Dating profile checks
Is a dating match real? Photo, identity and scam-pattern checks with a clear verdict, never the person's address.
Read more →OSINT Investigations by Target: Accounts, Numbers, Domains
Most cases start with one identifier: a number that called your finance team, an email that sent a fake invoice, an account impersonating your CEO, a website selling counterfeits of your product. Each page below explains what an OSINT investigation of that identifier can establish, how we work and where the lawful limits are.
- 12 starting points
- Purpose checked before work starts
- Findings graded by confidence
- No private-account access
Short answer
An OSINT investigation by target starts from a single identifier, such as a phone number, email address, username, social media account, website or vehicle, and follows it through lawful public and commercial sources to answer a defined question: who is behind it, whether it is linked to fraud or impersonation, and what can be documented for a platform, a lawyer or the police.
OSINT on Numbers, Emails, Websites and Other Identifiers
Start here when you have a number, an address, a username, a domain or a vehicle and need to know who or what is behind it.
Phone numbers
Scam calls, fraud texts and suspect business lines: what a number is linked to in public records, and where spoofing ends the trail.
Read more →Email addresses
Phishing, BEC and extortion senders, counterparty addresses and your own breach exposure, traced through headers, domains and linked accounts.
Read more →Usernames
Which accounts share a handle, which are the same person, and which are false matches, graded by confidence for harassment, impersonation and fraud cases.
Read more →Websites and domains
Who runs a scam shop, phishing site or look-alike domain, which other sites they operate, and evidence ready for takedown.
Read more →Vehicles and plates
Fleet and asset tracing, suspicious claims, VIN and title fraud and stolen-vehicle resale, for business purposes only and within DPPA limits.
Read more →What We Will Not Do, Whatever the Identifier
We do not locate private individuals for personal reasons, monitor partners or family, unmask sources, or access anything private.
- No locating or profiling of private individuals without a lawful purpose, and no help finding anyone who does not want to be found.
- No access to private accounts, messages, devices, carrier records or motor vehicle records without a lawful basis.
- No fake profiles to get into private content, and no buying leaked data.
- No unmasking of whistleblowers, journalists' sources or lawful critics.
- Cases that may involve abuse, stalking or a protective order are declined and referred to the police and support services.
Every request is checked for purpose before we accept it. For the wider picture of how we work, see OSINT investigation services and our OSINT services.
Send Us the Identifier and the Question
Tell us what you have, what happened and what you need to decide. We reply with a scope, a timeline and a fixed quote.
Investigations by Target: FAQ
We only have a phone number and an email address from someone who scammed our company out of a payment — is that enough to start an OSINT investigation, or do we need more information first?
It is usually enough to start. A number and an email can be checked for reuse across sites, registrations, payment pages and earlier scam reports, and they often link to other identifiers. We tell you at scoping what is realistic: sometimes the trail ends at a spoofed number or a throwaway address, sometimes it leads to a company, a domain or a network of accounts. Report the fraud to your bank and the police in parallel.
Can you find out who is behind an anonymous account that keeps posting false claims about our business, and will the account owner find out that we are looking into them?
Often, to a stated confidence level. We link the account to others through usernames, writing patterns, images, timing and infrastructure, and grade each link as confirmed, likely or possible. We do not contact the account or interact with it, so our research does not alert the owner. We will not unmask lawful critics or whistleblowers, and a confirmed identity may still need a court order to the platform.
I want to know whether the person I met on a dating app is real, but I do not want a full report on their private life — what exactly would you check and what would I receive?
You receive an authenticity assessment, not a dossier. We check whether the photos are stolen, whether the name, job and story are consistent across public sources, and whether the profile matches known romance-scam patterns. The result is one of a few clear verdicts with the evidence behind it. We do not provide addresses, and we refuse checks on current or former partners.
Our brand is being impersonated on several platforms and a look-alike website at the same time — do we need separate investigations for each, or can one case cover all of them?
One case can cover all of them. Impersonation campaigns usually share infrastructure, payment details or operators, and linking them is part of the value. We scope the platforms and domains together, document each account and site for takedown requests, and show which ones connect. For ongoing protection, the work can continue as monitoring.
How quickly can you preserve evidence from a social media post or website before it gets deleted, and will that evidence hold up if we later go to court?
Small preservation tasks can sometimes be done within a business day. We capture pages with dates, URLs and hashes, and record how each item was collected so its authenticity can be shown. Whether evidence is admissible depends on the court and on your lawyers, so tell us at the brief if proceedings are likely and involve counsel early.
Sources and Notes
- Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations (OHCHR and UC Berkeley)
- 15 U.S.C. §6821 (GLBA pretexting)
Sources checked 9 October 2026. Figures about third-party firms and tools are as published by them or by the cited source on that date.
OSINT Investigations of Social Media Accounts
Platform by platform: what is public, how accounts are linked and attributed, and how evidence is preserved before it disappears.
Telegram accounts
Scam channels, fake support accounts and leaks of your data on Telegram: documented, linked to other activity and attributed only as far as evidence allows.
Read more →Instagram accounts
Impersonators, counterfeit sellers, harassment accounts and inflated influencers on Instagram, checked from public data and documented.
Read more →Facebook profiles
Marketplace sellers, fake Pages, impostor profiles and scam groups on Facebook, checked from public content and preserved as evidence.
Read more →TikTok accounts
Impersonating accounts, scam promotions, harassment and viral videos on TikTok: captured before they vanish and checked against the facts.
Read more →X (Twitter) accounts
Bot networks, impersonators and anonymous accounts on X targeting your brand or executives, attributed with a stated confidence and archived as evidence.
Read more →LinkedIn profiles
Is this recruiter, candidate, employee or executive real, and does the career on the profile match independent records?
Read more →