Trust Who ID Verification F.A.Q.

This page is intended to answer some of the basic questions about Trust Who and the Trust Who verification process.

What does Trust Who ID Verification do?

The verification for Trust Who is a way of making sure the person you're ordering from is really the person they say they are. Among other things, the Trust Who verification is used to confirm the location and identity of the person ordering the verification in the first place. Put more simply, the purpose of Trust Who is to remove the anonymity of the Internet in online trades.

How does Trust Who prevent scamming?

Trust Who prevents scamming by verifying that the person is indeed who they say they are. It is very important, if you are dealing with somebody with a TrustWho account, that you only accept and receive correspondence from their verified Trust Who email address.

What doesn't Trust Who ID Verification do?

Trust Who ID Verification does not make you scam-proof. We cannot provide a guarantee of immunity from scamming and loss from online trades and sales. While we are able to verify somebody's identity, we aren't able to make judgements about their character.

What does a Trust Who ID look like?

Click here to see the Trust Who ID of the director of Trust Who.

What do each of the things on a Trust Who ID mean?

Name and Confirmed Email mean what they say: they are the full name and email address of the person. It is recommended that you only deal with the person through their confirmed email address.

Geographical match on the Address & IP means the person's physical street address matched where their Internet information said they should be at the time they placed their order.

A verified telephone number means that we spoke to the verified member over the telephone as part of their identity confirmation. This also means that the location of their phone number matched the general area of their Address & IP.

Faxed ID shows whether or not we have seen ID for the person in question. The sending of ID is a required part of the service that allows people to further confirm their identity with some physical proof. If this box is not checked the trustwho verifcation in question is not complete.

Comments are an open field that can only be edited by Trust Who staff. This allows us to include additional information about the individual that the public should see. During our verification call, we also give the customer a chance to include additional information there such as other contact information. The confirmed email address is the only contact information we will display automatically for the individual.

Common uses for the comments field are additional methods of contact such as AIM, ICQ, MSN, or Yahoo, additional email addresses, or to list an "official phone number." We can also list website addresses for you or names you go by in forums.

Is there anything I can do to protect myself further?

Yes. There are several things you can do.

First, make sure the Trust Who ID you're looking at isn't a fraudulent (or spoofed) website. In your web browser, the URL (full address) of the page should look like:

• http://www.trustwho.com/idverify.php?email=email@address
or
• http://trustwho.com/idverify.php?email=email@address

If the first part says anything different than www.trustwho.com or trustwho.com, or if the second part is different than idverify.php?email=, stop your transaction immediately! This means the person you're dealing with is giving you a fraudulent website and is most likely a scammer. If you encounter this, please copy and paste the whole address into an email and send it to support@trustwho.com.

Second, consider a telephone conversation with the other party. When dealing with somebody over the Internet, there are subtle queues that you miss out on. When you can actually hear the other person's voice, it is sometimes possible to tell if the other person is being dishonest in any way. If the person is in another country from you, calling them might not be feasible but if they are just a few states away from you, it could be well worth the cost of a long distance phone call.

Third, only send and receive email from the verified Trust Who email address. Any other correspondence should only be done via the communication methods (if any) listed in the comments of the account. Frequently, scammers will find the account information of somebody legitimate, and create a contact that is only slightly different from the legitimate person. The exception to this, of course, is the phone call. It is important, however, to only call a number that has been sent to you via the verified email address.

Why did I just get scammed by someone who is Trust Who verified?

Unfortunately, there are still people who, even though we have their contact information (and in some cases their photo ID) on file, still insist on scamming people. Please email the details of the transaction, including the email address of the other party, to support@trustwho.com.

When I get scammed, do I have any legal recourse?

Most jurisdictions still don't view virtual sales as being of legitimate concern. If you should need to get hold of the verified details of an individual who scammed you, see here for information on how that is done.