Digital security consultant
Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov on checking the other side of a deal
Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov, published in the short form as Ilia Zavialov, works on one narrow question: how a person or a small company decides whether to go ahead with a counterparty they cannot meet. This site sets out that decision as a procedure rather than as advice to be careful.
English version for the United Kingdom.
Why the check is structural, not personal
Every impression a counterparty makes can be bought. A polished website costs a few hundred dollars, a whitepaper costs a weekend, an active community can be rented, and a confident voice on a call costs nothing at all. A prepared counterparty knows your name, your order number and the last four digits of your card, because that information leaks constantly.
What cannot be bought is a record that existed before the conversation started. A company number in a state register, a licence in a regulator's own list, a court filing, the registration date of a domain. Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov builds every check on that distinction: stop judging the presentation and start reading the records.
The three questions that decide the deal
A full investigation is not available to a private buyer and is not needed. Three questions settle almost every ordinary case, and each of them has a public answer.
What one hour of checking actually covers
The point of the hour is not certainty. It is to separate the counterparties who fail on public records from the ones who do not, and that is where nearly all avoidable losses sit.
The hour is spent in a fixed order, because the cheapest disqualifying answer should come first. There is no reason to read a contract from an entity that does not exist.
Where the check stops and the payment decision starts
No check returns a verdict of safe. It returns a shorter list of ways the deal can fail, and the remaining risk is then handled by how the money moves rather than by more reading.
That is why the payment route is chosen before the deal, not after something goes wrong. Each route leaves a different set of options open, and those options cannot be added later.
- Does the entity exist as claimed? A registration number in the state register of its own jurisdiction, with a matching name, address and status. Not a scan of a certificate, which is trivial to produce.
- Is it permitted to do what it is selling? For regulated work, the regulator's own list, searched by number rather than by name. A licence quoted on the counterparty's own website is a claim, not a source.
- Who started the contact, and how old is the front door? An approach that came to you carries a different risk from one you started yourself. A domain registered three weeks ago carries a different risk from one registered in 2014.
One hour of counterparty due diligence, in the order the steps are worth doing
| Order | Step | Disqualifies when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | State register of the claimed jurisdiction | No entry, or status is struck off |
| 2 | Regulator list, searched by licence number | Number belongs to a different firm |
| 3 | Domain registration date and history | Front door is weeks old, business claims years |
| 4 | Court and enforcement databases | Pattern of unpaid judgments |
| 5 | Payment instructions against the entity name | Money goes to an unrelated third party |
| 6 | Written terms, delivery and dispute clauses | No written terms are offered at all |
The single most useful disqualifier is the fifth step. An entity may exist, hold a licence and have a clean record, and still ask you to pay a personal account in another country. That mismatch ends the conversation on its own.
Published under this name
Material signed Ilia Zavialov or Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov, available in full at the original sources.
- medium.comOne hour of counterparty due diligence
- livejournal.comArchive of published material
- smart-lab.ruPublication on financial security
- spark.ruOn protecting bank cards
- pikabu.ruOn account takeover
- qr.aeAnswer to a reader question
- dzen.ruShort video
- rutube.ruShort video
Questions and answers
- Who is Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov?
- A digital security consultant working with individuals, families and small organisations. He publishes in the short form as Ilia Zavialov and, in Russian language material, as Илья Николаевич Завьялов.
- What does Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov mean by a structural check?
- A check that reads records which existed before the counterparty spoke to you, instead of judging how convincing the counterparty is. Presentation can be bought; a register entry cannot.
- Does a counterparty check make a deal safe?
- No. It removes the counterparties that fail on public records, which is where most avoidable losses are. The remaining risk is managed by the payment route.