Fighting Crime with a Cloud Mashup

Introduction

This article describes an idea for an application that uses data from the D&B sandbox. This is an idea for an app that has not yet been created.

The D&B cloud services provide a straight-forward API for company related data that is guaranteed to scale to meet your needs. The application described in this article can be hosted on Azure, which means it can scale on demand, as well.

Background

In the United States, the FTC serves to protect consumers from (among other things) companies that might defraud others. This app provides a way for consumers to research shady companies even before the company has been debarred or shut down. Customers may also be concerned with whether a company will be in business in future years to service a warranty.

Overview

Suppose a user has some interest in making a purchase from a company they are unfamiliar with. The user would launch this app and search for the company with a name, location, or phone number. We use the D&B data service to perform a search and obtain the DUNSNumber.

With this unique identifier, we show corresponding public record information (from the Public Records function) about the company, such as whether there are any suits, liens, or judgments against the company. Because poor company performance will not likely be manifest in public record information quickly, the data is joined with BBB records which show a wider array of complaints.

Another portion of this software is a mobile-phone app that can be used to analyse a company immediately based on a caller's phone number. When the user sees an unfamiliar number, they can choose to have this number reviewed to:

1. better determine who is calling and
2. to learn more about the reliability of that company

Points of Interest

Consumer reviews (for product companies) could also be shown by integrating data from an online review service.

Because some business leaders might hop from one organization to another, it might be useful to try and correlate data about failed companies and the companies where those officers are now making decisions.

History

This is the original version of the article.