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Ask HN: How to verify a business (users will register their business on my app)

4 points by snack-boye ↗ HN
I'm just curious how to verify a business that someone lists as their own.

For example, if I'm a yoga instructor who runs a yoga studio, how can I verify that information?

I'm having a hard time using google, maybe my search terms are wrong "how can I verify a business is legitimate" :(

10 comments

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hkt
You might want to edit your title to "Ask HN:"

In the UK you could ask for a company number and look it up at companies house (the registrar) but lookups for self employed people are very limited. Most countries have a registrar though.

snack-boye
in the US we have EIN.

however I'm not getting much results on "EIN lookup api" or "business verification api" https://www.judydiamond.com/products/einfinder/ein-api-autom... is only promising one

I'm just a solo dev trying to figure this out sorry if I ask stupid q :D

hkt
Not stupid at all, good luck!

Why are you checking, by the way?

snack-boye
I am trying an approach to lead generation for SMBs.

I'd like to verify these small business owners who sign up, so for example if Sally's Holistic Yoga wants to sign up, then Sally would make an account for her business.

However, I could manually verify this information somehow by calling them or whatever else, or there may be some API or service I could use to do this for me.

that being said, I've never done this kind of thing before.

m33k44
> but lookups for self employed people are very limited.

Do self-employed people not have to register their business? I thought everyone who has a business has to register with companies house and file tax return.

smt88
You can't, really. You could send a letter to their registered business address with a code to use to sign up, but even that isn't a guarantee.
underseacables
In America, you can check the secretary of states office for the state in which the business is located. That will list the articles of incorporation, and you can find the registered agent. However there are other services like Hoover’s that research this stuff, but you have to pay. Most businesses you can track down the people involved, unless they are part of other shell companies then it can get harder.
high_byte
depends what you mean by verify. do you require incorporation certificate? which would require you to check who are current majority stake holders, which would require you to verify their passports...

but maybe you don't need that. just throwing an idea, you could verify ownership of a domain via DNS TXT records, for example. lookup domain verification.

sdevonoes
Via email?

Yoga Studio X website says: contact us at contact@yogastudiox.com, then as part of the registration process in your app, you ask for an email with exactly the same email domain.

You would need to manually verify though. But I think it's worth it. Steps:

- deny any generic email domain address in your registration form (e.g., gmail.com, yahoo.com, etc.)

- whenever a new "company" registers in your app, you'll get a "needs approval" notification. You quickly check if the email they submitted corresponds to the "official" email of the website of the business they claim to own. You could even automate this. The user will receive as well an email to confirm their email address