Is the business real?
Registration, age and status, and whether the people behind it trail dissolved companies.
Home / Cowboy Checker
The Cowboy Checker.
Check a trader's name or company number before you call. We search the public evidence we hold: reviews, source presence, company details, and risk signals, so you can spot a cowboy before you hire one.
Try “Brown Architect”
What one check covers
What the check reads
We match the name against the public evidence we hold for this trader, then flag profile strength and risk signals. It's built for the moment before you call, shortlist, or ask for a quote, and it keeps thin or missing evidence visible instead of hiding it behind a single score.
Are the badges real?
NICEIC, MCS, FMB, RIBA and other schemes, checked against the official registers, not the logos on the van.
Does the story agree?
The same reputation across Checkatrade, MyBuilder, TrustATrader and other named review sources, with suspicious review bursts flagged.
Have they done this before?
Council applications, approval rates and retrospective consents across their real jobs.
They want a large cash deposit, with no written quote and no paper trail.
The company was registered last month, or the people behind it trail dissolved firms.
They pressure you to decide today and won’t put the quote in writing.
Common checks
Run it on a name you have
Run the checker on a known trader name, company name, or the trading name printed on a quote.