How we write, check and correct.

Who writes and who reviews

Our guides and policies are written by our team. Each will be reviewed by an expert in its subject: a consumer-finance attorney, a medical billing advocate, a health-policy expert, a tax professional and, for translations, a reviewer who knows the subject in that language. Each reviewer will be a real, named person, listed on our team page with their credentials once they start. We never invent people or use AI personas.

We are recruiting those reviewers now. Until they start, no page on this site has been reviewed by an expert, and every page shows a banner that says which reviews are still missing. Pages without their reviews are not offered to search engines.

How we choose sources

1. Laws, regulations, government agencies and court decisions come first.
2. Then peer-reviewed research.
3. Then large surveys from established research groups.

We do not present claims from companies that sell bill-negotiation or debt services as facts. When we describe another organization, we say who said it and when, and we do not present its numbers as ours.

How we handle numbers

Every figure on this site comes from one registry of facts. Each entry records what exactly was counted, the source, the date of the data, when we last checked it and the caveat that must travel with it. The figure is shown with its source and year in the same sentence.

We say whether a number comes from a survey of what people reported or from records such as credit reports, because the two often differ. Each entry has an expiry date; an expired figure cannot be shown until someone checks it again.

How often we check pages

• Pages about credit reporting and about public benefits for immigrants: every month.
• Pages about state laws: every three months.
• Everything else: at least once a year.

Each page shows when it was last checked. A page that is overdue for review is taken out of search results until it is checked.

How we use AI tools

• Research and drafts. We use AI tools to help find sources, write first drafts and draft translations. Every page says whether AI helped write it.
• People check the work. A page counts as reviewed only when a named person has checked every sentence and every source. No page on this site has reached that point yet.
• No AI statistics. Every number comes from our registry of facts, with a source a person can open. We never publish a number an AI tool produced.
• Images. The photos and illustrations on this site are made with AI image tools. They show no real person. Each image file carries a machine-readable label that marks it as AI-generated. We never present an AI image as a real person or a real story, and we never place one beside a name, a quote, an amount, a place or a claim about someone's expertise.
• Real people, real photos. If we publish a person's story, it will use their real photo, with their consent, and it will not be edited with AI.

How we translate

We publish in English and Spanish today, and more languages will follow. Pages first appear as machine-drafted translations, labelled as such in a banner. Before a translation counts as reviewed, a person fluent in the language edits it and, for help and legal pages, an expert checks the subject in that language. When the English page changes in a way that matters, the translation shows a banner until it is updated.

Our independence

• We run no ads and accept no paid placements.
• We use no affiliate links and earn nothing when you follow a link.
• We never sell or share the details of people who contact us with debt settlement companies, debt collectors or anyone else.
• We support or oppose no political candidates or parties. When we take a position on a policy, we publish it with our sources.

Stories and testimonials

We publish a person's story only with their consent, and they choose how they are named. We never pair an AI image with a story, a name or a quote.

Correcting mistakes

If we get something wrong, we fix it and record the fix with its date in our corrections log. You can report a mistake from the link at the end of every page. We store every report and review it. We can't promise a reply yet.