Transparency and corrections

How a fact gets on this site

Nothing is published because it sounded right. Every factual claim has to clear the same four steps, and the step it cleared is recorded against the story.

1. Primary source only. A regulator’s own page, an ombudsman decision, a court listing, a company filing or a document we hold. Another outlet’s report is a lead, never a source.
2. Captured, not paraphrased from memory. We keep the URL and the date and time we read it, because regulator pages are edited and entries are removed.
3. Second pair of eyes. A named editor checks the claim against the source before publication. Anything that names a firm or a person also goes through right of reply.
4. Shown to the reader. The sources sit on the article in the “Trust & sourcing” panel, so you can open them yourself rather than take our word for it.

What counts as an error

A correction is a change to a fact: a wrong name, date, figure, status or attribution. A clarification is where the fact was right but the wording could be read the wrong way. An update is new information added to a story that was accurate when published — for example a firm later being removed from the Warning List. All three are logged; only the first two are called corrections.

We do not quietly edit a published story. If the substance changes, the change is dated and described, and the previous wording stays in the revision history on the article.

How quickly we respond

These are the times we hold ourselves to. They are targets we publish, not a legal guarantee.

• Acknowledgement: within one working day of receiving your message.
• Clear factual error (wrong name, date, figure): corrected within one working day of us confirming it.
• Disputed or complex claim: a substantive reply within five working days, saying what we have checked and what we still need.
• Anything that risks harm — a person misidentified, a firm wrongly described as warned — is treated as urgent and looked at the same day, including where that means unpublishing while we check.

Telling us about an error

Send it through our contact page. To let us act quickly rather than write back asking, include:

• The exact link. The full URL of the article, warning entry, firm file or data page — and, where a page has several blocks, which one. For a figure on our data page, name the chart heading.
• The passage or figure you say is wrong, quoted or described precisely.
• What the correct position is, and anything that supports it.

We log every message with the date received, what was claimed, what we checked and what we decided — including where we decided nothing was wrong. Complainants are not named in the public log.

Where a correction appears

• On the article itself, dated, at the top where the correction is significant.
• In the revision history on that article, showing what the wording was before.
• On this page, in the log above, with a link straight back to the story.
• Where a figure was wrong, on the data block that carried it — the underlying records are public in the warnings archive, so a corrected count can be checked.

What we will not do

• Remove an accurate, properly sourced report because someone would prefer it were not there.
• Take a story down in exchange for money, advertising or access.
• Treat a legal letter as a substitute for showing us the fact is wrong.

We are an independent publication. We hold no financial services authorisation, we take no referral or affiliate money, and nothing on this site is legal or financial advice. If you have lost money the routes open to you are free: your bank, the Financial Ombudsman Service, Action Fraud and the FCA consumer helpline on 0800 111 6768.