Industries

How can a public agency check contact details and networks on online requests?

Check the email domain, phone number and connecting IP on an online form submission, and read the public page of an organization that applies for a program. Staff get a short set of facts about each entry before they spend time on it.

The problem

Agencies receive requests through web forms from residents, businesses and other offices. Contact details on those forms are typed by the public, and a malformed phone number or a domain that receives no mail only shows up when a caseworker tries to reply.

Public offices are also used as a name in scams, so staff often get calls and mail about messages their office never sent. Giving staff a quick way to read the facts about a number or a domain helps them answer residents who ask whether a contact is real.

Budgets favor tools that are plain and repeatable. A single API with stable fields can be called from a form handler or a case system, and each result can be saved with the case.

People reported losing about $920 million to government impersonators in 2025, according to the FTC. 2025. FTC press release: people reported losing $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, read 2026-10-18.

What LookValid does for this

LookValid products for Government
Check	What it gives you	Credits
Check a number a resident gave	Parses the number against its country numbering plan and returns standard formats and the number type the plan assigns. It cannot say whether the line is active or who the carrier is.	1 credit per valid number
Look up a number a resident reports	When someone reports a call, returns the number of consumer complaints found in public FTC and FCC data, with dates and the kinds of calls reported. Complaints are unverified reports about the number.	1 credit per number with complaints on record
Read the domain on an email	Returns MX records, SPF and DMARC and flags for disposable domains and free providers, so staff can see how the sender domain is set up. It cannot confirm a mailbox exists.	1 credit per address checked
Read an applicant site	Fetches the public page an applicant lists and returns its title, description and readable text, so a reviewer can read it without leaving the case system.	10 credits per successful scrape (errors, empty and blocked pages are free)

A real request and response

This request looks up a number a resident has asked about. The response shows how many public complaints exist for it, when they were filed and what kinds of calls were reported.

POST /v1/phone-spam

1{
2  "phone": "+12025550143"
3}

Response, captured 2026-10-18

1{
2  "found": true,
3  "data": {
4    "phone_e164": "+12025550143",
5    "complaints_total": 2,
6    "first_reported": "2017-03-23",
7    "last_reported": "2017-03-23",
8    "issue_types": [
9      "prerecorded voice",
10      "unwanted calls"
11    ],
12    "sources_used": [
13      {
14        "id": "fcc",
15        "name": "FCC Consumer Complaints (opendata.fcc.gov, public domain)",
16        "complaints": 2,
17        "dataset_built_at": "2026-10-17T20:41:34.966Z"
18      }
19    ],
20    "spam_score": 32,
21    "risk_level": "medium",
22    "score_basis": {
23      "components": {
24        "volume": 11.9,
25        "recency": 0,
26        "issue_type": 20
27      },
28      "formula": "spam_score = round(volume + recency + issue_type). volume = 50 * min(1, log10(1 + complaints) / log10(101)). recency = 30 * 0.5^(age_days / 90) where age_days is the age of the newest complaint. issue_type = 20 * weight of the most serious reported issue (1.0 scam, fraud, robocall, prerecorded, spoofing or impersonation; 0.6 telemarketing, sales or other unwanted contact; 0.3 anything else)."
29    },
30    "disclaimer": "Complaints are unverified consumer reports and phone numbers can be spoofed, so a score describes how often a number was reported, not who is calling."
31  }
32}

This is one real run of Phone Spam Check against a fixed public input, captured 2026-10-18. Sources: FCC consumer complaints, public domain (opendata.fcc.gov).

Questions

Can LookValid tell a resident whether a caller works for a government office?

No. It can show how a number is classified in the numbering plan and how many public complaints exist for it. It cannot say who is calling, so advise residents to use a published number for the office.

Does the complaint count come from a government database?

It comes from public FTC and FCC consumer complaint data. The reports are unverified and describe what consumers said, so use them as context and not as a finding about the caller.

Does LookValid store the details we look up?

Each lookup sends one value and returns the result. Results may be cached for a period shown on the product page, so check the details of the lookup you use.

Sources

FTC press release: people reported losing $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025 https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2026/06/ftc-data-show-people-reported-losing-3-point-5-billion-imposter-scams-2025, read 2026-10-18

LookValid is run by Meralume Labs. It is not connected to, endorsed by or a partner of any company or product named on this page, and every product name belongs to its owner.

LookValid bills every lookup in credits from one shared balance, so one key covers each check on this page.

See Phone Spam Check