Query History
Query History is a premium feature that allows you to see the previous queries made by other service providers about a specific client. You can see if clients were queried in the past by others, approximate dates, occurrences, and the activity of the companies querying them. Different premium plans have different time limits for how far back the history goes, and it can be up to 12 years.
Query History is different from Query Result (Client Report)
Query History is not the same as a query result that shows the reports about a client. A query result shows you if a client has been reported by others, and if so, what the report says. It also shows you the number of reports made against that client. Query History, on the other hand, shows you the history of queries made by other service providers about that client, even if they have not reported them.
How Query History works
It's easier to understand how Query History works with an example: Let's say you have a new client named "John Smith". You query our database to check if he has been reported by others. The query returns no results, meaning he has not been reported yet.
Zero reports is a good sign, but it doesn't mean that the client is trustworthy. Normally, a result of zero reports would mean that the client may be new and has not been reported yet. Or they may be a very active member of the community with zero reports. Just looking at a zero result is not enough to determine if the client is trustworthy or not.
However, with Query History, you can see if other service providers have queried this client in the past.
If you see that other service providers have queried this client multiple times in the past, but they have never reported them, it may indicate that the client is trustworthy and has a good reputation.
Examples of Query History
Here are some examples of how Query History can help you make informed decisions about your clients. Query History is located below the query result section, decorated with green colors.
How much detail does Query History provide?
We are keeping the details of queries intentionally vague to protect the privacy of the clients who may be well-behaved and have not been reported.
The Query History section shows the number of queries made by other service providers, the approximate date intervals of those queries, and the activity of the companies querying them.
"Query Source" is a reporting company that has queried this client in the past. Activity level is a measure of how active the company is in our database. A higher activity level means that the company is frequently querying clients, submitting reports, or a premium member.
How far back does Query History go?
We have details of every single query made by other service providers about a client for the last 12 years. However the amount of history you can see depends on your premium plan. See Plans & Pricing for more details about which plans include Query History and how far back the history goes.
Who can see Query History on results pages?
Query History is a premium feature that is available to all service providers who have a premium plan. Once a result page is generated by a premium plan user, the Query History section will be visible to:
- The creator of the query if they are logged in,
- Anyone accessing the result page from the same IP address where it was originally generated,
- The very first viewer of the result page, with the assumption that it is the creator.
Anyone else who has access to the URL of the result page will not see the Query History details.
How else can Query History help?
A report that shows the client has been reported just once by a single service provider, but has been queried multiple times by others in the past, can be a good sign that the client is not a fraudster and the incident with that single provider is an exception.
On the other hand, a client may claim to "have used many other providers in the past, but never had any issues with them", but if you see that they have never been queried by others, it may indicate that the client may be trying to hide something or is not being truthful about their past activity.
Query History is a powerful tool that can help you make informed decisions about your clients. It's relatively new and we are still working on improving it, and we welcome any feedback you may have.