Two claims, side by side, with what each one would actually need
The question "is it legit" bundles two claims that fail in different ways. Claim one is about a document: somebody keeps a spreadsheet current and its rows point at real listings. Claim two is about a company: there is an operator you can name, contact and hold to its own published terms. 10 minutes of reading can settle most of claim one and only part of claim two.
| Claim people make | What would actually settle it | Settleable by you? |
|---|---|---|
| The sheet is still maintained | A dated change log plus rows whose links resolve to live listings | Yes, in about 10 minutes |
| The sheet is the original source | Row order, column names and typos compared against a second sheet | Partly, and never conclusively |
| The operator is a registered business | The legal name on the terms page matched in the register of its jurisdiction | Yes if the legal name is published; verify at the official register |
| The operator answers claims and pays refunds | Published terms plus the dispute rules of the payment route you used | Partly, and only after a claim exists |
| The operator will still be trading in six months | Nothing readable today settles this | No |
Row 1 and row 3 are the only two with a yes in the last column, and they are the two people usually mean when they type the question. A third row, the one about the sheet being the original, is where most arguments in forums go wrong, because two sheets copying a third source look nothing like each other and two sheets copying each other look identical.
Claim by claim: what a maintained sheet can and cannot prove
A sheet is evidence of work, not of delivery. Five rows updated inside the last 7 days prove that somebody typed; they prove nothing about whether the seller shipped, whether the size matches, or whether the agent will refund a defective item. The [legitimacy](/table/legitimacy/) topic page keeps the two questions apart for the same reason.
- A live link proves the listing existed when the row was written, not that the price on the row is the price today
- A dated row proves maintenance on that date, and only on that date
- A consistent column layout across 200 rows proves a template or a copy, and cannot tell you which
- A row that names a seller rating proves the sheet author read something, not that the number is current
- A sheet with 40 dead links out of 200 rows is not a scam and is not maintained either; it is an abandoned document with good bones
The check that takes longest and settles most is dull: open 5 rows across 5 different sellers, follow each link, and write down the date the listing was last touched where that date is visible. If four of five links resolve and carry a date inside the same month, the sheet is current enough to use as a starting point. That is the entire claim the document can support.
A sheet can be well maintained and still describe an item badly. Maintenance is a statement about the file, never about the seller behind the listing.
The operator half: what a register can settle, and what it cannot
Company registers are public, and they publish a small set of facts: the registered name, a registration number, the status, and often the registered address. Which register to open depends on where the operator is incorporated, and the legal name you search for appears on the operator’s own terms page or invoice rather than on its home page. 5 minutes at the official register beats any number of forum posts, and it settles exactly one claim: that an entity with that name exists and is current.
What a register cannot tell you is whether the entity behind the name is the one holding your parcel. A registered company can trade under a different brand, and a brand can be operated by a company registered in a jurisdiction whose register you have not thought to search. When the terms page names no entity at all, that absence is itself a finding, and the right next move is 1 written question asking for the legal name and the jurisdiction; send a second only if 5 working days pass without a reply.
| Source | Settles | Does not settle |
|---|---|---|
| Company register of the stated jurisdiction | That a named entity exists and its current status | That this entity operates the site you are using |
| The operator’s own published terms | What the operator promises in writing | Whether those promises get honoured in a given case |
| The dispute rules of your payment route | The deadline and the evidence standard for a payment claim | Whether the seller will answer before that deadline |
| Reviews and forum threads | That somebody wrote a sentence on a date | Anything you could quote in a dispute |
The [pick-agent](/steps/pick-agent/) step turns those 4 rows into a 10-minute pre-order routine, and the [charter](/charter/) page states what this site does and does not verify before publishing. Where a claim cannot be checked from outside an account, the honest entry is "Not verified" rather than a verdict.
Where the two questions collapse into one
Two situations remove the gap between document and operator. In the first, the operator publishes the sheet from its own domain, so maintenance of the file is a statement the operator itself is making and can be held to. In the second, the sheet is run by a named person visibly active for over 12 months, which moves the maintenance question from anonymous to attributable and turns the operator question into a separate decision.
A third case looks like a collapse and is not: a sheet hosted on a domain that does 1 thing, which is link to the operator. That arrangement proves a commercial relationship at most, and the [drift](/drift/) page exists because terms of that kind change quietly between 1 snapshot and the next.
A single count cuts through all 3 cases. Count the separate sources you had to open before you could write down a legal name, and treat that number as the answer to a different question: how much of your budget you want sitting with an operator whose identity took 5 tabs to establish.
Three exceptions that flip the verdict either way
- A registered, well-documented operator with 3 unresolved claims in the last month is worse for you than an unregistered one with none
- A freshly built sheet with 60 rows is not evidence of anything, in either direction, until its first full season has passed
- A long-running sheet that quietly changes its agent recommendations is the one change worth watching, because that is where the money moves
The verdict this site will write down is narrow on purpose. Whether a given operator is registered is a fact you can check in about 5 minutes at an official source; whether a sheet is worth your time is a judgement you make from dates and links. Neither answer survives being stretched into "so it is safe", and the question that actually protects a first order is smaller: what is the smallest parcel you can afford to lose.
No registry extract, licence number or filing for any operator is reproduced on this site. Where a claim needs one, the entry says Not verified instead.
Public regulation: the operator half of the question can be checked against a public company register and against the payment route you used, while the sheet half cannot be settled by any public record at all. The split in the table below follows from what registers and payment rules actually cover — this site holds no registry extract and quotes no operator filing.
This note explains the mechanics; the list is where the items are.