Editorial Policy
How we write our guides, moderate community reports, and keep the phone number database trustworthy.
Two Types of Content
CallerCheck has two distinct types of content. Our editorial content (guides, scam alerts, articles) is written and reviewed by our team. Our phone number data comes from community reports submitted by users across the UK. We treat these differently and this policy explains how we handle both.
What CallerCheck Does
CallerCheck is a free phone number lookup service for the UK. People use it to check who called them and whether a number is worth answering. The site works in two ways: we publish guides and advice written by our editorial team, and we run a community reporting system where anyone can submit information about a phone number they have been called from.
Our editorial content is based on information from UK bodies like Ofcom, Action Fraud, the ICO, and the TPS. Our phone number data comes directly from people reporting their experiences.
How We Write Guides and Articles
Every guide, scam alert, and information page goes through the same process:
Research and sourcing
We pull information from regulators, law enforcement, telecoms providers, and patterns we see in our own community reports. Every claim can be traced back to a credible source.
Writing and authorship
Our editorial team writes all content. They have backgrounds in consumer protection, telecoms, and digital security. Every article has a named author.
Review before publishing
A second pair of eyes checks the sources, confirms the stats are current, and makes sure the advice lines up with official UK guidance before anything goes live.
Ongoing updates
Published content gets reviewed regularly. When regulations change or new scam patterns crop up, we update our guides and note when changes were made.
How Community Reports Work
Anyone can submit a report about a phone number. When someone does, they tell us whether the call was safe, unknown, suspicious, or spam, pick a call type (like "HMRC scam" or "delivery company"), and write a comment describing what happened. Reports can be submitted anonymously and we do not require an account.
Community reports are not the same as our editorial content. They reflect what individual people experienced. They are clearly marked as user submissions on every number page.
How We Moderate Reports
Every report goes through a moderation pipeline before it appears on the site:
Automated screening
Reports are automatically screened for harmful content including racism, hate speech, threats, personal information (names, addresses, account numbers), and spam. Reports that get flagged are held back from the site and queued for manual review.
Manual review
Flagged reports are reviewed by a member of our team. They decide whether the report should be approved, edited to remove personal details, or rejected entirely. We also review reports that get flagged by other users after publication.
Rate limiting
To prevent abuse, each IP address is limited to 10 reports per hour. This stops people from flooding the system with fake reports about a particular number.
Community Voting
Other users can vote on whether a report was helpful or not. This does two things: it helps people scanning a number page quickly see which reports are most useful, and it feeds into how we calculate the risk score for that number. Reports with three or more votes where the majority found them helpful get a "Helpful" badge.
Voting is limited to one vote per person per report to keep things fair.
How Risk Scores Are Calculated
Each phone number on CallerCheck gets a risk score from 0 to 100 based on community reports. The score takes into account the safety ratings people have given (safe, unknown, suspicious, or spam), how many reports there are, and how the community has voted on those reports. A number with one report is weighted differently to one with twenty. As more reports come in and the picture gets clearer, the score becomes more confident.
Numbers are grouped into three risk levels: low risk (green), medium risk (amber), and high risk (red). Numbers with no reports show as unknown.
Number Owner Claims
If you own a phone number listed on CallerCheck, you can submit a claim. We verify ownership through a callback, SMS code, postal letter, or business documentation. Once verified, a member of our team reviews the claim and decides whether to approve it. This process exists so that legitimate businesses and individuals can have a say about their number's listing.
Editorial Independence
Nobody pays us to write favourable content, alter a number's risk score, or suppress community reports. What we publish is based on what is useful to the people reading it, nothing else.
If you see advertising on CallerCheck, it is clearly separated from editorial content. Ads have no bearing on our guides, recommendations, or number ratings.
Where We Get Our Information
For editorial content, we use official sources wherever possible:
The UK's communications regulator. We use their data on nuisance calls, rules, and enforcement.
The national fraud reporting centre. We reference their scam statistics and official warnings.
The Information Commissioner's Office. We use their guidance on data protection and enforcement.
The Telephone Preference Service. We reference their advice on stopping unwanted calls.
Get in Touch
Got a question about how we do things? Want to suggest a topic, flag a dodgy report, or request the removal of a number? Drop us a message and we will get back to you.