Does OLX show seller ratings?

Yes — OLX runs „System Ocen Transakcyjnych” (the transactional rating system), announced in September 2024. But only a buyer who purchased through „Przesyłka OLX” (OLX Delivery) and received the parcel can leave a 1–5 star rating. The aggregate score is a plain arithmetic mean of all stars.

What does „Super Sprzedawca” on Allegro actually mean?

It is a threshold, not an opinion. Allegro grants it automatically (you cannot apply) to a business account whose sales quality has been at the „Super” tier for at least 14 of the last 30 days, no lower than „Dobry” (good) for the whole 30 days, with at least 50 orders in the last 30 days. We checked these thresholds on 18 September 2026 — Allegro has changed them before.

Does Allegro Ochrona Kupujących cover Allegro Lokalnie?

Yes, it is one programme across both, capped at 20 000 zł. But one exclusion matters enormously on Lokalnie: it does not cover cash paid on personal pickup. On Allegro Lokalnie the wait is also always 14 days — there is no shortened 7-day „item never arrived” route.

How do I check a seller's reviews on Allegro Lokalnie?

Allegro documents its rating system for Allegro.pl and publishes no equivalent page for Allegro Lokalnie. We are not concluding from that that ratings do not exist there — only stating what we could verify: Allegro publishes no documentation on it. Allegro does state that it checks and confirms the data a seller provides when registering an account.

Is „Autoryzowany Dealer” on Otomoto a badge from the platform?

No. In the cases we checked it is part of a trading name the dealer typed in themselves (e.g. „… Sp. z o.o. Autoryzowany Dealer …”). Otomoto neither verifies nor stamps it. If authorisation by a specific manufacturer matters to you, check it on that manufacturer's own site, not on Otomoto.

Does „Wyróżniony Sprzedawca” on Otomoto mean the seller has been vetted?

No. It is a paid promotional product for business customers — an ad carousel bought by impressions. It tells you about an advertising budget, not about reliability.

How do I check a car's history for free?

At historiapojazdu.gov.pl. You need the registration number, the VIN and the date of first registration — all on the dowód rejestracyjny (registration certificate), so you have to get them from the seller. You will see the number of owners, inspection and OC insurance validity, stolen/deregistered status, and odometer readings recorded at technical inspections since 2014.

How do I check whether a business seller really exists?

Through the Biała lista podatników VAT (the VAT taxpayer whitelist) — searchable by NIP, REGON, bank account number or name. It shows VAT status, REGON, KRS number, registered address and the business settlement account. Note: it never shows a private ROR account, even if a sole trader uses one for business.

What cannot be checked before buying?

A private seller's identity. None of these platforms hands a buyer a private individual's personal data, and trying to establish it yourself is not verification — it is a separate problem. If you are still unsure after these steps, the right answer is to walk away from the deal, not to dig further.

How to check a seller on OLX, Allegro and Otomoto

Q: Why are there no ratings at all on an OLX car listing?

Because „Przesyłka OLX” is not offered in Motoryzacja (motoring), and without it there is nothing to rate. Per OLX's help centre, ratings are also absent in Usługi (services), Praca (jobs), Nieruchomości (real estate) and Wypożyczalnia (rentals). It does not mean the seller is new or suspicious — in those categories the rating mechanism simply does not operate.

Not every marking next to a seller means the same thing

A buyer looks at a listing hunting for anything that confirms the other side is sound: stars, a badge, „wyróżniony" (featured), „autoryzowany" (authorised). The trouble is that these markings belong to three completely different categories while looking much alike.

Some are earned — granted automatically once measurable conditions are met. Some are bought — an advertising product that tells you about a budget, not about reliability. And some do not exist at all, even though buyers expect them to.

This article separates those three groups for OLX, Allegro, Allegro Lokalnie and Otomoto. Everything below was checked on 18 September 2026 against the platforms' own documentation; for every number we say where it came from.

A note on the interface language. These are Polish marketplaces and their interfaces are in Polish, so every button, badge and section name below stays in Polish with an English gloss in brackets. An English translation of „Przesyłka OLX" would not help you find it on the page.

What this article is not. It is not a list of warning signs inside a listing — an underpriced offer, stock photos, time pressure and the rest are covered in 5 sygnałów ostrzegawczych fałszywego ogłoszenia (in Polish). This one is about something else: the seller's account, and what the platform reveals about it.

OLX: ratings exist, but not in every category

OLX runs „System Ocen Transakcyjnych" (the transactional rating system). It was announced in September 2024, so it is an established mechanism rather than a fresh novelty.

It works like this:

Ratings are given on a 1–5 star scale („gwiazdki").
Only a buyer who purchased through „Przesyłka OLX" (OLX Delivery) and received the parcel can leave one. A chat conversation, a personal pickup or a bank transfer outside the system give no rating rights.
A rating of 3 stars or lower requires the rater to pick at least one of five mandatory tags justifying the score.
The aggregate score is a plain arithmetic mean of all stars. It is neither weighted nor smoothed.
Ratings do not affect a listing's position in search results — that is OLX's own statement.

