Verifying Identity and Credentials
Nearly every credential worth checking has an official register behind it, and most of those registers are free and public. The difficulty is almost never access. It is knowing which register is authoritative, and understanding what a clean result does and does not prove.
The Short Version
Verification answers a narrow question well: does this credential exist, in this name, in this jurisdiction, in good standing today. It does not answer whether the person is competent, honest or safe, and it is not a background check. Treating a licence lookup as a character assessment is the most common mistake here, and the most expensive.
Watch: Verifying Identity and Credentials
Go to the Issuing Authority, Not an Aggregator
The register that issued the credential is the only one that can confirm it.
A credential is created by an authority and recorded in that authority’s register. A state licensing board holds the licence. A secretary of state holds the company. A court holds the judgment. Anything else — a directory, a profile, a badge on a website — is a copy of a copy, and copies go stale silently.
This matters more than it sounds. Aggregators refresh on their own schedule and rarely publish it. A licence suspended last month can sit on a directory as current for a long time, and the directory has no obligation to tell anybody. The primary register updates when the status changes, because the status change is the update.
The practical rule is simple: verify at the source that issued the thing, record which register you checked and the date you checked it, and keep that note. A verification without a date is not a verification, because credentials expire and statuses change. Most single checks take minutes and cost nothing; where it stops being simple — several jurisdictions, a former name, an entity behind an entity — you can send us what is claimed and we will check the issuing register and document what it says.
Which Register Is Authoritative
Whether a clean result means anything is decided in the last column.
| What you are checking | The authoritative register | What a clean result still leaves open |
|---|---|---|
| A trade or professional licence | The issuing state board, which publishes status and usually discipline. | Work done outside the licensed scope, and complaints with no public disposition. |
| A company or its officers | The secretary of state in the state of formation. | Whether the registered-agent address reaches anybody. It is often a law office. |
| A judgment or a case | The clerk of the court that entered it. | Whether it was satisfied, appealed or vacated afterwards — the docket has to be read to the end. |
| An identity | No single register. Identity is assembled from records, not looked up. | Almost everything. This is the check most often assumed to be simple and least often is. |
Reading the right-hand column is what separates a verification from a reassurance. Each of these checks is worth doing and none of them is worth more than what it actually establishes.
What a Clean Result Proves, and What It Does Not
The gap between these two is where people get hurt.
A clean register result proves a narrow thing precisely: this credential exists, in this name, in this jurisdiction, and its status on the date checked was current. That is genuinely valuable. It defeats the most common frauds, which rely on nobody looking.
It does not prove competence, and it does not prove honesty. It does not tell you about complaints that did not reach a public disposition, work performed outside the licensed scope, or anything the board has not published. Most boards publish discipline; few publish everything.
It also does not confirm that the person in front of you is the person on the register. Name matching is the weakest link in every verification, and common names defeat it routinely. Where identity itself is the question rather than the credential, the work is a records search rather than a lookup — which is what identity verification services covers, and the record types that answer it are set out in using public records to find someone.
How Verification Goes Wrong
Two of these happen at the moment of looking. The other two happen afterwards.
A directory was checked instead of the register
Aggregated listings refresh on an unpublished schedule. A suspended licence can read as current for months, and nothing on the page says how old the data is.
The result was not dated
Statuses change. A verification recorded without the date it was performed cannot be relied on later, and will not help if the question is ever revisited.
A name match was treated as an identity match
Common names defeat name matching routinely. A clean result against the wrong person of the same name is worse than no result, because it carries confidence.
A verification was used as a screening decision
Confirming a licence is fine. Deciding a tenancy or a hire on research that is not a consumer report puts the user outside the FCRA framework, whatever the research said.
Verification Guides
One credential, one page: which register is authoritative and how to read it.
Each guide below covers a single kind of check — where the authoritative register lives, what it publishes, and how to read a result that looks clean:
How to Verify a Charity Before You Donate, How to Verify a College Degree or Diploma, How to Verify a Contractor’s License and Insurance, How to Verify a Home Inspector Before You Buy, How to Verify a Job Applicant’s Identity, How to Verify a Professional License, How to Verify a Property Manager Before Renting.
How to Verify a Remote Worker’s Identity, How to Verify a Skip Tracing Report, How to Verify a Tax Preparer Before You Hire One, How to Verify a Used-Car Dealer Before You Buy, How to Verify an Immigration Lawyer, How to Vet a Home-Care Agency Before Hiring, How to Vet a Landlord Before You Sign.
Verify a Doctor or Nurse Is Really Licensed, Verify a Phone Number Belongs to the Person Who Gave It, Verify You Found the Right Person Before You Contact, Vet a Moving Company Before You Book, Vet a Wedding Vendor Before You Book a Deposit, Vet an Online Coach Before You Pay.
