Verifying Members: How can BP help you more safely connect?

[Joshua Dorkin]

One of the challenges that we all face today, I believe, is coming to know and trust people that we meet online.

This is an incredibly difficult task for everyone, and is why doing your due diligence on deals and people is paramount these days.

We've been brainstorming for some time how to come up with a way to help you with this task and have come up with some ideas.

Before we proceed with anything, I wanted to get your feedback, as I think it will help us find our path forward.

Q1: If You're Going to Do Business with Someone, how much information would you want from them to identify that they are who they say they are?

In other words, what would I need someone to show me to prove that they are who they say they are?

Q2: Beyond a drivers license or passport match, are there other methods that would help you feel confident that someone is who they claim to be?

Q3: In order to make yourself more "credible," would you be willing to pay some fee (TBD) for BiggerPockets to "verify" that you (the person you claim to be on your BP profile) are who you really are.

I've spoken with several members who believe that having some means to verify your ID is a great step in the right direction. They felt that by our "verifying" their identity, it would give them more legitimacy and would help them stand out amongst those people here (and elsewhere online) who use fake names/identities.

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Personally, I think it also lends more legitimacy, and hope that you agree. We're also exploring ideas about verifying that a member has done the deals/business that they claim . . . more about this another time.

This is an extremely important subject and I'm looking forward to your feedback.

Thanks!