Safety & Trust Center

Online, you often can't verify who you're really dealing with — a polished website, a verified-looking profile, or a convincing story doesn't guarantee legitimacy. Scammers rely on exactly that gap between how trustworthy someone looks and how trustworthy they actually are. Searching a person, business, or website on Oyiwa before you pay or share information takes a minute and can surface reports from people who already had a bad experience with them.

Pressure to act immediately or "before the offer expires"; requests to pay by gift card, crypto, or wire transfer instead of a reversible method; a deal that's significantly better than anything comparable; being asked to move the conversation off-platform quickly; vague or inconsistent answers about who they are or where they're based; and a refusal to provide verifiable business details. None of these alone proves a scam, but more than one together is a strong reason to slow down and search first.

No — a professional-looking website and active social accounts are inexpensive to set up and don't verify legitimacy on their own. They're a reasonable first signal, not a substitute for checking whether anyone has actually reported a problem with that business.

Anyone, anywhere. Oyiwa has no geographic restriction — you can search or report from any country, and the entities people search for and report are based all over the world too. Searching doesn't require an account; submitting a report does, so Oyiwa can follow up if a moderator needs clarification.

Report it on Oyiwa — it's free and takes a few minutes. Include what happened, any evidence you have (screenshots, receipts, messages), and how much money or what was involved if applicable. A human moderator reviews every report before it's published. You can choose to have your name hidden from the public case if you'd rather report anonymously, and you can edit or withdraw your report later from your dashboard.

No — a report is a claim made by the person who submitted it, reviewed by a moderator for plausibility and evidence, not a legal finding of guilt. Oyiwa clearly separates user reports, platform-reviewed cases, public web intelligence, and official records so you can judge the strength of what you're looking at, rather than treating everything as equally certain.

You can choose to report anonymously, in which case your name is never shown on the public case. Even when you're not anonymous, your contact details (like your email) are never shown directly — another member has to formally request them and you (or, in some cases, an admin) has to approve the release first. Every step of that is recorded.

Yes. A verified entity owner can post a response to a case, and that response is shown alongside the original report — responses are additive, they never remove or edit what was reported. This is deliberate: Oyiwa aims to show a fuller picture, not just one side.

It goes into a moderation queue for human review before anything is published. A moderator can approve and publish it, ask you for clarification, or reject it. Every evidence file you attach is only viewable by you and moderators/admins — the general public sees evidence listed by type, not the file itself, unless you're signed in as the reporter or a moderator.