On the seller's profile you will see a breakdown: how many 5★, 4★ and so on, how often each tag was picked, and a reverse-chronological list of individual ratings.

This is the most important sentence in this section

In several categories there are no ratings whatsoever — because „Przesyłka OLX" is not offered there, so there is nothing to rate from. OLX's help centre names: Usługi (services), Praca (jobs), Nieruchomości (real estate), Motoryzacja (motoring) and Wypożyczalnia (rentals).

Which means: buying a car or a flat on OLX, you will see no seller rating and you never will. Not because the seller is new or dubious — but because in that category the rating mechanism does not operate.

This is exactly the situation where missing stars get misread as a warning sign. They are not. They are missing information — and missing information has to be filled from another source, which is what the rest of this article is about.

OLX: Pakiet Ochronny only applies to Przesyłka OLX

„Pakiet Ochronny" (the protection package) attaches automatically to every order using „Przesyłka OLX". If the item does not match the ad, arrives damaged, or the parcel is empty, you click „Mam problem" (I have a problem) under Twoje Przesyłki / Kupujesz (your shipments / you're buying) — you have 48 hours from receipt. The seller then has 48 hours to respond; if they do not, or they reject the claim, OLX takes it over and resolves it within a maximum of 30 days, by e-mail.

The dependency is the same as with ratings: outside „Przesyłka OLX" there are neither ratings nor Pakiet Ochronny. We cover how to file a claim separately in Pakiet Ochronny OLX: jak działa (in Polish).

One thing that is easy to mistake for a trust badge: „Weryfikacja danych" (data verification) for a private seller. This is an AML/KYC procedure run by PayU, triggered by things like a single „Przesyłka OLX" sale of 3000 zł or crossing 30 000 zł in total turnover. It is a gate that unlocks the seller's payout — it is not a buyer-visible sign that the seller has been checked.

Allegro: „Super Sprzedawca" is a threshold, not an opinion

„Super Sprzedawca" (super seller) is granted automatically — it cannot be applied for and cannot be bought. An account must meet four conditions at once:

it is a konto firmowe (business account);
sales quality at the „Super" tier for at least 14 of the last 30 days (not necessarily consecutive);
sales quality no lower than „Dobry" (good) across the entire last 30 days;
at least 50 orders in the last 30 days (excluding buyer-cancelled orders and those with a transaction rebate).

Losing the badge is reversible — meet the conditions again and it returns „już następnego dnia rano" (the very next morning).

Two things worth taking from this. First, the marking speaks to scale and consistency, not to someone being a pleasant human being: 50 orders a month is a threshold a private individual will not cross. Second, the thresholds move — Allegro publishes a separate notice about changing the programme's terms, so the numbers above are the state on 18 September 2026, not a constant.

Allegro Lokalnie: different rules from Allegro

Allegro Lokalnie is a separate surface, not a filter on Allegro.pl — Allegro's help centre treats it as its own section.

What we know for certain: „Allegro Ochrona Kupujących" (Allegro Buyer Protection) covers purchases on both Allegro and Allegro Lokalnie, capped at 20 000 zł. But two caveats change everything on Lokalnie:

The protection does not cover cash paid on personal pickup. Which is the typical Lokalnie scenario — meet, inspect, cash in hand. In that transaction the protection simply does not apply.
On Allegro Lokalnie the waiting period is always 14 days; there is no shortened 7-day „item never arrived" route that exists on Allegro.pl.

So if protection matters to you, the payment method matters more than anything on the seller's profile.

What we do not know — and will not pretend to. Allegro documents its rating system for Allegro.pl, and its „Czym wyróżnia się dobry sprzedający" (what makes a good seller) page is explicitly scoped to Allegro.pl. Allegro publishes no equivalent for Allegro Lokalnie. We do not conclude from this that Lokalnie has no ratings — an absence of documentation is not documentation of absence. We state exactly this much: we found no official Allegro page describing seller ratings on Allegro Lokalnie (checked 18 September 2026).

Allegro does state something else, and this one is in its own documentation: „Za każdym razem sprawdzamy i potwierdzamy dane, które sprzedający podaje podczas rejestracji konta" (every time, we check and confirm the data a seller provides when registering an account). That is verification at account-creation time — not the same thing as a transaction history you can see.

Otomoto: beware the markings that can be bought

Otomoto distinguishes a „Profesjonalny" (professional) from a „Prywatny" (private) seller — that distinction is built into the platform and is real.

