quote: Original post by Brooke
Hi,

What is the best way to check out if a company actually exists or not? Isn''t there is a way you can check with the government to see if they are registered.

You can go to the county courthouse in the county the business is named in, and see the records for the fictitious business name, as well as it''s business license application. They used to be public record. Call the local papers and see if they have ever published the company name in the legally required publication of the DBA statement.

If they are larger, then see if they have a dun & bradstreet number or profile. www.dnb.com It used to be free.

Call the chamber of commerce in the city they purport to do business in, and see if they are known to the COC, and see if you can gather intel that way.

quote:
I''m also interested in seeing what the financial situation of a company is. Is there a place reports usually go for reference on this type of information?
thanks

Tax records are private, but if you interview the company, ask management how long they have been in business, who are the clients they''ve had, who are the founders and top managers (you may have to do some explaining as to why exactly you want this data, as ppl are sensitive to private and public information these days), ask for references, ask frankly about the size of the contracts they execute and the difficulty of the conditions of performance of those contracts, how many employees they have (hint: payroll is roughly 25% of grosses) and if you are genuinely checking them out for professional reasons, such as employment or contracting them, these are all pretty legitimate questions.

If they are a publicly held company, they should have mandatory company data provided on their annual report, which you should be able to obtain pretty cheaply. A hoovers report, www.hoovers.com or hooversonline.com (one of those two) is pretty cheap.

Contact them and speak with the Public Relations representative, who are usually full of information and doublespeak both.

You want to check with county DA''s to see if any lawsuits have been filed against or by this company, and for what tort suit was drawn.

A lot can be free, and a lot can be expensive, if you were to give me a better idea of why you were checking them out, I could advise you more specifically rather than generally.

About 500 dollars will get you a level 4 background check on anybody, which is usually done by a lawyer or P.I., who makes sure law is abided by. Avoid those online ''find out anything about anyone'' claims.

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