How to check if a seller's numbers are real

We took one real business listed for sale at $433,000 and checked every factual claim in its listing against independent sources. Eighteen claims. Here is the result, unedited.

The listing is not named here on purpose. This page is about the method, not about one seller. We do not call anyone a scam, and nothing below is an accusation.

The result: 18 claims, none independently confirmable

What the seller stated	Could we confirm it independently?
The business has been operating for 6 years	No independent source
Over $800,000 in lifetime revenue	No independent source
14,000+ email subscribers	No independent source
72% gross margin	No independent source
$433,000 revenue over the trailing twelve months	No independent source
97% of the business is dropshipping	No independent source
Asking price $433,000	No independent source
Claimed profit margin 18%	No independent source
Listed at a 2.4× multiple	No independent source
$432,988 revenue over the past 12 months	No independent source
$88,271 profit over the past 12 months	No independent source
40% year-over-year growth	No independent source
Over $105,000 of revenue from 350 VIP customers	No independent source
350 customers	No independent source

This is not evidence of fraud. It is evidence that every number in the listing rests on one thing: the seller's word.

Why that matters more than it sounds

A screenshot of a dashboard, a PDF of a P&L, a number typed into a listing form — none of these is an independent record. They are all the same source: the person selling. If that source is the only one, then the price you are being asked to pay is built on it entirely.

Buyers say this better than we do:

“If the only proof is a screenshot, there is no proof. That’s not proof. That’s marketing.”

What actually can be confirmed by an outside record

Being honest about the limit is the point of this page. Some things about a business genuinely leave a trace in a public register. Most financial claims do not.

Claim type	Independently checkable?
Company exists, registration number, incorporation date	Yes — company register
Domain age and registration history	Yes — domain registry record
Legal entity identifier, sanctions screening	Yes — official databases
Certifications (ISO and similar)	Yes — certification register
Revenue, profit, margin, growth rate	No public register holds these
Customer count, subscriber count	No public register holds these

So the honest position for any buyer is not “the numbers are fake” and not “the numbers are fine”. It is: these specific numbers cannot be confirmed from outside, so they must be proven from inside — by the seller, on the record, before money moves.

What to ask instead of trusting a screenshot

Read-only access to the live payment processor and ad accounts — not exports, not screenshots.
Bank statements for the same period, matching the stated revenue to the day.
The supplier relationship in writing — for a dropshipping business, the supplier is the business.
A margin walk-through: ask the seller to derive the stated gross margin from real cost lines. High margin and near-total dropshipping pull in opposite directions; the arithmetic should be shown, not asserted.
Whatever is in a public register — company record, domain history — check it yourself. It is free.

FAQ

Does “could not confirm” mean the seller is lying?

No. It means no independent source confirms it. A true claim and an unconfirmable claim look identical from the outside — which is exactly why the burden belongs on the seller before you pay.

Why not just call it a scam?

Because we would be making an accusation without an independent source, and that is the same failure we are asking buyers to guard against. We only report what a source does or does not support.

Who checked these claims?

Code, not opinion. Each claim was matched against public sources and public registers automatically; the status is assigned by rules, not by a person and not by a language model deciding how it feels.

Can I check a listing I am looking at?

Yes. Paste it and you get the same treatment: each stated claim separated out, each one marked with what an independent source does or does not say.

Check a listing you are looking at — free

Method: each claim from the listing was checked against public web sources and public registers; a claim is marked confirmed only when an independent record supports it. The subject listing is not identified. Cortex AIF.