You can check a German commercial register number free of charge in the register portal of the German states. Whether the shop belongs to the registered company is something only the company itself can tell you. Fake shops put the commercial register number, address and VAT identification number of real companies in their legal notice, and each of these details can be looked up. On 24 September 2026 the police headquarters in Trier, western Germany, warned about heating oil shops that do this. The companies have nothing to do with the offer.
What police and consumer protection are currently reporting
Several bodies describe the same tactic.In its warning of 24 September 2026 the Trier police write that the operators of various fake shops feign respectability “by using data and details of real companies in their legal notice, including in some cases genuine commercial register entries, addresses and tax numbers” (quotations from German sources in this article are our translation).It continues: “However, this company data has no connection with the fraudulent offer.” The warning followed reports from several people who had ordered heating oil and received neither goods nor a refund.
On 29 October 2025 the police headquarters for Lower Bavaria described a case from the district of Freyung-Grafenau. A woman ordered heating oil for around 700 euros. When nothing was delivered, she asked the company whose data appeared in the shop.According to the police it turned out “that the company profile had been used to create a fake page”. More on this product group is in the article Fake shops for firewood, pellets and heating oil.
The Austrian government portal Onlinesicherheit calls the practice “legal notice theft”. In a case from August 2025 a fake brand shop had copied the mandatory details from the original site, and its links to help pages and social media profiles led to the genuine company.German police crime prevention (ProPK) therefore advises not to trust a legal notice blindly just because it is there. An internet search usually reveals that the stated address does not exist or was taken over from another company.The police headquarters in Neubrandenburg, north-eastern Germany, wrote in August 2026: “Even an existing legal notice can be forged.”
What a register entry proves
A register entry proves that a company with this name, this number and this registered office exists. It says nothing about the website on which the number appears.The data is easy to obtain: the register is public, and Section 5 of the German Digital Services Act (DDG) obliges every commercial provider to state it in the legal notice.This includes name and address, for legal entities the legal form and authorised representative, an email address, the register with register number and, where one exists, the VAT identification number.
Anyone who copies a legal notice gets all of these details in one piece. The copied text looks formally complete. Section 33 DDG threatens a fine of up to 50,000 euros if one of these details is missing, wrong or incomplete. Section 5 DDG does not provide for any check of the details before publication. A shop goes online without anyone matching the legal notice against the operator.
How to check whether shop and company belong together
Query the commercial register and the VAT ID, search for the company separately from the shop and call it. The queries show whether the company exists and whether the details fit together. Whether the shop belongs to it is something only the company itself can tell you.
- Retrieve the commercial register.
Through the joint register portal of the German states you can search nationwide by company name or register number. Retrieval has been free of charge since 1 August 2022, and according to the Bavarian justice ministry registration is no longer required. Compare company name, legal form, registered office and register court with the legal notice. If the register says the company has been deleted, that does not fit a shop that is in operation.
- Check the VAT ID.
Anyone can query a number through the EU Commission’s VAT Information Exchange System (VIES). The result is valid or invalid. According to the EU portal Your Europe, invalid means the number does not exist or is not activated for cross-border business within the EU. If you find nothing in VIES, Your Europe refers you to the competent authorities in your own country. The confirmation procedure of the German Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt) is aimed at German businesses checking numbers from other EU countries and does not help you as a buyer.
- Search for the company itself.
Enter the company name from the register in a search engine. If the company has its own website under a different address, sells something entirely different or does not sell to private customers at all, the shop does not fit it. The Trier police write that active cross-checking often reveals other companies or persons as the owner.
- Call and ask.
Look up the company’s phone number yourself, for example on its own website or in a telephone directory. The number in the shop leads to the shop’s operators. Ask whether the shop’s address belongs to the company. In the Lower Bavarian case asking the company brought clarity, though only after the order.
- Look at the domain and the payee.
In the Austrian case the fake shop’s address had been registered ten days before the warning, the original’s in 2004. Our shop check shows you the domain age. If you are asked to pay by bank transfer, compare the account holder with the company in the legal notice. How your bank helps with this is explained in the article on Verification of Payee. You can also match the IBAN against reported fraud cases in the IBAN check.
What our check compares in the legal notice
Our shop check reads the legal notice and matches register number, company name and VAT ID against external sources.
- Legal notice. We record whether a legal notice exists, whether it gives contact details and a deliverable address with street, postcode and town, and whether it contains register or tax details. An email address alone does not count as an address.
- Commercial register. For a German number (HRA or HRB) we query which company is registered under it, first at the register portal, then with a register data service and through a web search evaluated by a language model. Four results are possible: company and number fit together, no entry is found, a different company is registered under the number, or the company is deleted, insolvent or in liquidation.
- VAT ID. We query the number through VIES and send the company name and address from the legal notice along. A finding appears if the number is invalid or if the stored data differs from the legal notice.
- Limit. If a fake shop has copied company name, number, court and address completely from a real company, all details fit together. Our check then finds a valid entry. In that case the result page therefore says: “There is an entry for the stated register number. This does not prove that the shop belongs to this company.”
Because the register match has this gap, we look at further features: how old the domain is, whether a named account holder fits the company in the legal notice, and whether the address is on a warning list. No automated check detects every fake, so an inconspicuous result is no guarantee. How the check works overall is described on the Methodology page.
If a fake shop uses your company’s data
Secure evidence first, then file a police report. You usually find out because people contact you who ordered in someone else’s shop and received nothing. Your company received neither the order nor the money. The Trier police ask companies whose data is used in online shops without consent to report this to the police.
- Secure evidence.
Take screenshots of the other shop’s legal notice, its home page and the address bar, each with the date. Keep messages from affected people. How to secure evidence so that police and lawyers can work with it is explained under Securing evidence.
- File a police report.
In many German states this can be done online. The online police stations are listed under Reporting offices, the process in the article Reporting a fake shop. Note the case number; you will need it for the letters that follow.
- Write to the registrar and hosting provider.
Who manages a domain is shown in the public registration data. Under the rules of ICANN, the organisation that coordinates domain names, accredited registrars must publish a contact address for abuse reports and investigate reports promptly. For country endings such as .de the rules of the respective registry apply. Include the evidence and the case number.
- Post a notice on your own website.
State in a clearly visible place under which addresses your company sells and that the other shop does not belong to it. Anyone who searches for your company because they distrust the shop will find the notice. Your customer service can refer to it.
- Report the shop to us.
You can send us the address via Report a shop, and we will check it for the list. Our paid brand protection for companies continuously matches your company data against the shops we check and reports hits with the place we found them. If you consider a detail about your company or our rating of your own shop to be wrong, use the correction request form.
Whether you can also take civil action against the use of your company name depends on the individual case. A lawyer can clarify that; this article is not legal advice.
Already paid: the next steps
Call your bank first. The German consumer advice centre (Verbraucherzentrale) writes that a transfer you made yourself can no longer be reversed once the bank has executed the order. The bank can try to reclaim the amount.According to the German central bank (Bundesbank), a reversal depends on the consent of the recipient, and with a fake shop that is not to be expected. With direct debit and credit card you have more options. The steps by payment method are under Already transferred money.Then file a police report, as the Trier police also advise. Let the company know whose data was in the legal notice. It can file a report itself and warn others. Which other scams are currently being reported we collect every month under Current scams.
