There are many new Crowdfunding campaigns that are launched, but some may not be as they appear. If you are running your own Crowdfunding portal, how can you verify that the campaigns are legitimate? Here is a 3 step process that other platforms are using that you may want to use.
Now that you have your own Crowdfunding portal, and have a significant amount of campaigns that you are running, how can you be sure that the campaigns are actually legitimate? How do you know that they are not going to scam the backers? It is best to have a process in place to prevent such illegal activity.
Step 1.
Conduct an interview. As many platforms may have campaigns from around the world, the in-person interview may not be applicable. There are alternative ways to conduct an interview such as Skype or google hangouts. The interview does not have to include your voice, you can have a survey that they fill out as an alternative. Regardless of how you decide to perform the interview, you need to have specific questions prepared for the campaign creators. You need to know what they are planning on doing, who they are, and exactly where the money will be going.
Step 2.
After you are finished with an interview, you can proceed to ask for documentation. Depending on how you are using the Crowdfunding platform, you can have the campaign creator open a new bank account with a payment processor so that the processor can verify for you. If you are using the Atlas platform to host your Crowdfunding portal, then using the Stripe account may be enough. If you are using other methods, you may want to ask for some type of documentation such as bank statement, or pay slips or medical info. Any documentation that you can use as a reference in case they scam the backers. Even identification could help. If the worst case scenario happens, what info could you give authorities?
Step 3.
Use the KYC/AML technology to further help verify if the campaign creator is real or not.
You can use Trulioo as a KYC/AML solution to verify campaign creators when using the Atlas solution. More information for the Trulioo feature can be found in this article here.
There are other alternative methods to verify campaigns, however, these are simple steps that one could take in case there are not already steps in place. It is not exactly necessary to have all of these steps when running a Crowdfunding platform, but going the extra mile to ensure backers safety may be another great selling point to gain more donations to the campaigns on your site. It will make potential backers feel safe when donating on the platform.