For businesses
How to prove your business is legitimate to a new customer
To prove your business is legitimate, give the customer four things they can verify themselves: a legal entity they can find on Companies House, a contract and invoice in that entity’s name, a physical address with a geographic phone number, and a way to pay by card. Together they take about ten minutes to set up and answer every question a careful buyer asks before a deposit.
Key facts
- A limited company must show its registered name, number, registered office and place of registration on its website, letters, invoices and order forms (Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008, reg. 6–7).
- Before a contract agreed at the customer’s home or online, a trader must give their identity and geographic address in writing (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, regs. 10 and 13).
- Paying any part of a £100–£30,000 purchase by credit card makes the card issuer jointly liable for the whole contract (Consumer Credit Act 1974, s.75) — the single strongest reassurance a business can offer.
- Gas work must be done by a Gas Safe registered engineer; window replacement must be certified by a competent person scheme such as FENSA or by building control (Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998; Building Regulations 2010).
- In SafeToPay checks, a business with no company match, a domain under 12 months old, no reviews and no address is marked red — “cannot be verified yet” — not as a scam, but as a business that has given the customer nothing to check (methodology v1.2).
What “legitimate” means to a customer about to pay
To a customer holding a quote, a legitimate business is one that will still exist, under the same name, at the same address, when something goes wrong. That is a narrower test than “honest” and a different one from “good at the job”. A brilliant tradesperson trading through a company formed last month with a serviced-office address and a mobile number is honest and skilled — and still fails the test, because the customer has no way to tell them apart from someone who will disappear with the deposit.
The customer runs four questions, usually in this order: Who exactly am I paying? Can I find them on an official register? Where are they, physically? If it goes wrong, who gives me the money back? Proof of legitimacy is simply a clear, checkable answer to each of the four.
Evidence a customer can verify in five minutes
Evidence only counts if the customer can check it against a source you do not control, so every item below names where they will look.
| Evidence | Where the customer verifies it | What it proves | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Company number in the website footer and on the quote | Companies House | A legal entity exists, is active and has a filing history | Essential |
| Quote, contract and invoice in the registered company name | Companies House vs. the paperwork | The entity they can sue is the entity they are paying | Essential |
| Trading address with postcode, matching Google Business Profile | Google Maps, Street View, a visit | A physical place the business operates from | Essential |
| Geographic landline (01/02) | Dialling code vs. the postcode | The phone is tied to the same area as the premises | Strong |
| Card payment available for at least part of the deposit | They pay and get Section 75 or chargeback | Their money is recoverable regardless of what happens to you | Strong |
| VAT number that matches the company name | GOV.UK VAT checker | Turnover above the threshold, registered with HMRC | Strong |
| Scheme registration number (Gas Safe, FENSA, NICEIC, TrustMark, MCS) | The scheme’s own register | Competence and, in some schemes, deposit protection | Strong for that trade |
| Email on your own domain with SPF and DMARC set | They receive mail that isn’t flagged; checkers read DNS | Invoices from your domain are hard to forge | Moderate |
| Reviews older than a year on Google, with replies | Google Business Profile | You have been trading, visibly, for a while | Moderate |
| Insurance certificate on request | The insurer or broker | Public liability cover exists for the policy period | Moderate |
The legal entity is the proof; everything else supports it
A customer who can go from your website to a company number to an active Companies House record has done the one check that matters. Every other item in the table either confirms that the company and the website are the same business (address, phone, VAT, email) or protects the customer if the company fails (card payment, scheme deposit protection). Without the entity, the rest is decoration. What the customer reads once they get there is covered in what customers see on Companies House.
The paperwork must name the same entity as the register
The most common gap is a quote headed with a brand name and a mobile number, paid to a bank account in a different name again. Three names for one job is exactly what fraud looks like from the outside. Put the registered name and number on the quote template once, and the problem disappears for every future customer.
Location beats reputation for a first payment
Reviews describe the work; an address describes where the money went. A customer who can see a workshop, a yard or a showroom on Street View is reassured in a way that fifty reviews cannot manage, because the address can be checked against the register and the phone number and cannot be bought. If your registered office is an accountant’s address, show the trading address on the website and make sure the Google Business Profile carries the same postcode.
Card payment is proof you expect to be around
Offering a card payment link for the deposit costs the business 1.5–2% and tells the customer that you are happy for a card issuer to stand behind the contract. A firm that insists on bank transfer only, for a five-figure job, is asking the customer to carry all of the risk — and the careful ones now know it. The full mechanism is in the Section 75 guide.
Sole trader? There is no register entry to point to, so the other three items carry all the weight: a trading address, a landline, a VAT number if you have one, scheme registration, and card payment. Customers are told exactly this in how to check a sole trader.