Where the question is who somebody is rather than what they hold, skip tracing services covers identification work and how a permissible purpose is established before it starts.
Verification Is Not Screening
The distinction is legal, not semantic.
Confirming that a contractor’s licence is current is a verification. Deciding whether to rent to somebody, hire them, extend them credit or write them insurance is a consumer report question. Where a consumer report informs that decision, the Fair Credit Reporting Act governs it at 15 U.S.C. § 1681b, and the report has to come from a consumer reporting agency, with the notice and dispute rights that come with it.
We are not a consumer reporting agency. Our research confirms what a register says on a date and names the register. It is not a consumer report and must not be used to make any of those decisions. That is not caution on our part; it is what the statute asks of anyone relying on research for a covered decision.
Where the decision genuinely is a screening decision, the right answer is a CRA, and we will say so. Where it is a verification — is this licence real, is this company registered, is this judgment actual — the register answers it, usually free, and we document it properly.
Running a Verification Properly
Most checks are finished, and free, by step three.
Identify the issuing authority
Which body actually grants the thing, in which jurisdiction. A trade licensed by a state board is not confirmed by a national directory of the same trade.
Find that authority's own register
Most publish a free public lookup. This is the source; anything presenting the same data second-hand is not.
Search on the details you can defend
Licence number where you have it, exact legal name where you do not. Note spelling variants and former names before concluding nothing exists.
Read the status, the scope and the discipline
Current is not the only field that matters. Scope says what the credential permits; discipline says what the board has published about its holder.
Record the register and the date
Which register, what it said, when you looked. That note is the verification — the screenshot is not. Verified checks typically come back within 24 hours.
Who Needs This
Situations where the register itself settles it.
Anyone Hiring a Trade
Confirming a contractor, an electrician or a care worker holds what they say they hold, before money moves.
Counsel and Fiduciaries
Confirming a company, an officer or a judgment is what a document claims it is, from the register that created it.
Businesses Checking a Counterparty
Establishing that the entity on the other side of an agreement exists, is in good standing and can be served.
People Checking Someone They Have Met
Where a credential has been claimed and the register can settle it in minutes, free.
Our Commitment
A verification from us names the register that was checked, quotes what it said and records the date it was checked — because a status without a date is not a verification. We check the issuing authority’s own register rather than a directory that copies it. Where a register publishes nothing on a point, we report that it publishes nothing rather than reading silence as a clean result. We are not a consumer reporting agency and this research is not a consumer report: it cannot be used to decide a tenancy, a hire, credit or insurance, and where that is the real question we will tell you to go to a CRA. United States subjects only. We decline any request whose apparent purpose is finding a victim of domestic violence, a person protected by a restraining order, or someone who left to escape an abusive situation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where should I verify a professional licence?
At the licensing board that issued it, in the state that issued it. Most publish a free public lookup showing status and, usually, discipline. A national directory listing the same trade is not the issuing authority and its data can be months stale.
Does a clean licence check mean the person is trustworthy?
No. It means a credential exists in that name, in that jurisdiction, and its status on the day you looked was current. It says nothing about competence or honesty, and boards vary widely in what they publish about complaints that did not reach a public disposition.
Why does the date of the check matter so much?
Because statuses change and credentials expire. A verification recorded without its date cannot be relied on afterwards. The note that says which register was checked and when is the verification; the result on its own is just a screenshot.
Can I use a verification to decide whether to rent to someone?
No. Where a consumer report informs a tenancy, hiring, credit or insurance decision, that report has to come from a consumer reporting agency. We are not one and this research is not a consumer report. Where that is the real question, the answer is a CRA.
How do I know I am checking the right person?
That is the weakest link in every verification. Common names defeat name matching routinely, so a licence number or another identifier matters more than the spelling of a name. Where identity itself is the question, it is a records search rather than a lookup.
What if the register shows nothing at all?
Then the register shows nothing, which is not the same as the credential not existing — it may be issued elsewhere, held under a former name, or outside that board’s scope. We report the absence as an absence of record and say where else it could sit.
Do you charge for checks I could run myself?
Most of these registers are free and we will tell you so. What we charge for is the cases that are not simple: multiple jurisdictions, former names, entities behind entities, or a result that has to be documented properly for somebody else to rely on.
How long does it take?
Verified checks typically come back within 24 hours. Where a board answers only by post or by telephone, we say so at the outset rather than letting a deadline run. We have worked this way since 2004.
Send the Name and the Credential
Tell us what is claimed and in which state, and we will check the issuing authority’s own register, report exactly what it says and record the date it was checked. Verified checks typically within 24 hours. Contact us to get started.
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