You must not scrape platform content without permission, attempt unauthorised access to our systems, submit false or deceptive content, interfere with platform operation, transmit malware, impersonate others, or engage in any activity that violates Australian law.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, DealerPulse provides the platform on an "as is" and "as available" basis with no warranties as to availability, accuracy of reviews, or fitness for a particular purpose. Nothing in this section excludes consumer guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, DealerPulse's total liability is limited to the greater of fees paid by you in the 3 months prior to the claim, or AUD $100. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential loss. These limitations do not apply to liability that cannot be limited under the Australian Consumer Law.

You agree to indemnify DealerPulse against any claims, damages, and costs arising from your use of the platform, content you submit, or your breach of these Terms.

DealerPulse may suspend or terminate your access where you have breached these Terms, engaged in fraudulent conduct, submitted fake reviews, or posed a security risk. You may close your account at any time by contacting us.

Before commencing formal proceedings, use Contact us to resolve informally. Unresolved disputes may be referred to mediation via the Australian Disputes Centre. These Terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales and you submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of NSW courts.

Nothing in this section prevents you from exercising your rights under the Australian Consumer Law or raising the matter with the ACCC.

These Terms and our Privacy Policy constitute the entire agreement between the parties. If any provision is unenforceable it will be severed without affecting the remainder. We may update these Terms from time to time with material changes notified by email and on-site notice. Continued use constitutes acceptance.

DealerPulse Australia operates the DealerPulse platform at dealerpulse.com.au. We are subject to the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). This policy explains how we manage personal information in compliance with those obligations.

• Full name, email address, phone number (optional), state or territory
• Review content, star rating, visit type, manufacturer survey completion status
• Marketing communication preferences
• Device and technical information (IP address, browser type) collected automatically

• Business name, ABN, trading details, contact person name, email, phone
• Billing details (payment data stored by Stripe — we do not store card numbers)
• Login credentials (email and hashed password)

• Device identifiers, IP address, pages visited, time on site via cookies and analytics

We collect information directly from you when you submit a review, register a dealer account, or contact us; automatically through cookies and server logs; and from third parties such as Stripe (payments) and Google Analytics.

Where practicable, you may interact with us using a pseudonym, however a valid email is required to verify all reviews.

We collect and use personal information to: verify and publish reviews; operate dealer accounts and process payments; send transactional emails; send marketing communications where opted in; respond to enquiries; detect fraud and fake reviews; improve our platform; comply with law; and produce de-identified industry analytics.

We will not use your information for any purpose beyond those above without your consent, unless required by law.

We may disclose your information to: service providers under data processing agreements (hosting, payments, email, analytics); dealers where you have submitted a lead enquiry through their profile; law enforcement where required by law; and successors in a business sale, bound by equivalent privacy obligations.

We do not sell your personal information. Any aggregate or de-identified data shared with commercial partners (OEMs, insurers, research firms) cannot identify you personally.

Some service providers are located outside Australia (including the US and EU). We take reasonable steps under APP 8 to ensure overseas recipients provide APP-equivalent protections, including through data processing agreements and recognised privacy framework certifications.

We only send marketing communications where you have explicitly opted in. Every communication includes a functional unsubscribe link. Opt-out requests are actioned within 5 business days, in compliance with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and Do Not Call Register Act 2006 (Cth).

To opt out: click unsubscribe in any email, or Contact us.

We use essential cookies (required for site operation), analytics cookies (e.g. Google Analytics, aggregated and anonymised), and functional cookies (e.g. remembering your state filter). You can control cookies via your browser settings — disabling essential cookies may affect site functionality. We record page visits, search and filter use, and review-form steps to improve the site. When you submit a review, we link that browser session to it for internal analysis. We do not record search text, form contents or screen recordings in this tracking. Journey records are retained for 90 days.

For more detail, see our Cookie Policy.

We use encryption in transit (HTTPS/TLS) and at rest, access controls, bcrypt password hashing, PCI-DSS compliant payment processing via Stripe, and regular security reviews. In the event of a data breach likely to cause serious harm, we will notify the OAIC and affected individuals as required under the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.

Reviewer information and reviews: 7 years. Dealer account information: duration of subscription + 7 years. Financial records: 7 years (taxation law). Marketing opt-in records: duration of consent + 3 years. Server logs: up to 26 months. Support correspondence: 3 years. When no longer required, we destroy or permanently de-identify the information.

You may request access to the personal information we hold about you. We respond within 30 days.

