On the ground verification: why a site visit changes the answer

There is a category of due diligence question that no database can answer. Does the business physically exist at the address, at anything like the scale described? Is the "factory" a working plant or a rented shed with a sign? Does the "head office" have staff, or a receptionist shared with forty other companies? What do people in that city who have dealt with this person actually say about them?

These are the questions a site visit and local reputation enquiries answer. They are the most valuable part of a high risk file and, done properly, among the cheapest.

What a site visit establishes

• Existence and scale: premises, signage, activity, vehicles, staff numbers observed from public places at a normal business hour.
• Consistency: whether what is seen matches the turnover, headcount and capacity claimed in the file.
• Ownership signals: whose name is on the lease board or the licence displayed at the entrance, which other businesses share the premises.
• Operational reality for suppliers: whether goods are being made there or the site is a trading front for a facility elsewhere.

What local reputation enquiries establish

In most markets, a person's standing is well known to the people who work around them: suppliers, former partners, industry bodies, local journalists, professional advisers. Lawful reputation enquiries are conversations with people who agree to talk, conducted openly by a professional who explains that they are conducting a business enquiry. They surface disputes that never reached court, businesses that quietly failed, and connections to politically exposed people that no filing records.

What it is not

On the ground verification is not surveillance, not pretexting, and not access to anything private. Observation is from public places. Conversations are voluntary and honest about their purpose. Nobody is followed, photographed in private settings, or deceived into disclosing information. Where a jurisdiction requires investigators to be licensed, the work is done by a licensed partner. The value of a report depends on its being usable, and a report built on unlawful methods is worse than no report at all.

When it is proportionate

A site visit is rarely needed for a low value customer with a clean desk file. It becomes proportionate when the amount is significant, the customer or counterparty is in a jurisdiction where records are weak, the structure is complex, the story has gaps, or the consequences of being wrong are severe. In practice, most firms use it for the top five to ten percent of matters by risk.

How it is scoped

A visit is planned around specific questions. What exactly must be observed, at which address, at what time of day. Which people are appropriate to approach and what they will be asked. What would confirm the file and what would contradict it. The partner reports against those questions with photographs where lawful, and Valitros reconciles the findings against the desk research before anything goes to the client.

Cost against consequence

A verification visit in a South East Asian, Gulf or African commercial centre typically costs a small fraction of a single month's exposure on the relationship it is checking. The firms who use it routinely are the ones who have, at some point, learned the alternative.

On the ground verification is part of Valitros's enhanced due diligence and overseas expansion work. Book a scoping call to talk through a matter.