A DealerRater Review Named Your Salesperson — Here’s What Can Actually Come Down

Can Businesses Remove DealerRater Reviews?

When a specific guideline is genuinely violated — no real transaction, a conflict of interest, hate speech, privacy violations, defamation, or spam. A review being personally damaging to the named salesperson isn’t itself grounds for removal, though if a review simply tags the wrong employee, that’s usually a correction request rather than a removal request.

"Delete" and "remove" mean the same thing here — DealerRater doesn't let a business unilaterally delete a review either way. Both routes go through the same flagging process against the same content guidelines below.

Which DealerRater Reviews Can Be Removed?

DealerRater evaluates a flagged review against specific categories, regardless of how positive or negative it is. A review is a genuine candidate for removal if:

• It doesn’t reflect a genuine transaction or visit — the reviewer never actually bought from or was serviced by the dealership.
• It comes from an undisclosed conflict of interest — a competing dealership, a current or former employee, or someone with a comparable stake posing as a customer.
• It contains hate speech, threats, or discriminatory language.
• It discloses private information about an employee or another customer without consent.
• It makes defamatory statements or unsubstantiated criminal or fraud accusations beyond describing a bad experience.
• It’s spam, duplicated content, or clearly references a different dealership entirely.

For the complete breakdown — including the misconceptions that waste the most time and how to build a flagging case that's actually likely to work — see the full guide: Can Businesses Remove DealerRater Reviews?

How to Report or Flag a DealerRater Review

Reporting works best when the flag names a specific, checkable guideline violation rather than simply disagreeing with the review — "this reviewer has no matching record with us" is actionable; "this isn't fair" generally isn't. See DealerRater’s dealer resources for the current process directly from DealerRater.

What If DealerRater Refuses to Remove the Review?

If the review doesn't violate DealerRater's guidelines, removing it may not be an available option — that's the realistic outcome for most negative reviews, since being genuine and unflattering isn't a policy violation. In that situation, the focus shifts from deletion to the overall profile: a thoughtful public response to the review that stays up, and a larger base of genuine reviews so a single negative one carries proportionally less weight in the average.