To check if a company is legitimate in the USA, start with the state business registry where the company was formed, then verify every other claim it makes about itself in the specific database that governs that claim. There is no single federal registry of American businesses, so legitimacy is confirmed piece by piece: the entity in one place, the license in another, the public-company or nonprofit status somewhere else again.1U.S. Small Business Administration. Register Your Business Most of these checks are free and take a few minutes each.
Get the Legal Name and Formation State First
Databases only return good results if you feed them the right name. The marketing name on a website is often not the registered legal name. Look in the site footer, invoices, or contracts for the full legal name with its suffix: Inc., LLC, Corp. Some companies also operate under a “Doing Business As” or trade name that won’t appear in state corporate records under that trade name at all.
You also need the state where the company says it was formed or incorporated. A business registered in one state may operate in several, and the primary filing lives in the formation state. If the company claims professional licenses, jot down the license type and number as well. Having these details in front of you before you search prevents dead ends and false matches on common names.
Search the State Business Registry
Every state maintains a business entity database, usually run by the Secretary of State, that you can search by company name for free. Results show the registered name, formation date, current status, and the registered agent. Status is what matters most. “Active” or “In Good Standing” means the company has kept up with its annual filings and fees. “Dissolved,” “Revoked,” or “Terminated” means the state has stripped the entity of its authority to do business.
Administrative dissolution happens more often than people expect, and it isn’t always fraud. The three most common causes are failure to pay franchise taxes, failure to file annual reports, and failure to maintain a registered agent. Whatever the reason, a dissolved company cannot legally enter into enforceable contracts. If the entity shows any inactive status and is still actively soliciting business, treat that as a serious warning.
Match the Claim to the Right Database
Whatever the company says about itself beyond simply existing, there is usually a specific place to check it.
Public Companies: SEC EDGAR
Any company that sells stock to the public must register with the Securities and Exchange Commission and file regular financial disclosures.2U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Public Companies The SEC’s EDGAR database lets you search by company name, stock ticker, or CIK number and pull up the full text of every filing back to 2001.3U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. EDGAR Full Text Search The annual Form 10-K includes audited financials, legal risk disclosures, and descriptions of actual operations. If someone says their company is publicly traded and it doesn’t turn up in EDGAR, the claim is false. Companies also have to register with the SEC once they have more than $10 million in total assets and a class of equity securities held by 2,000 or more people.4U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Exchange Act Reporting and Registration
Brokers and Investment Firms: FINRA BrokerCheck
If the company offers investment services, securities transactions, or financial advice, use FINRA’s BrokerCheck at brokercheck.finra.org. It’s free.5FINRA.org. BrokerCheck – Find a Broker, Investment or Financial Advisor Both brokerage firms and individual brokers must be registered with FINRA to legally conduct securities business with the public. Reports show registration history, employment for the past ten years, and disclosures covering customer disputes, disciplinary actions, arbitration awards, and certain criminal or financial matters. Records are kept indefinitely for anyone subject to a final regulatory action or certain civil judgments related to sales practices.6FINRA.org. About BrokerCheck If someone pitching investments doesn’t appear in BrokerCheck at all, walk away.
Nonprofits: IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search
Charities that claim tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) are verifiable through the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search. Search by name or Employer Identification Number to confirm whether the group is eligible to receive tax-deductible contributions.7Internal Revenue Service. Search for Tax Exempt Organizations The tool draws on Publication 78 data and an auto-revocation list of organizations that have lost their exempt status.8Internal Revenue Service. Tax Exempt Organization Search A charity soliciting donations that doesn’t appear there won’t give you a deductible contribution and may not be legitimate at all. For for-profit businesses, there is no equivalent public IRS tool that lets consumers verify an EIN or tax filing status.
Licensed Trades and Professions: State Licensing Boards
Many industries require a state-issued license before a company can legally do the work. Contractors, electricians, plumbers, healthcare providers, real estate agents, and dozens of other professions must hold current licenses in each state where they operate. Every state maintains a professional licensing database, usually through a department of regulatory agencies or a profession-specific board. Search by individual name, license number, or business name and confirm the license is current, not expired or subject to discipline.
This step catches problems the Secretary of State can’t. A company can be legally formed as an LLC in good standing and still lack the occupational license required to perform the work it’s selling. If a contractor, financial planner, or healthcare provider can’t produce a license number, or the number doesn’t check out, that’s a dealbreaker.
