Verifying Business value, honesty or integrity

The internet has now made it possible to obtain products and services from firms far away - even offshore. Oftentimes, however, the size or cost of a product or service makes it risky or at least more challenging to have provided by an unknown or unfamiliar firm who is out of state or offshore.  How then to verify or validate a firm’s product value - even its honesty?

Well, the cyber-fraud focus by both governments and financial institutions like credit card companies make that less of a concern than in prior years.  However, there are still firms that require a wire-transfer or check before they conduct business - so getting your money back from these types of firms is more the focus or the need for business quality verification before you buy.

Starting with the online firm who wants you to prepay for their goods or services you can request banking data so you can check them out.  In the meantime, you should perform an online quality search for the firm and/or its products/services. This is actually pretty easy.   Since it is now relatively commonplace for jilted/cheated individuals to go out of their way to let the world know how unhappy they are with ABC, Inc., you can gain access to such data online quickly and without cost.  Do a find a person search or Google search with the preface “Experience with…” followed by the company name or product name.  Many industries now have watchdog websites that list unscrupulous firms.   The bottom line is that this type of information is available if you are willing to search for it.

Next, if you are on the search for serious data prior to engaging in an especially expensive transaction, you should verify whether or not the company has any judgments or suits against them.  This presupposes that you’ve checked with the Better Business Bureau and haven’t gotten a full set of data.   Once again, there are online services, people finder, and watchdog sites that can often help identify such data.  You can even begin with the typical address search to verify their location. If you are seeking judgment or lien data then this can normally be obtained from the county or state filing office in the state where they are located.


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