Frequently Asked Questions

• Why does ReallyWho charge $5 a year? Most social media websites are free.

  ReallyWho's use of public and commercial records to generate identity questions is the safest and most reliable online real-time identity verification approach currently available. This approach is considered reliable enough for major business transactions, such as buying a car or even a house. Nevertheless, using personal information to confirm your identity requires a certain amount of trust and confidence.

  Therefore, in addition to describing how ReallyWho handles your information, we provide further assurance through our business model itself. Our model provides no incentive to use information for any purpose other than verifying your identity. Other models, such as advertising, can make it less clear how personal information might be used and with whom it might be shared. With our fee-for-service model, you pay a fee if you are satisfied with our service. We understand that a big part of your satisfaction comes from trusting that your personal information is used properly.

  ReallyWho also serves as an identity verified gateway to all your websites, making security and performance very important. Advertising inherently requires links to other servers that can adversely affect security and performance.

  While the public records we use are generally free, collecting and organizing the information into identity questions involves significant direct costs well beyond the typical bandwidth and staffing charges of social media websites.

  Finally, verifying identities and websites is an ongoing process. Names and addresses change, fraud is discovered, profiles change, websites are added and deleted, and so on, requiring a continuing service relationship.

   

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• Haven't I seen this approach to identity verification before?

  Yes, questions based on a person's public and commercial records are often used to verify identities for getting credit reports and other financial transactions. However, while ReallyWho uses a similar technology for identity verification, using ReallyWho has nothing to do with your credit report or financial transactions. We do not check your credit report.

   

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• I'm concerned about privacy. What happens to the information used to locate my public and commercial records?

  Your privacy is paramount. ReallyWho's approach enables identity verification without putting your records at increased risk.

  Sensitive information we collect, such as date of birth, is only used to find records and generate the identity questions. Once the questions have been generated, this personally identifiable information is not saved by ReallyWho and is discarded. Furthermore, automated algorithms are used to generate the identity questions. ReallyWho does not see, save or have direct access to the public or commercial records used to generate the identity questions.

  Credit card information is only needed for user-approved ReallyWho charges and is not part of the normal identity verification process. You can use a card with different information for billing, such as a company credit card or a card in your spouse's name. We maintain account information for credit card charges, including your name, address, email and a portion of your card number so you can identify the card you used as needed. We do not store complete credit card numbers, codes or expiration dates.

  All information collected by ReallyWho is governed by our Privacy Policy.

   

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• Why do I only get a limited number of tries to answer the identity questions?

  If several attempts were allowed, it would lower security and there would be a greater chance of guessing the answers. You get up to two tries to answer the questions in up to two browser sessions. You must logout of ReallyWho and close your browser to start a new session. Since there are similar limits on the number of times a person's records can be used to generate the identity questions, the limits apply even if attempted from multiple browsers in multiple locations.

   

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• What if I failed several attempts to answer the identity questions, but I still want to be verified?

  Please contact ReallyWho Customer Service to explore a manual verification. A manual verification normally does not cost more, but it can take much longer.

   

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• Why was ReallyWho unable to generate identity questions for me?

  If you are under 25 years old, have had frequent address and/or name changes, have not had a U.S. address for at least 2 years or have not had many government and commercial transactions, there simply may not be sufficient public or commercial records to generate the required number of identity questions.

   

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• I am a celebrity or public figure. Will the records approach still work for me?

  If much of your personal information is available to the public, it is more likely that others will know enough about you to surmise the answers to the identity questions. We recommend that you contact ReallyWho Customer Service about a manual verification. Also, some websites, such as Twitter, already have their own celebrity identity verification system.

   

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• How does ReallyWho identity verification compare with other systems used on the Web?

  ReallyWho uses the same identity verification technology used for major business transactions, such as buying a car or even a house. Other systems based on phone numbers, text messaging and credit cards are generally considered less reliable than systems using identity questions. Also, unlike other systems, ReallyWho lets you verify your identity once for multiple websites and create an identity verified gateway for your accounts.

  ReallyWho is an ongoing service that can respond to reports of fraud and abuse, including re-verifying identities as required. Other systems tend to use a "once-verified, always-verified" approach.

   

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• Why can't I add more personal information to my ReallyWho Profile?

  The ReallyWho Profile is designed to have just the right amount of information to help you quickly distinguish between people with similar identities. ReallyWho is a service that supports social media websites. Adding personal photos, messaging, employment or educational histories, etc. would give ReallyWho capabilities that overlap the social media websites it is designed to support.

   

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