How we research and review

Official sources first

Every procedural step on this site comes from an official or primary source: the Federal Trade Commission (including IdentityTheft.gov and ReportFraud.ftc.gov), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, CISA, the credit bureaus, and the banks and payment companies themselves. We link to the exact page we used.

We don't publish statistics without a named source and a year.

How a guide gets published

1. We research the topic and draft the guide. We use AI tools to help with research and drafting.
2. Every claim is checked against the official source it cites, and every link is opened. Anything we can't verify is removed.
3. The guide is published with the date of that fact-check.
4. Our named expert reviewer, Alex Fernández, then reviews it. Until he has, the guide says "Expert review: pending"; afterwards it shows the date of his review.
5. We re-check guides when agencies or companies change their procedures.

What we won't do

• Let advertisers or affiliate partners choose, see or edit our guides before publication.
• Recommend a paid product when a free official option does the same job.
• Ask for passwords or send what you type in our tools anywhere.

Corrections

If you find an error or an outdated step, please tell us. We fix confirmed errors promptly and update the fact-check date.