You may request correction of inaccurate information. We will take reasonable steps to correct it within 30 days.

You may request deletion of your personal information. Published reviews may be de-identified rather than deleted to preserve platform integrity.

You may withdraw consent for marketing at any time. This does not affect prior processing.

To exercise these rights, Contact us. We may require identity verification.

Our platform is not directed at children under 15. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 15. If you believe we have done so, contact us and we will delete it promptly.

Where a reviewer leaves a rating of 1 or 2 stars, DealerPulse automatically opens a "case" against the relevant dealer's profile. This section explains how that process works and how the resulting data is collected, used, and disclosed.

A Plus dealer may respond publicly to the review, and may update the case status to "in progress" while working with the customer directly, and finally to "resolved" once the matter is addressed to the dealer's understanding. We do not independently verify the outcome of any individual case — the process relies on the dealer's own status updates and the reviewer's own follow-up survey response.

When a dealer marks a case "resolved," DealerPulse automatically emails the original reviewer a short follow-up survey asking them to rate the dealer's response time, resolution process, and outcome. Submitting this survey is optional. If a reviewer feels a dealer has since improved their handling of the matter (for example, after a follow-up phone call), they may submit the survey again; the most recent submission replaces the previous one rather than being averaged with it.

Individual resolution survey responses are not published verbatim on a dealer's public profile. Instead, a dealer's resolution responses are aggregated into a single "resolution score," displayed on their public profile and factored into how dealers are ranked in search results on DealerPulse. This score, and the time taken between a case opening and being marked resolved, may also be included in the de-identified, aggregated industry reporting described in our Terms of Service (clause 7.6).

A dealer who believes a case was opened in error, or that a resolution score does not fairly reflect their conduct, may Contact us. We will review the underlying review and any survey responses, and may adjust or remove a case where there is clear evidence of error, fraud, or a breach of our review guidelines. Genuine, good-faith customer feedback about how an issue was handled will not be removed simply because a dealer disagrees with it.

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be notified by email and by posting a notice on our homepage for 30 days. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. Previous versions are available on request.

You may leave a review if you personally dealt with the dealership as a customer or prospective customer. This can include buying a vehicle, servicing a vehicle, making an enquiry, arranging finance, valuing a trade-in or dealing with an unresolved issue.

You must not review your own dealership, your employer, a direct competitor, a business you are paid to promote, or a dealership where you have a personal conflict that is not disclosed.

• The dealership name, suburb and approximate visit or enquiry date.
• The type of experience, for example sales, service, finance, trade-in or aftersales support.
• Clear facts about what happened, what was promised and how the dealer responded.
• A fair rating that reflects the full experience, including whether the dealer responded or the matter was later addressed directly between you and the dealer.

• Fake, paid, incentivised or duplicate reviews.
• Reviews written by dealership staff about their own business or by competitors about another dealership.
• Personal abuse, threats, harassment, discriminatory content or irrelevant attacks.
• Private information such as personal phone numbers, home addresses, finance application details or employee medical information.
• Claims that cannot be reasonably connected to a dealership experience.
• Content that appears defamatory, misleading, spammy, automated or unlawful.

We may ask for supporting information such as an invoice, booking confirmation, enquiry email, repair order, finance quote or other reasonable proof. We do not publish private documents, and verification material is used only to assess the review.

Reviews are not published automatically. They are checked against these guidelines and our Moderation Policy before approval.

DealerPulse aims to operate consistently with ACCC guidance for online reviews by keeping the review record genuine, transparent and not misleading. Dealers must not arrange fake reviews, suppress genuine negative feedback, or offer incentives only for positive reviews.

Dealers with a claimed Plus profile may respond to reviews through the platform. A dealer response must address the issue professionally and must not pressure the reviewer, reveal private information or offer incentives in exchange for changing a review.

For low-rating reviews, the platform may make dealer-managed response and outcome fields available so the dealer can record how they responded or followed up with the customer directly. Dealer Pulse does not mediate, manage or track disputes between reviewers and dealers.

A reviewer or dealer may request correction or removal if a review contains a clear factual error, private information, duplicate content, fraud, conflict of interest or another breach of these guidelines. We do not remove genuine critical feedback simply because it is negative.

Send review concerns to Contact us.

Submitted reviews may be held for manual review before publication. We check whether the review appears connected to a genuine dealership experience, whether the content is relevant, and whether it complies with our Review Guidelines and Community Standards.

