Where Our Checks Come From: Scan Raccoon's Sources and Method

When Scan Raccoon tells you that a website, a company, an e-mail address or a phone number deserves caution, you are entitled to know what that opinion rests on. This page describes, in plain language, the sources we use, what each one brings, what it does not prove, and how we avoid accusing anyone without a basis. It is updated when our methods change.

Official and public sources

These are the most solid ones, because anyone can look them up and check for themselves.

• The official French company register (the state's company directory). It tells us whether a company exists, its SIREN number, its creation date, its town, and whether it is still active or has ceased trading. A struck-off company, or one created a few weeks ago, is not necessarily dishonest, but the fact is worth knowing. To do the check yourself, read our guide on how to check a company before ordering.
• The age of the domain name, read from the public directories kept by domain registries (the RDAP protocol, successor of “WHOIS”). Many scam sites are created days or weeks before a campaign and then dropped. A recent domain is a hint, not proof: an honest shop can be young too.
• The blacklist of the AMF, France's financial markets regulator. It lists sites offering investments, crypto, forex or other financial products without being authorised in France. We reuse this public information, citing the source and the date of the list, and keeping its official meaning: “not authorised”, not “proven scammer”.
• A public list of phishing and scam sites (the PhishDestroy project, released under the open MIT licence). It gathers more than 200,000 domain names reported for phishing or fraud. A site that appears on it is shown with the name of the source list.
• The French numbering plan published by ARCEP, the telecoms regulator. It lets us recognise a premium-rate number (08 9x), a range reserved for telemarketing, or a mobile number, without asking anyone: this is a public rule, not guesswork.
• ARCEP numbering tables (open data): for a French number they show which operator the range is assigned to, and reveal a number that is assigned to nobody, which means it is spoofed. The operator shown is the original one: number portability lets people switch.
• Complaints filed with the US FTC (Do Not Call list, public data): for a North American number we show how many complaints were filed. A complaint is not proof, and numbers are often spoofed.
• Public DNS. For an e-mail address, we only check that the domain exists and is set up to receive messages. An address whose domain does not exist is necessarily fake.
• A list of disposable e-mail services (temporary addresses that vanish after a few minutes), used to warn you when an address belongs to one.

Community reports and reviews

Scan Raccoon users can report a website, an e-mail address or a phone number, and leave a review about a company. These contributions are valuable, because scams spread among victims first, but they are also more fragile: a report can be a mistake or a grudge. That is why:

• a single report is not enough to trigger a strong warning: several distinct people are needed;
• the free text of reports is never shown publicly, only their number, to avoid accusations or harassment based on an unverified message;
• a community review cannot, on its own, overturn a verdict checked by the team, unless there are many of them and they come from sufficiently old accounts;
• one account counts only once.

Checks by the team

For large retailers and very well-known platforms, the team checks by hand and records a verdict that takes precedence over any automatic estimate. When a page carries this status, it says so clearly. These checks are neither sponsored nor negotiable: see our trust charter.

The role of artificial intelligence

To analyse a product or a listing, Scan Raccoon uses an AI: it identifies the item from the photo or link, estimates a usual price and spots inconsistencies. What you should know:

• the market price is an estimate, not a promise;
• the AI judges from what it has learned: for a small, recent website or a specific phone number, it generally knows nothing. In that case we do not make it invent an opinion: the result says “unknown”;
• for an e-mail address or a phone number, the check uses no AI at all: it relies on the reports database and on the technical checks described above.

What we cover in each country, and what we don't

Scan Raccoon is used in six languages, but some sources apply to one country only. To be clear:

• the company check relies on the French register. For a company in another country, look it up in its national register: Companies House (UK), the Secretary of State of the relevant state (US), the Handelsregister (Germany), Registro Mercantil (Spain), Registro delle Imprese (Italy), the commercial register (Portugal), CNPJ (Brazil). In the EU, a VAT number can also be validated on the European VIES service;
• the AMF blacklist is French. Every country has its own equivalent (the FCA Warning List in the UK, SEC and FINRA BrokerCheck in the US, BaFin in Germany, CNMV in Spain, CONSOB in Italy, CMVM in Portugal, CVM in Brazil). We do not yet reproduce their content;
• the phone-number rules are adapted to each country (France, US and Canada, UK, Germany, Spain, Italy, Portugal), and the public phishing lists are international;
• the user reports apply across all languages: a report about a website helps everyone.

We are working to widen the national sources. If you know a reliable register or public list in your country, write to us.

What our checks cannot do

No tool detects every scam. A few limits to keep in mind:

• a site can change after our analysis, or be honest today and not tomorrow;
• a phone number can be spoofed: seeing it displayed does not prove where the call comes from;
• a site missing from our lists is not necessarily trustworthy: it may simply be too new to appear;
• our public lists are refreshed at regular intervals and can lag slightly behind the news.

Use the result as a decision aid and keep your own judgement for big purchases. Our guide how to tell if a website is a scam shows how to complete the analysis yourself.

How we are funded, and why it changes nothing in the results

Some free analyses are offered without signing up, and a paid plan gives access to more analyses. Some links to merchants are affiliate links: they may earn us a small commission if you buy, without changing your price. That commission influences neither a product's score, nor the verdict on a website, nor the alternatives suggested. We do not sell your personal data. The details are on the About page.