Trust Scores Explained: How GhostNot Measures Meeting Reliability

Every GhostNot user has a trust score between 0 and 100 that reflects their meeting reliability. This score determines your tier, affects the stake amounts hosts can require, and serves as a portable reputation signal across the platform. Here is a deep dive into exactly how the score is calculated, what factors influence it, and how to build and maintain a high score.

The Basics: A Score from 0 to 100

Your trust score starts at 50 when you create an account. This neutral starting point reflects that you have no history yet: you are neither trusted nor distrusted. From there, every meeting interaction moves your score up or down, with the magnitude depending on several weighting factors.

The score is not a simple percentage of meetings attended. It is a weighted, time-decayed composite that accounts for the context of each meeting. A no-show on a $50-stake meeting with a high-profile host has a larger negative impact than a no-show on a $5-stake meeting. Similarly, a strong attendance streak carries more weight than sporadic attendance.

Positive Factors: What Builds Your Score

Meeting Attendance

The most fundamental positive factor is simply showing up. Each confirmed attendance adds points to your score. The base value is +2 points per attended meeting, modified by the weighting factors described below.

Attendance Streaks

Consecutive attended meetings earn a streak multiplier that rewards consistent reliability:

• 5 meetings in a row: 1.2x multiplier
• 10 meetings in a row: 1.5x multiplier
• 25 meetings in a row: 2.0x multiplier
• 50+ meetings in a row: 2.5x multiplier

Streaks reset to 1.0x on any no-show. Late cancellations (within 24 hours of the meeting) also reset the streak but do not incur the same penalty as a full no-show. The streak system means that long-term reliability is disproportionately rewarded compared to occasional perfect attendance.

Meeting Volume

Users who book and attend a high volume of meetings earn a small volume bonus. This reflects the statistical confidence in their reliability: a user with 100 attended meetings and a 95% attendance rate is more reliably assessed than a user with 5 attended meetings and a 100% rate.

Host Diversity

Attending meetings with a variety of different hosts earns a diversity bonus. This prevents score inflation from repeatedly booking with a single friendly host and ensures the score reflects genuine cross-platform reliability.

Negative Factors: What Hurts Your Score

No-Shows

A no-show is the most damaging event for your trust score. The base penalty is -10 points per no-show, modified by weighting factors. A single no-show can erase the gains from five attended meetings, which reflects the asymmetric real-world impact: one missed meeting can damage a professional relationship far more than five attended meetings can build one.

Late Cancellations

Cancelling within 24 hours of the meeting incurs a penalty of -4 points. This is less severe than a no-show because the host at least receives notice and can potentially fill the slot, but it still reflects unreliable scheduling behavior.

Cancellations made more than 24 hours before the meeting incur no penalty. Plans change, and early cancellation is a reasonable and respectful action.

Repeated Offenses

Consecutive no-shows or late cancellations trigger an escalating penalty multiplier. Your first no-show is -10 points. A second consecutive no-show is -15. A third is -20. This rapid escalation means that users who are genuinely unreliable see their scores drop quickly to levels that require higher stakes or restrict their booking ability.

Weighting Factors

Time Decay

Older events have less influence on your current score than recent events. The decay function uses a half-life of 90 days, meaning that a meeting from three months ago carries half the weight of a meeting from today. After six months, it carries one-quarter weight.

Time decay serves two purposes. First, it ensures your score reflects your current reliability, not your behavior a year ago. Second, it gives users who have had a rough patch a realistic path to recovery. A string of no-shows from six months ago will not permanently tank your score if you have been reliable since.

Stake Weight

Meetings with higher stakes carry more weight in both directions. Attending a meeting with a $50 stake adds more to your score than attending one with a $5 stake. Conversely, no-showing a high-stake meeting penalizes your score more severely. This reflects the principle that higher commitment carries higher accountability.

Host Reputation

Meetings with hosts who themselves have high trust scores carry slightly more weight. This prevents score manipulation through collusion with low-reputation accounts and ensures that the most trusted corners of the network have the strongest influence on score calculations.

Trust Tiers

Your trust score maps to one of four tiers, each with different platform privileges:

• New (score 40-59): Default tier for new users. Standard stake requirements apply. Limited booking volume.
• Established (score 60-79): Reduced minimum stake requirements. Hosts can optionally waive stakes for Established users. Higher booking volume limits.
• Trusted (score 80-94): Significantly reduced stakes. Priority booking for popular hosts. Visible trust badge on profile.
• Elite (score 95-100): Minimal or zero stakes at host discretion. Access to premium hosts. Prominent trust badge. Eligible for the GhostNot Trust Network.

Users who drop below a score of 40 enter a Restricted state where they must place higher-than- normal stakes and may be limited in the number of meetings they can book. This protects hosts from repeated no-show offenders while still giving the user a path back to good standing.

How to Build a High Trust Score

The algorithm is intentionally designed so that reliable behavior is the only path to a high score. There are no shortcuts. Here are the most effective strategies:

• Show up to every meeting. This sounds obvious, but it is the single most important factor. A 100% attendance rate, sustained over time, will get you to Elite tier faster than anything else.
• Cancel early if you must cancel. Life happens. If you need to cancel, do it more than 24 hours before the meeting. Early cancellations carry no penalty and preserve your streak.
• Book with diverse hosts. Meeting with different hosts earns the diversity bonus and builds a more robust reputation signal.
• Accept higher stakes when offered. Attending meetings with higher stakes adds more to your score per meeting.
• Be patient. The time decay and streak systems reward sustained reliability over time. There is no way to game your way to a high score in a week.

Trust Scores in the Agentic Economy

As AI agents increasingly book meetings on behalf of their principals, trust scores become even more important. An agent authenticating with your API key carries your trust score. If the agent books a meeting and you no-show, your score takes the hit, not the agent's.

This creates a natural accountability chain that scales to the agentic economy. Hosts do not need to trust individual agents; they need to trust the humans behind them. Trust scores provide that bridge.

Transparency and Disputes

GhostNot is committed to transparency in scoring. You can view a complete breakdown of your score in your dashboard, including every meeting event that contributed to your current score, the weight applied to each event, and how your score would change under different future scenarios.

If you believe a score impact was unfair (for example, a no-show caused by a host-side technical issue), you can file a dispute. The dispute process reviews the evidence and can reverse penalties when appropriate. Trust scores should reflect genuine reliability, and the dispute system ensures they do.

Your trust score is your professional reputation in the meeting economy. Build it carefully, maintain it consistently, and it will open doors across the GhostNot platform and beyond.