Depending on the type of company you have different methods to check if it is a Legitimate company.
If the company is a UK based Limited Liability company then it will have an entry in the official UK Register of Companies.
You can search this register of Limited Liability companies on our website www.companiesintheuk.co.uk
Using the search form on our website you can search via the companies name, company number or directors of the company.
Every Limited Liability company will have an official company name, this will always end in the word Limited or the abbreviation Ltd.
However many companies will also use a Trading Name, which is what they will advertise as. For example, you know the company Google just as Google, however the actual legal name of the Google company in the UK is GOOGLE UK LIMITED. Every company will also have a Companies Number, which is the number allocated for the company from the official register. For Google UK this is 03977902. You should see on any official documents from the company, for example an invoice, both the legal company name and the company number. You can use this information to locate the company on our website www.companiesintheuk.co.uk.
When you find the company's record then check the following:
- Does the company have a status of 'Active'?
- Do you recognise the directors of the company?
- Is registered address of the company reasonable? Sometimes this is the accountant's address or service address, not the actual company's trading address. However, typically it is in the same general area as where the company trades.
- Are the accounts and confirmations statements up to date and not overdue?
However there is no single indicator if a company is legitimate or not, looking for the above information should help guide you to ask the correct questions.