Transparency Report

Each report states the period it covers and when its figures were compiled.

If a figure is later corrected or materially revised, the revised report says so. We will not knowingly present old figures as current, or merge periods in a way that makes our activity look different from what it was.

We disclose totals for the records published in the period: dossiers, investigations and reports, and how many were later updated, corrected, restricted or withdrawn. We may also show which jurisdictions and broad subject areas our work covered.

These numbers measure our output. They are not a count of guilt, wrongdoing or enforcement among the people and companies we wrote about.

We may publish totals for the evidence behind our work — how many sources were cited, and the main kinds of material relied on, such as court records, agency decisions, government records, company filings, interviews and submitted documents.

Publishing those totals does not oblige us to reveal a confidential source, unpublished evidence, privileged communications or anything we are legally barred from disclosing.

We report how often people and companies were asked to comment before adverse reporting was published, and how often they gave a substantive answer.

Silence or a refusal to comment is never presented as an admission, as evidence of wrongdoing, or as confirmation of what was put to them.

Sometimes approaching a subject first is unsafe, legally restricted or impractical. We will not take that risk simply to improve a figure in this report.

We disclose how many correction and amendment requests we received and, where practical, what happened to them: a material correction, a clarification, an update, a change of evidence grade, a restriction, a removal, or no substantive change.

A correction fixes an error. An update reflects something that happened later. A record that was accurate when published is not wrong just because a later ruling changed the position.

We disclose totals for requests to remove or hide published material. Where we can, we separate requests made on grounds of factual error, privacy or data protection, legal proceedings, court orders, mistaken identity, later developments, and those made mainly for reputational reasons.

Nothing disclosed here will reveal confidential legal communications or harm ongoing proceedings.

USA Scammers does not accept payment, gifts, favours or anything else in return for removing, hiding, delaying, softening or materially changing accurate reporting.

When we receive a credible attempt to buy or improperly steer an editorial outcome, we may log it internally and, where it is lawful to do so, report the total here.

We take care not to label an ordinary correction request, a settlement proposal or a letter from a lawyer as bribery or improper pressure without a solid factual and legal basis.

We may receive cease-and-desist letters, demands for correction, data-protection requests, court orders, subpoenas and other formal legal communications.

Where it is lawful and does not prejudice proceedings, privilege, confidentiality or anyone’s rights, we may disclose how many we received and of what broad kind.

We also do not dismiss a demand just because it comes from a subject or their lawyer. Each one is weighed on its legal and evidential merits.

USA Scammers may earn revenue from Research Membership and from access to professional research services, including The Scanner.

Being a member gives no right — contractual or otherwise — to have a record removed, to change an evidence grade, to stop publication, to get favourable coverage, or to obtain a correction the evidence does not support.

Where it helps the public understand how we are funded, we may publish total membership figures and membership revenue.

We identify the main categories of income that fund our work, within legitimate confidentiality and legal limits.

Where a donor, investor, member, sponsor, commercial partner or other financial relationship creates a material conflict in a particular matter, it is handled through the Conflict Register and our internal procedures.

We will not hide a financial relationship when leaving it out would give a misleading picture of our independence.

Material organisational conflicts identified in the period are handled under the USA Scammers Conflict Register.

This report may give totals for conflicts identified, recusals made and other safeguards used, without exposing private or confidential details.

A conflict does not, by itself, make a piece of reporting invalid.

Research Members can send us evidence and ask us to review existing records, so we are open about how membership is kept apart from editorial results.

We may disclose how many review requests members submitted and how many led to a correction, an amendment or no substantive change.

That gives anyone a way to check that paying for membership does not guarantee a favourable decision.

Where The Scanner or other restricted systems are made available to approved government, law-enforcement or legal professionals, we may publish totals for that access where it is lawful and operationally safe.

We will not disclose anything that would identify a confidential investigation, weaken operational security, reveal protected research or interfere with lawful government work.

Access to our systems does not mean USA Scammers endorses a user’s investigation, conclusions or later actions.

We may describe, in general terms, how we protect non-public evidence, confidential submissions and restricted research systems — for example role-based access, identity checks, access logs and internal permissions.

We will not publish technical detail that could help someone break in or tamper with our systems.

We may receive information from confidential sources and whistleblowers.

Nothing in this report requires us to name a protected source, or to publish anything from which a source could reasonably be identified, where that would be unlawful, unsafe, against an undertaking we gave, or contrary to legitimate source protection.

Where permitted, we may disclose totals for requests for information from government, regulatory or law-enforcement bodies received in the period.

Whether we can reveal that a particular request exists — or what it asked for — depends on the law, any court order, confidentiality duties and the facts of the matter.

We make no promise to publish anything we are legally forbidden to disclose.

Each report carries a publication date and a version number.

If we later find a material factual error in it, we correct it under the same rules we apply to our investigations, and mark the correction rather than quietly rewriting the figure.

We do not undertake to disclose confidential sources, privileged legal advice, protected personal information, unpublished investigative material, information restricted by a court, security-sensitive information, or anything whose release would put a person at unjustified risk.

We may also hold information back where releasing it would harm an active investigation, interfere with legal proceedings or break a legal obligation.

Leaving something out of this report is not a confirmation or a denial that it exists.

The disclosure table for the selected period is at the top of this report. “Counted” figures are calculated from our records when the page loads. “Recorded” figures are entered by the editorial team. “Not recorded” means nobody has entered a figure yet — it does not mean zero.