How long we take
Measured from the moment your report is filed, not from the moment somebody opens it. The console our staff work in puts the same clock on every row and marks it late when it passes, so these are numbers we are held to internally and not a line of marketing.
- Within 4 hours
Anyone asked to pay outside Vallo, anything unsafe or threatening, and any report that somebody has already lost money.
- Within 1 day
Listings that are not as described, suspected scams, duplicate listings, and content held by the scanner while a person reads it.
- Within 3 days
Agent applications, verification documents, appeals against a decision, and everything else that needs judgement rather than speed.
Answering does not always mean finishing. It means a person has read it, told you what is happening, and taken any step that stops harm continuing while the rest is worked out.
What is not allowed
Asking anyone to pay outside Vallo
Sending an account number, asking for a transfer, moving the conversation to WhatsApp to arrange money, or asking for cash at an inspection. This is the most serious thing on the platform and it ends an account.
Charging a fee we do not charge
Vallo charges renters and guests nothing: no fee to look, to book or to pay, and nothing added to the price on the listing. Listing is free. When a payment is made, Vallo's platform fee comes out of the lister's share. An inspection fee, an agency fee, a holding fee or a caution fee presented as ours is a lie, and an account that presents one is removed.
Listing a place you do not control
Somebody else's photographs, an address that is not yours to let, a property that has already gone, or a hotel, guest house or restaurant you do not run. If you recognise photographs from somewhere else, report the listing; a person reads every report.
Misrepresenting a property or a stay
Photographs that are not of the place, a size or an address that is wrong, or amenities that do not exist. Light, water and gate access are the three that matter most on the Property side, and getting them wrong is not a small thing. On Vallo Stays it is the room, what it sleeps, the check-in hour and the house rules.
Charging at the door what was not listed
A host may ask at the door only for a charge listed on the place before the guest booked: a caution deposit, power, cleaning, an extra guest or a visitor, each with its amount and its reason. Anything else, or more than was listed, is not allowed, and the guest can report it.
Harassment, threats or discrimination
Refusing a guest or an agent on the grounds of ethnicity, religion, state of origin, gender, marital status or disability. Anything that makes a person unsafe, in a property or in a message.
Fake accounts and manufactured reputation
More than one account for one person, reviews written for a stay that did not happen, and utility reports filed to flatter an area you are selling in. Standing on Vallo is earned or it is worth nothing.
How we enforce it
- Step 1
The scanner reads first, and it does not sleep
Every message, post, story, listing description, review and profile is scanned as it is written. An account number or payment wording raises a flag, and on the public surfaces it holds the content before anyone else can see it. That happens at three in the morning exactly as it happens at three in the afternoon, because it is a database rule rather than a person on shift.
- Step 2
A person decides, always
The scanner holds, it never bans. Every hold, flag, alert and report lands in a queue that a member of staff works through by hand, oldest first, and a person makes the decision to release it or to take it down.
- Step 3
Serious things are escalated, not merely closed
A report that somebody was asked to pay off-platform, or that somebody has already lost money, opens a risk alert that stays open until a person writes down what was done about it. Closing it without a note is not possible.
- Step 4
Every decision is written down and cannot be rewritten
Each action a member of staff takes writes a line naming who did it, what they did and when. Those lines cannot be edited or deleted by anybody, including us. A record staff can quietly change proves nothing to you, to a regulator or in a dispute.
What happens when a standard is broken
Content removed
The post, listing, review or photograph comes down and the author is told why.
Listing unpublished
The property or the stay leaves search while we look at it. Existing bookings and reservations are handled with the guest directly, never silently cancelled.
Account suspended
Sign-in continues to work so the person can read the decision and appeal, but they cannot list, message or book.
Account removed and referred
For fraud, for asking a person to pay off-platform after a warning, or for anything that put somebody in danger. Where money has been taken we will co-operate with the person's bank and with the police.
How far the person behind a listing has been checked
Approval is where somebody starts, not where they finish. Four checks sit above it, in this order, and each one is a decision a named member of our team recorded. Nobody skips a step: passing the last one while the first is outstanding counts for nothing. One ladder governs all of them, an agent acting for owners, an owner letting their own place, a host who lets rooms by the night and a restaurant that takes tables, because it is the person being checked and not the product.
- Level 1Identity verified
A real person with government identification stands behind this account, and we have seen it.
What we look at: The NIN or government ID on the application, checked against the uploaded document.
- Level 2Address verified
We know where they are, so an agent who disappears is not untraceable.
What we look at: The residential or registered business address on the application, confirmed against a document or a reachable contact at it.
- Level 3Payout verified
Money owed to this agent goes to an account that belongs to them, not to somebody else.
What we look at: The payout account resolved through the payment processor, with the returned account name matching the identity on file.
- Level 4Fully verified
Somebody from Vallo has met this agent or stood in one of their properties.
What we look at: A visit or a live video call, recorded with the date and who did it.
A level can go down as well as up. If something stops checking out, the check is recorded as failed, the level drops to the step below it, and the agent is told why.
How Recommended is ordered
In property search, Recommended counts 4 things about each listing, one point each, and puts the highest count first. Real listings always come before example listings.
- Every cost is named: caution, agency, legal and agreement fees on a tenancy; every buying cost, or a stated total to buy, on a sale. A stay priced by the night, or anything priced per head, has nothing more to name, so its price alone earns this point.
- Light and water are answered: how often the power is on, and where the water comes from.
- At least 5 photographs of the place.
- A person at Vallo has checked the identity of whoever listed it.
Listings with the same count keep the newest first. The order is worked out over the 200 newest listings that match a search.
Nobody can pay to place a property listing higher. Vallo does not sell placement.
If you think we got it wrong
Every decision can be appealed, and an appeal is read by somebody who did not make the original call. Write to support with what was removed and why you think the decision was wrong. Appeals are answered within 3 days. An account suspended pending an appeal can still sign in and read, so nobody is locked out of their own case.