How Scam Verification Works on This Platform

01Why this page exists

This platform publishes pages that say critical things about identifiers, and some of those identifiers belong to real people and real businesses. A site that does that owes its readers a plain account of how it reaches its conclusions — otherwise a label like “verified” is doing rhetorical work rather than informational work.

It also matters for reading a page correctly. A status is the outcome of a process with specific limits, and knowing the limits is what stops it being read as more than it is.

02From submission to published status

A submitted report is not published as a finding. It moves through review, and the stages are deliberately visible:

1. 1

   Reported

   A report is filed against one specific identifier, carrying at least one piece of evidence. That is a hard requirement rather than a guideline: a report submitted with nothing attached is refused at the point of submission, not rejected later.

2. 2

   Under review

   It enters the queue, visible to nobody but its author and the moderation team. Nothing about it is public yet — including the fact that it exists. An identifier does not acquire a page because somebody accused it.

3. 3

   Investigating

   A moderator reads the report against its evidence, and against anything already on file for the same identifier. A second report from a different person counts for far more here than a second report from the same one.

4. 4

   Evidence review

   Each file is judged on whether somebody who was not there could check it. A screenshot of a conversation and a receipt carrying a transaction reference are not weighed the same way, because one of them can be corroborated against a record.

5. 5

   Verification decision

   A status is assigned, and it is a judgement about the evidence rather than about the person. The same identifier can carry different statuses at different times, because what is on file changes.

6. 6

   Published status

   The status and the report become visible. The evidence does not follow automatically — each file has to be passed individually, so a published report can sit above evidence that is still in the queue.

The important consequence is that submitting a report does not publish a verdict. Nothing is treated as verified because it was asserted.

03What each status means

• Verified scam — reviewed and supported by sufficient evidence at the time of review. A review outcome, not a legal ruling.
• Suspicious — signals of concern, without enough to reach a conclusion.
• Under review — currently being examined; no conclusion has been reached.
• Insufficient evidence — not enough information to determine anything. This is not a clearance, and it is not a finding against either party.
• Disputed — flagged as contested and being re-examined.

Two of these are read wrongly most often. “Insufficient evidence” means the question is open, not that the identifier is fine. And “verified scam” describes the state of the evidence at review time — it is a statement about material, not a determination about a person.

04Evidence strength and confidence

Profiles show an evidence strength and a confidence level as well as a status, because the number of reports on its own is a poor measure. Ten reports repeating one screenshot are weaker than two with independent documentation.

• Volume, but weighted by independence. Reports from unconnected people carry more weight than several from one source, which is why the independent count is shown separately.
• The quality of the material: transaction records, receipts and full conversation threads are stronger than a description alone.
• Consistency across reports. Independent accounts converging on the same method and the same identifiers is the strongest ordinary signal there is.
• Specificity. A report naming an exact identifier, date and amount is checkable in a way a general complaint is not.
• Recency, so a profile reflects current activity rather than a closed episode.

Submitted material is not automatically counted as verified evidence. That is the distinction evidence strength exists to express.

05Which pages are offered to search engines

Being publicly reachable and being advertised to a search engine are different things, and this site treats them differently on purpose.

A profile is reachable on a direct link as soon as a moderator advances it — including while it is under review, being investigated, or disputed. It is only listed in the sitemap and offered for indexing once a moderator has actually reached a verdict, and once there is enough substance behind it: corroboration from more than one report, and at least one piece of evidence.

The reasoning is straightforward. An indexed page titled “Is X a scam?” is a claim actively being promoted, and promoting one that somebody has formally contested through our own dispute process — or one that rests on a single unsupported report — is not defensible. Below that line the page still answers, with its full framing and its correction form; it is simply not advertised.

06Corrections are part of the process

Any listing can be contested, through the correction form on the profile page itself, and requests are reviewed by a person. Outcomes range from removal through correction of a specific detail to a status change recording that the listing is disputed.

A process that publishes critical claims without a working route to challenge them is not a verification process. Our page on requesting a correction covers what to include.

07The limits, stated plainly

• This is not a law-enforcement agency, court, regulator or government authority, and no status here carries legal weight.
• A status reflects the material available at review time. Material changes, and so can a status.
• The absence of a report is not evidence of safety. It very often means the identifier is new, which is the normal state of a scam identifier.
• Reports are submitted by people, and people are sometimes mistaken about who defrauded them — particularly where an identifier was spoofed or reassigned.
• The decision is yours. What this platform can do is show you what has been reported and how well supported it is.