What does not count as proof
Anything the business can write about itself without a third party confirming it is not evidence, however true it is.
- “Fully insured”, “established 1998”, “family-run”. These are claims. A check compares them with the register, and a claim that cannot be matched to anything counts against you rather than for you.
- Scheme logos without a registration number. A TrustMark or Gas Safe logo in the footer is an image. The number, checkable on the scheme’s register, is the proof — and customers are increasingly told to verify the badge on the scheme’s register.
- A professional website. Templates cost £30. Cloned sites are one of the most common patterns in deposit fraud; a good design proves nothing either way.
- Five-star reviews alone. Reviews can be bought, and reviews of the work say nothing about the balance sheet. They support the other evidence; they do not replace it.
- “Registered in England and Wales” with no number. The phrase is meaningless without the eight digits that let someone look it up.
Two real checks
Both from live checks; names withheld, figures as filed.
Loft conversion company, London, six years on the register
Company number and registered office in the footer; trading address with postcode matching the Google Business Profile; landline with the right dialling code; 40+ Google reviews going back four years; accounts on time with positive net assets. The website’s “over 15 years” claim predates the company, but the domain and archive go back far enough that it reads as a business older than its current company — noted as worth asking, not as a discrepancy. Nothing for a customer to worry about, and nothing that cost the business more than an afternoon to put in place.
Home improvement trader, website live for seven months
No company number and no company found under the brand, the domain or the postcode; domain registered seven months ago; no address anywhere on the site; a mobile number and a Gmail address; no reviews on any platform. The work may well be excellent. But the customer has been given nothing that can be checked, so the report says so: pay no deposit until there is a legal entity, an address and a card payment option. Any one of those three would have moved the verdict.
Enter a website address, e.g. smithkitchens.co.uk
The ten-minute legitimacy checklist
Done once, these six items settle the question for every customer who comes afterwards.
- Footer: registered name, company number, registered office, place of registration, and the trading address with postcode if it differs.
- Quote and invoice templates: the same registered name and number at the top; bank account in the company’s name; a card payment option stated.
- Google Business Profile: claimed, with the trading address and the same phone number as the website.
- Phone: a geographic landline listed first; mobile and 0800 numbers second.
- Scheme numbers: every logo on the site accompanied by its registration number and the registered name it was issued to.
- Email: your own domain, with SPF and DMARC records published so your invoices cannot be trivially spoofed.
Then run the free check on your own website. It reads exactly what a customer’s check reads and shows where the record is still thin.
Show it before you are asked
The strongest proof of legitimacy is handing the customer the evidence before they go looking, because a business that volunteers its record has nothing to hide from it. SafeToPay’s verified business badge does exactly that: a link from your website to your full public report — legal entity, age, accounts, directors, and the website compared line by line with the register — refreshed each time the report is re-run. It is free, verification is one email from your domain, and it carries no verdict colour. If a fact in the report is wrong at source, request a correction.
Enter a website address, e.g. smithkitchens.co.uk
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to put my company number on my website?
Yes, if you trade through a limited company. The Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 require the registered name, number, registered office and place of registration on the website, letters, emails, invoices and order forms. It is also the fastest way for a customer to confirm you exist.
How can a new business prove it is legitimate with no reviews?
By making everything else checkable: a company number, a trading address, a landline, a VAT number if registered, scheme numbers, and card payment. A new company that says it is new and offers card payment is treated very differently from one that claims “20 years” and wants a bank transfer.
Is taking card payments really worth the fees?
For deposits, yes. A 1.5–2% fee on the first stage buys the customer Section 75 protection on the whole contract and removes the main reason careful buyers hesitate. Many businesses offer card for the deposit and bank transfer for later stages.
Does a Gas Safe or FENSA logo prove legitimacy?
Only with the registration number and the name it was issued to. Customers can look both up on the scheme register in under a minute. A logo without a number is treated as a claim, not as evidence.
My registered office is my accountant’s address. Is that a problem?
Not if the website shows a trading address with a postcode and the Google Business Profile matches it. The problem is a serviced registered office with no trading address anywhere, because the customer then has no location for the business at all.
What is the quickest single thing I can do today?
Add the registered name, company number and trading address to the website footer and to the quote template. That one change lets any customer, or any automated check, go from your website to your Companies House record and confirm the two are the same business.
Sources
- The Companies (Trading Disclosures) Regulations 2008 — legislation.gov.uk
- The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 — legislation.gov.uk
- Consumer Credit Act 1974, section 75 — legislation.gov.uk
- GOV.UK — Check a UK VAT number
- Gas Safe Register · FENSA · TrustMark
- Companies House — Find and update company information
- SafeToPay methodology v1.2 — verdict rules and Record strength