A van pulls up. The magnetic sign on the door has a company name and a phone number. The man who gets out has a clipboard, a polo shirt with the same name on it, and a reason to be there.
Every part of that is purchasable online for under sixty dollars.
This isn’t an argument for suspicion of tradespeople. Most of them are exactly who they appear to be, running small businesses on thin margins, and being treated as a suspect on a driveway is insulting. It’s an argument for a check that takes two minutes and applies to everybody, so that nobody has to be singled out.
Three separate things get confused here
People say “check the contractor” as if it’s one action. It’s three, and they answer different questions.
Does the business exist? Registered entity, trading name, how long it’s been going, whether the address is real.
Is it licensed and insured for this work? Most states run a public licence lookup. Insurance you verify by calling the insurer named on the certificate, not the number printed on the certificate.
Is this person from that business? The one almost everybody skips. A real company name on a shirt says nothing about the person wearing it.
The first two protect your money. The third protects your house.
Verifying the person
Before the visit, get a full name from whoever booked it. Not “we’ll send a technician” — a name. Any legitimate operation can tell you who’s coming, and if they can’t, that’s worth knowing before the appointment rather than at it.
Then check that the name connects to something. A phone number with a history. An address trail that makes sense. An email that existed before this week. You’re not looking for a spotless record; you’re looking for whether the person has a past that matches the name.
At the door, match the name you were given to the person standing there. It’s an ordinary thing to do and it takes four seconds.
Where it comes apart
The patterns repeat. A company registered eleven days ago with a name almost identical to a well-known local firm. A mobile number that has belonged to three different business names in two years. A licence number that’s real but issued to somebody else. An address that turns out to be a mailbox service.
None of these proves anything on its own. Plenty of good businesses are new, and plenty of sole traders work from a PO box. What matters is how many of them show up at once, and whether the answers change when you ask twice.
The strongest signal is still pressure. A discount that expires today. A problem discovered in your roof that has to be fixed this afternoon. A deposit in cash before any paperwork. Urgency exists to stop you checking, and it works.
Same check, every time
Run this on everyone or it isn’t a process. If you only look up the ones who seem off, you’re going on instinct, and instinct has opinions you didn’t sign up for. It also means the polished operator sails straight past, which is precisely the one you’d want to catch.
Once it applies to everybody it stops being awkward to mention. “I check every contractor before they start” is easy to say. Nobody reasonable objects.
TellData is built for identity checks, not for employment, tenancy or credit decisions — those need an FCRA-compliant screening service.
One report instead of six tabs
You can assemble all of this yourself — state licence lookup, secretary of state registry, reverse phone lookup, a search or two. It’s free and it works. It also takes half an hour, which is why it tends to happen for the twelve-thousand-dollar job and not the eight-hundred-dollar one, even though the eight-hundred-dollar one still involves letting a stranger into your kitchen.
A single person report brings identity and SSN trace, address history, court and criminal records, watchlist screening and phone and email consistency into one document with a Clear, Review or Flag verdict, in about two minutes. More on contractor checks here.
Use it alongside the licence lookup, not instead of it. They answer different questions and you want both.
Before the van arrives
Get a name when you book. Check it while the kettle’s on. Match it at the door.
Nearly every time, it’s the guy from the van.