Federal Contractors: SAM.gov
If the company claims to hold government contracts or be an approved federal vendor, verify that through SAM.gov, the System for Award Management. The entity search confirms registration status, including whether a company is currently active or has been excluded from federal contracting.9SAM.gov. Entity Information A company that claims federal contract work but doesn’t appear in SAM.gov is either misrepresenting itself or has let its registration lapse.
Check Court Records for Lawsuits
The state registry tells you a company exists. Court records tell you what it has been doing. PACER, the federal court records system, is open to anyone who registers for an account. If you don’t know which court a case sits in, the PACER Case Locator searches a nationwide index and returns every federal court where a party appears as a litigant.10PACER. Find a Case A pattern of federal lawsuits for breach of contract, fraud, or consumer protection violations tells you something no marketing material will. PACER charges a small per-page fee to view documents, but the case listings themselves often reveal patterns. State-level lawsuits require you to search the specific state court’s records, which vary widely in accessibility.
Confirm the Physical Address and Domain Age
A company that exists on paper still might not exist anywhere in the physical world. Pull up the claimed business address in a mapping tool and see what’s actually there: a real office, a residential house, or a mailbox rental storefront. Private mailbox companies, known as commercial mail receiving agencies (CMRAs), give businesses what looks like a street address but is really a rented box. USPS rules require mail sent to a CMRA to include a “PMB” identifier or “#” and the box number, but companies routinely drop that designation from marketing materials.11Postal Explorer. 285 Private Mailbox Addresses
Cross-reference the address on the state filing with the address on the company website. If they don’t match, ask why. A recent office move is a fair answer; a mismatch combined with other warning signs is not. Also compare the domain registration date with the company’s claimed history. A business that says it has been operating since 2005 but registered its domain six weeks ago deserves further scrutiny. Many domains now use privacy protection services that mask the owner’s identity, so a WHOIS lookup may only return the privacy service’s name. That alone isn’t suspicious, but it limits what you can confirm this way.
Consumer Complaints: What’s Public and What Isn’t
The Better Business Bureau maintains company profiles with customer reviews, complaint histories, and information on how the business handles disputes, and its Scam Tracker collects consumer reports of suspected scams. A high volume of unanswered or unresolved BBB complaints is a real warning, and a total absence of any BBB history for a company that claims decades of operation is suspicious on its own.
One boundary worth knowing: the FTC does not offer a public database where you can look up complaints against a specific company. The Consumer Sentinel Network, which holds millions of fraud reports, is restricted to law enforcement.12Federal Trade Commission. Consumer Sentinel Network The FTC publishes aggregate trend data at ftc.gov/exploredata, but you cannot type in a company name and see what has been filed against it.13Federal Trade Commission. Explore Data BBB profiles and consumer review platforms are the closest thing to a public complaint history for private companies.
Red Flags That Point to Fraud
The checks above work best when you know the patterns scammers use. Urgency and pressure are the most reliable tells, because the whole point is to keep you from doing what you’re doing right now.14Federal Trade Commission. Scams Watch for these:
- No state registration, or the entity shows as dissolved or revoked.
- Pressure to act immediately: the deal expires today, you’ll lose your spot, there’s a penalty for waiting.
- Unusual payment demands: wire transfers, cryptocurrency, gift cards, or cash, all of which are nearly impossible to reverse or trace.
- An address that traces to a mailbox service, a vacant lot, or a residential home with no commercial presence.
- A brand-new website domain paired with claims of years in business.
- No verifiable license in a licensed industry.
- Absence from a database where the company should appear: EDGAR for a “publicly traded” firm, BrokerCheck for an investment company, the IRS search for a charity. The absence is the evidence.
Any one of these justifies caution. Two or more justify walking away.
If You’ve Already Been Scammed
If your research turns up evidence of fraud, or you’ve already lost money, report the company to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.15Federal Trade Commission. How to Report Fraud at ReportFraud.ftc.gov The form takes a few minutes: what happened, the company’s name and contact information, what you paid and how. The FTC doesn’t resolve individual disputes, but reports feed the Consumer Sentinel database that law enforcement uses to build cases.
File a complaint with your state attorney general’s consumer protection division as well. Most state AG offices accept complaints online and look for patterns of fraud against businesses operating in their state. If you paid by credit card, call your card issuer immediately to dispute the charge. Chargebacks are often the fastest way to get money back, and federal law limits your liability for unauthorized charges. An FTC report, a state AG complaint, and a chargeback together cover you from every angle.