Inventing employees is the trust tell with the most consequence. Hand check: search the names. If none of the five “team members” exists anywhere else, the company is smaller than it says.
Other tells in trust and identity
- Logos of companies that never heard of them: A "Trusted by" row of Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Netflix logos on a six-week-old company with no case study.
- No address, no phone, no name: No physical address, no phone number, no named person anywhere, only a form that may or may not work.
- No Impressum: A site operated from Germany or selling into it without the legally required Impressum, or with one that names nobody.
- Social links to the platform home page: Footer icons for X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook that link to x.com, linkedin.com and instagram.com, not to any account.