• Approve: the review is published.
• Request more information: the reviewer may be asked for extra detail or supporting material.
• Edit for privacy only: we may remove phone numbers, addresses or other private information without changing the substance.
• Reject: the review is not published where it breaches platform rules.
• Escalate: higher-risk content may be held for legal or senior review.

We may remove or restrict reviews, replies, profile content or messages that are fake, misleading, abusive, discriminatory, defamatory, spam, commercially conflicted, privacy-invasive, legally risky, irrelevant or otherwise inconsistent with the purpose of DealerPulse.

Dealers can dispute a review by providing a clear reason and supporting information. Disagreement with a customer’s opinion is not enough. We assess whether the content appears genuine, relevant and compliant with our rules.

Reviewers can ask us to correct, update or remove their own review. We may retain internal records where reasonably needed for moderation, legal, audit or platform integrity purposes.

Paid dealer status does not guarantee review removal, better ratings or favourable moderation. Plus dealers may respond and use resolution tools, but they do not control the review record.

We aim to avoid a review record that is artificially positive, artificially negative or otherwise misleading. Genuine critical reviews are not removed simply because they are uncomfortable, and genuine positive reviews are not favoured because a dealer is a paid subscriber.

You must be authorised to act for the dealership you claim. We may request evidence of your role, dealership email domain, management approval or other reasonable verification before granting portal access.

A Free profile may show dealership details, approved customer reviews, public ratings and basic profile information. DealerPulse may update or correct public dealership information to improve accuracy.

Plus is $199 per month, GST inclusive, billed monthly unless otherwise agreed. Plus includes additional reputation tools such as public replies, resolution tools, analytics and review growth features made available in the dealer portal.

Subscriptions are intended for one dealership location unless DealerPulse agrees otherwise in writing.

• Keep dealership details accurate and current.
• Respond to reviews professionally and without intimidation.
• Do not offer incentives for positive reviews or for removing negative reviews.
• Do not submit fake reviews, staff reviews, competitor reviews or duplicate reviews.
• Do not use customer data from DealerPulse outside the purpose for which it was provided.
• Comply with applicable consumer, privacy and advertising laws.

Dealers using review invitation tools must invite customers in a fair and balanced way. You must not selectively invite only happy customers, suppress unhappy customers, or use language that pressures customers to leave a positive review.

Plus billing is monthly in advance. You may cancel by contacting DealerPulse or through available account controls. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period unless otherwise agreed. Failed payment may result in downgrade to Free.

We may suspend portal access, remove dealer replies, restrict invitation tools or downgrade a profile if a dealer misuses the platform, breaches these Dealer Terms, attempts to manipulate reviews or creates legal, privacy or platform integrity risk.

Do not misrepresent who you are, your relationship to a dealer, or what happened. Reviews and replies should reflect genuine experiences and genuine attempts to respond.

Focus on the dealership experience. Avoid exaggeration, irrelevant personal attacks or claims you cannot reasonably support.

Do not publish private customer, employee or third-party information. This includes personal phone numbers, home addresses, finance application details, identification documents and private medical or family information.

We do not allow intimidation, threats, hate speech, discriminatory content, repeated targeted abuse or attempts to pressure another user outside the platform.

DealerPulse encourages constructive resolution. Dealers should respond to issues promptly and professionally. Reviewers should be open to updating the resolution survey if a dealer later resolves the issue.

• Attempting to hack, scrape, overload, interfere with or reverse engineer the platform.
• Submitting spam, malware, phishing content or automated bulk requests.
• Creating fake identities, fake reviews, duplicate claims or misleading dealer accounts.
• Using DealerPulse data to harass customers, staff or dealers.
• Copying, reselling or republishing substantial platform content without permission.
• Using the platform for unlawful, misleading or deceptive conduct.

Users must keep login details secure and must not share portal access with unauthorised people. Dealers are responsible for activity by their authorised users.

We may block, suspend, restrict, investigate or report misuse. We may also preserve records where reasonably necessary for security, legal, fraud-prevention or platform integrity purposes.

Essential cookies support core functions such as login, security, session handling, forms and fraud prevention. Some parts of the platform may not work properly without them.

Analytics tools may help us understand page visits, search behaviour, errors, device type and product usage. We use this information to improve reliability, usability and launch readiness.

Marketing cookies are used only where enabled and may support campaign measurement or retargeting. You can opt out through browser controls, platform controls where available, or the unsubscribe link in marketing emails.

Most browsers allow you to block, delete or restrict cookies. Blocking all cookies may affect dealer portal access, review submission or other site functions.