But two markings that look like confirmations of trustworthiness are not:

„Wyróżniony Sprzedawca" (featured seller) is a paid promotional product — an ad carousel for business customers, bought by impressions. It speaks to money spent, not to reliability.
„Profil Handlowca" (salesperson profile — a photo, name, job title and sometimes a direct phone line attached to a listing) is available only on paid business tiers. Otomoto itself markets it to sellers with the line „zyskaj zaufanie klientów" (gain customers' trust) — making it a tool for manufacturing an impression of trust, purchased by the seller.

Separately: „Autoryzowany Dealer" is not an Otomoto badge. In the cases we checked it is simply part of a name the dealer typed in themselves (along the lines of „EUROMOT Sp. z o.o. Autoryzowany Dealer Fiat…"). Otomoto neither grants nor verifies it. If authorisation by a particular marque matters to you, check it on the manufacturer's site, not in an account name on Otomoto.

We could not confirm what a private seller's info block on Otomoto actually contains (account age, listing count, response time) — we did not open a real person's listing to find out. We treat that as unverified, not as „it isn't there".

What you can check yourself, off-platform

This is where you stop depending on what the platform chooses to show.

A car: historiapojazdu.gov.pl

A free service from the Ministry of Digital Affairs, drawing on CEP (the central vehicle registry). You need three things from the dowód rejestracyjny (registration certificate): the registration number, the VIN and the date of first registration — so you have to get them from the seller. A refusal to provide them is itself information.

The Historia pojazdu form on gov.pl with three empty fields: Numer rejestracyjny (field A on the registration certificate), Numer VIN (field E) and Data pierwszej rejestracji (field B) — The form tells you which field of the registration certificate each value comes from: the registration number is field A, the VIN is field E, and the date of first registration is field B.Screenshot: gov.pl, 18.09.2026. The interface may have changed since. We've deliberately blurred the rest of the page.

Usefully, the form tells you where to find each value on the registration certificate — the registration number is field A, the VIN field E, the date of first registration field B. So you can ask the seller for exactly those three fields rather than for a photo of the whole document.

You will see: technical inspection and OC (third-party insurance) validity, the number of owners since first registration in Poland, inspection history, whether the vehicle is deregistered or reported stolen, technical data, and odometer readings recorded at technical inspections since 2014.

Two caveats: the downloadable PDF is not an official document (the service says so itself), and checking vehicles never registered in Poland requires logging in with a profil zaufany (Trusted Profile) and is capped at 20 lookups per hour.

Those odometer readings are the strongest thing you get for free — how to read them, and what they will not catch, is in Cofnięty licznik: jak sprawdzić (in Polish), with the rest of the inspection in Jak sprawdzić używane auto przed zakupem (in Polish).

A business: the Biała lista podatników VAT

If there is a company on the other side, you can verify it in the Wykaz podatników VAT (the VAT taxpayer register) — searching by NIP, REGON, bank account number or name (for a sole trader: by first and last name in the entity-name field).

The Wykaz podatników VAT search on podatki.gov.pl offering four search modes: Numer konta (account number), NIP, REGON and Nazwa podmiotu (entity name) — Four search modes. For a buyer the first one matters most — „Numer konta” (account number) lets you check the very account you are being asked to pay into.Screenshot: podatki.gov.pl, 18.09.2026. The interface may have changed since. We've deliberately blurred the rest of the page.

You will see the name or the sole trader's full name, the NIP, VAT status, REGON, KRS number, registered address, people authorised to represent the entity, and — only for active or reinstated VAT payers — the business settlement account numbers.

The most practical use: checking the account number you are being asked to transfer money to. If a company gives an account that is not in the register, that is the moment for questions. Two limits to keep in mind: the register never shows a private ROR account, even when a sole trader genuinely uses one, and a business not registered for VAT will appear without any account number.

What you cannot check — and what to do then

The honest part at the end: you will not verify a private seller's identity. None of these platforms hands a buyer a private individual's personal data — which is as it should be, because it works the same way round when you are the one selling. Working out who the other side is from a phone number or a profile picture is not verification; it is a separate problem, and not one worth entering.

So what actually works is this:

Choose a transaction format that carries protection — „Przesyłka OLX" with Pakiet Ochronny, a paid Allegro order. That usually buys you more than any marking on a profile.
Check what the public registers can tell you — the car at historiapojazdu.gov.pl, the business in the Biała lista.
Treat missing information as missing information. Zero ratings in OLX's Motoryzacja means nothing. But „Wyróżniony Sprzedawca" on Otomoto also means nothing — and that is the more dangerous one, because it looks like it means something.

And if you are still unsure after all that: walk away. Absence of proof of reliability is not proof of reliability, and a bargain that requires haste and switching protection off is usually not a bargain. The most common scam patterns are laid out in Oszustwa na OLX: fałszywy kurier i BLIK (in Polish).

Every rule, threshold and amount in this article comes from OLX, Allegro and Otomoto documentation and from gov.pl services, checked on 18 September 2026. Platforms change these terms — Allegro has already published a notice about changing the Super Sprzedawca thresholds — so for a significant transaction it is worth checking the source.