Evidence first, conclusions kept narrow

What a PepCred review answers

A review asks whether the named website can be connected to its disclosed operator, regulated provider, performing laboratory and relevant official credentials. It does not certify safety, diagnose a patient, judge medical quality, or promise that every product and location follows the same route.

Source hierarchy

1. Matched official records from company, healthcare-regulator and laboratory registers.
2. First-party disclosures used to establish what the seller says about its own operator, provider, laboratory or service.
3. Official guidance and directories used as context or a route to verification, never as proof of a company-specific match by themselves.
4. Reviews and forum discussions used only to identify questions worth investigating. They never create positive regulatory evidence.

Publication threshold

Inclusion in the checker is not the same as eligibility for search publication. A company page can be indexed only when the provider identity is independently matched, confidence is above Low, at least two decisive evidence receipts are present and those receipts come from at least two distinct publishers. The whole site also remains closed to search until the publisher identity, responsible editor, monitored contact route and explicit launch approval are present.

Writing and fairness

• Unknown evidence is described as unresolved or not found, never as proof of misconduct.
• Company claims are labelled as claims and carry no official-evidence weight.
• Credentials bind to the exact entity and identifier shown in the source.
• Material limitations appear beside the result, not in hidden small print.
• PepCred does not use words such as “safe”, “approved” or “scam” unless a directly relevant authoritative source supports that exact statement.

Automation and agents

Automated collectors may retrieve sources, identify changes and propose structured observations. Agents may help locate alternative pages or explain a change. Neither can invent a receipt, alter the scoring formula, or publish a damaging allegation. Every scored fact must pass deterministic entity, identifier, recency and source checks. Sensitive conclusions require editorial review.

Review and updating

Every company page shows the date its evidence was checked. Source monitoring can trigger an earlier review when a record disappears or changes. A temporarily unreachable page remains unassessed; it is not scored as a failure. Older versions and correction outcomes are retained where appropriate.

Corrections, replies and conflicts

Evidence-backed corrections are assessed against the same standard as the original finding. A named company may submit a reply whether or not PepCred agrees with it, subject to relevance, privacy and legal limits. Funding or a commercial relationship can never change a score. Read the corrections and right-of-reply process, funding and conflicts policy, governance controls and full methodology.