Check a Company

Almost every legitimate firm and every person who sells financial products in the United States has to be registered somewhere public. That single fact is what makes verification possible: if you cannot find a company or a salesperson in an official register, that is the most important warning sign there is. Our free check does these lookups for you in about half a minute, but you can also do each one by hand, and it is worth knowing where the answers come from.

Start with the person, not the pitch

Look up the individual who contacted you in FINRA BrokerCheck and in the SEC’s Investment Adviser Public Disclosure database. Both are free and both show the same critical field: disclosures. A disclosure is a customer complaint, a regulatory action, a termination, a bankruptcy or a criminal matter. One old disclosure is not automatically disqualifying; a pattern of customer complaints about the same behaviour is. Our guide to reading broker records explains what each entry actually means.

Then confirm the firm exists as described

Firms that offer securities to the public file documents with the SEC. You can read them yourself in EDGAR full-text search. If a company claims decades of history but has no filings, no state incorporation record and a domain registered a few months ago, the story and the paperwork do not match. If a brokerage holds your cash or securities, check that it is a SIPC member, which protects customer assets if the firm fails — it does not protect you from losses or from fraud by an unregistered operator.

Check how you are being asked to pay

The payment method is often a clearer signal than anything on the website. Requests to wire money to a personal account, to buy gift cards, to send cryptocurrency, or to move money “for safekeeping” to a new account are not how regulated firms take customer funds. Neither is a deadline. Read the pressure tactics guide and, if you feel rushed, use a simple routine to slow the decision down. A genuine opportunity survives a 48-hour pause.

What a Trust Score can and cannot tell you

Our score summarises public records: registration status, disclosure history, business reputation, domain and web signals, aggregated customer feedback and detected risk signals. It is a research shortcut, not a recommendation, an endorsement or a guarantee. A high score means the public record looks consistent today; it cannot see private conduct or predict the future. A low score is a reason to stop and ask questions, not proof of wrongdoing. Every signal we use is defined in plain language in the risk signal glossary, and our methodology page shows how the score is built.

If you have already sent money

Act the same day. Contact your bank or the payment provider and ask for a recall or chargeback, keep every message and receipt, and file a report with the FBI’s IC3 and the FTC. Our first-72-hours checklist lists the calls to make in order, and the recovery scam guide explains why anyone who now offers to get your money back for a fee is almost certainly the second stage of the same fraud.