How we investigate

Our coverage is desk research, not enforcement. This page sets out where information comes from, what our labels mean, and the limits of what any article here can establish.

Source hierarchy

  1. Tier 1 — Official records

    Regulator registers and public warning lists, company registries, court filings and enforcement notices. These are the only sources we treat as authoritative on licensing status.

  2. Tier 2 — Primary observation

    What a platform itself published at the time: website copy, legal documents, terms, bonus and withdrawal policies, disclosed ownership and contact details, captured with a date.

  3. Tier 3 — Reported accounts

    User complaints and third-party reports. Useful as signals of a pattern, never sufficient on their own to support a factual claim about a company.

Investigation status labels

Every article carries a status so readers can tell current verification from an archived snapshot.

Historical Review

Original article preserved; current status not reverified.

Rechecked

Specific claims have been reviewed recently.

Provider-Reported

Information originates with the company.

Regulatory Source

Information linked to a regulator or authoritative public record.

Needs Review

Time-sensitive claims require manual verification.

Handling of historical articles

A large part of this archive was published years ago. Regulatory status, ownership and platform behaviour change. We keep those articles online as a dated record rather than deleting them, and we mark them as historical rather than presenting them as a current assessment. Where an older article states a conclusion we can no longer support from Tier 1 or Tier 2 sources, the conclusion is scoped to the date it was made.

What we do not do

  • · We do not recover funds, take cases, or refer readers to paid recovery services.
  • · We do not promise or estimate any recovery outcome.
  • · We do not accept payment to add, alter, soften or remove coverage of a company.
  • · We do not present user complaints as proven facts.