Frequently asked questions

DredgeCred is the dredging industry's first credibility marketplace. It connects equipment owners, dredging contractors, crew, and service providers with verified ratings drawn from real transactions. Users can rent equipment, hire crew, submit bids on RFQs, and retain permitting engineers — every counterparty arrives with a transparent credibility score.

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Equipment owners, dredging contractors, manufacturers, field repair technicians, supply chain vendors, insurance brokers and underwriters, marine and hydrographic surveyors, and the crew that runs the equipment. Buyers — project owners, fleet owners, and general contractors with a dredge in the scope — use the same platform to hire.

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Dredging equipment is long-lead, specialty-rated, and permit-governed; the general contractor rental marketplaces don't model dredge-type, spud configuration, cutterhead wear, or USACE permit alignment. DredgeCred's ratings, filters, and compliance flows were built for this industry from day one rather than retrofitted on top of a generic rental tool.

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The DC Score is a 0–100 credibility index computed from verified transactions, dimension-specific ratings (quality, schedule, communication, safety, budget adherence), maintained insurance and credentials, and dispute-free history. Scores help the hiring side make a defensible decision. The weighting and methodology are documented in the published scoring spec.

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The Credibility Pledge is a versioned commitment to professional conduct: honest communication, proper equipment maintenance, timely delivery, and fair pricing. Taking the Pledge adds a visible badge to your profile and enters you into the Pledge Registry. Each version is hash-stamped so a badge reflects the exact terms you accepted.

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Ratings attach to completed transactions, not to unbound reviews. Only the counterparty to a specific rental, bid award, or placement can rate it, and ratings are time-boxed to a fixed window after completion. That rules out astroturfing — there is no path to leave a review without first transacting.

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Base Crew is free for the first six months, then $2/month. Verified Crew ($11/month) adds public score display and written endorsements once your DC Score clears the endorsement threshold. Pro Crew ($31/month) adds the AI Coach, resume PDF export, and featured search placement.

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Buyer, Pro, Fleet, and Enterprise tiers are priced monthly or annually. Enterprise uses invoiced net-30 billing; Buyer, Pro, and Fleet bill via card on file. The Founding Partner plan is a locked $99/month rate reserved for the launch cohort and is the single discount that compounds with longevity.

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Service-side transactions carry a 5% platform fee capped at $2,500 per engagement, with the bidder-side bid-post fee at $49 refundable on award. There is no dispatch commission, no per-lead charge, and no markup on equipment rentals. The platform never custodies funds; settlement flows through Stripe Connect direct-charge.

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Founding Partner is a 3-year lock at $99/month reserved for the first cohort of paid-tier buyers. It is a discount from the Pro plan rate ($199/month) rather than a separate feature tier — the entitlement is the price, not the functionality. Founder approval is required to grant it.

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Browse available equipment by dredge type, spud configuration, discharge size, location, and availability. Filter by DC Score, verified COI status, and condition rating. Open a rental request, review the insurance requirements and mobilization terms, and the owner contacts you directly inside DredgeCred to confirm logistics.

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Buyers post sealed RFQs with a deadline, scope, and bond requirement. Contractors submit bids privately. At deadline the board closes, tabulation is public, and the buyer either selects a winner or runs the post as a no-award. The bid-post fee is refundable on award and auto-refunded on no-award.

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Cover is a transaction guarantee. Payment is authorized at booking, held in escrow by Stripe Connect, and released on delivery confirmation (or back to the buyer on dispute outcome). The platform never holds funds directly — escrow is enforced by Stripe and governed by the dispute state machine.

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Either party can open a dispute after a delivery event or during the delivery window. Evidence upload is structured (photos, documents, timestamps). If the counterparty does not contest within the response window, the claim auto-resolves. If contested, the case moves through mediation and, if unresolved, arbitration. Partial refunds are clamped to the remaining escrow balance with Stripe idempotency keys so a retry cannot double-refund.

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A COI (Certificate of Insurance) proves a contractor carries the liability and pollution coverages a dredge project needs. Owners attach required coverage levels to their equipment listing; renters upload their COI; the platform verifies policy number, insurer, and expiration before the rental is allowed to start. An expiring COI triggers a renewal reminder 30 days out.

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Each crew member keeps a portable credential wallet — MMC, TWIC, OSHA 10/30/500, STCW, tankerman endorsements, NCCCO crane and rigger certs, captain's licenses, AWS welding, CDL, and more. Verified credentials surface as chips on the public profile; the underlying document scans and credential numbers stay private.

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It is a hardhat-style sticker awarded to crew members with a verified OSHA 10, OSHA 30, or higher safety certification. Unlike an attestation-based badge, it is backed by a document in the credential wallet — if the cert lapses, the sticker lapses with it.

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Yes. USACE-permitted RFQs carry a district tag and the federal-only filter narrows the bid board to those posts. Organization profiles can verify SAM.gov registration (CAGE + UEI) and the exclusion-list check, and federal contracting designations (HUBZone, SDVOSB, 8(a), WOSB, etc.) appear as designation badges.

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DredgeCred runs on Postgres with row-level security on every table, a PII-scrubbing error pipeline, and a privacy model that surfaces only category/type/authority/expiry on public credential views — never the underlying document. Payment data lives entirely in Stripe; DredgeCred stores only the external ids needed to reconcile webhooks.

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