Independent infrastructure

Co-presence confirmation
for service marketplaces.

A cryptographically sealed, tamper-evident record confirming that two parties were co-present at a specific time and place — independently held, independently verifiable.

"Vurno makes review fraud expensive, not impossible — and at scale, the pattern is always visible."

The problem

Review fraud is accelerating.
Regulation has arrived.

89% of UK consumers rely on reviews when choosing services. Fake reviews are sold for $5 each on Telegram. The platforms that act earliest will win consumer trust — and pre-empt enforcement.

£23bn
UK consumer spending influenced by reviews annually
89%
UK consumers who rely on reviews when choosing services
$5
Cost of an AI-generated fake review on Telegram channels
54
Firms written to by the CMA in July 2025 citing non-compliance
⚖️

DMCC Act 2024 — enforcement is live

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 designates fake reviews as a banned practice under UK consumer law, with fines up to 10% of global annual turnover. The CMA completed a review of 100+ websites in July 2025 and wrote to 54 firms citing non-compliance. In March 2026 it opened five new investigations including Autotrader, Feefo, and Just Eat. The CMA's concern is not that platforms verify every review — it is that platforms take no reasonable structural steps to prevent manipulation. A Vurno co-presence record is that evidence.

How it works

From job completion to sealed record in five steps.

The co-presence record is created at the moment the visit occurs — before any review is written. It cannot be retrospectively fabricated.

1

Register engagement

Your platform registers the job and parties via the Vurno API when the visit is scheduled.

2

Initiate event

When the tradesperson arrives, your platform signals the start of the confirmation window.

3

Consumer scans QR

The consumer scans a QR code shown by the tradesperson on their device at the job site.

4

OTP confirmation

Vurno sends a 6-digit OTP to the consumer's registered phone. They confirm independently on a Vurno-hosted page.

5

Sealed record issued

Vurno writes an immutable, Ed25519-signed certificate to an append-only chain. Delivered by webhook and email.

Independence

We have no reason to favour anyone.

Vurno is not a directory. It has no listings, no tradesperson profiles, and no commercial relationship with any party on your platform. Its only function is to record whether a visit occurred.

That independence is the product. A co-presence record attached to a review is credible precisely because Vurno has no incentive to favour one platform, tradesperson, or outcome over another.

Stripe processes payments for Shopify and all of Shopify's competitors simultaneously. Shopify trusts Stripe because Stripe has no incentive to favour one merchant over another. Vurno is the same model for review integrity.

Append-only chain — sample entries
engagement.created
seq:0001 · identity_mode: co_presence
event.initiated
seq:0002 · event: visit_completion
qr_session.created
seq:0003 · ttl: 60s
event.confirmed
seq:0004 · verification_type: co_presence
engagement.sealed
seq:0005 · Ed25519 signed · immutable
Precise positioning

What Vurno is — and is not.

Vurno raises the cost and friction of fraud. It does not eliminate it. That framing is accurate, defensible, and the limit of what we claim.

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Not a review platform

Vurno never receives, stores, displays, or moderates review content. Its records are about whether a visit occurred — not what was said.

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Not a directory

No listings, no consumer search interface, no tradesperson profiles. Vurno is backend infrastructure — invisible to end users except for a single OTP confirmation moment.

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Not a fraud guarantee

One or two fabricated records are theoretically possible. At scale, the co-presence pattern breaks immediately and is visible in the audit trail. Fraud becomes economically prohibitive, not impossible.

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Not a consumer product

No consumer accounts. Consumers interact with Vurno once — the OTP confirmation page — then never again. The API is strictly backend-to-backend.

Design partner programme

See the full flow with real devices.

The demo integrator is live. Two devices, two minutes — register a job, scan the QR, confirm the OTP, receive the certificate.

Open the live demo

Questions or integration enquiries — hello@vurno.co.uk