A certificate did not check out. Now what?

The search returns nothing. Before drawing a conclusion, it is worth knowing that "not found" has at least five explanations, and only one of them is fraud.

Treating every miss as deception damages a supplier relationship over what is often an administrative gap. Treating every miss as an administrative gap is how counterfeit certificates keep circulating. The useful skill is telling them apart, and it takes about ten minutes.

Five reasons a certificate does not appear

1. It is not accredited, and never claimed to be. A certification body may lawfully issue certificates outside its accredited scope under its own authority. Those are not published to accredited-certificate registries. If the document itself says so plainly, nothing is wrong — you have simply learned what kind of certificate it is.

2. A name mismatch. Registers hold the legal entity name. Suppliers send documents under trading names, and transliteration from another script produces several plausible spellings. Search the legal name from the certificate face, and try partial matches.

3. Publication lag. A recently issued certificate may not yet appear in a global registry. The certification body's own verification page is usually current sooner.

4. The status changed. Suspended, reduced in scope, or withdrawn. Under ISO/IEC 17021-1 clause 9.6.5.3 a suspended certification is temporarily invalid, and the register reflects that while the PDF in your inbox does not.

5. It does not exist. The document was produced to look like a certificate. This is the case Global ACI TECH-3-015 (formerly IAF ID 17, published in 2025) addresses, and the reason the other four explanations should be eliminated first rather than assumed away.

The escalation, in order

Ask the supplier. Neutrally, and with specifics: the certificate number you searched, the register you searched, and the exact name you used. Most cases resolve here, usually as a name or version problem. A supplier who cannot produce a searchable reference has told you something either way.

Ask the certification body. Clause 8.1.2 entitles you to the status of a given certificate on request. A legitimate body answers this routinely; it is a normal part of its work, not a favour.

Ask the accreditation body. If the certification body is unresponsive, or if what it says does not match its own register entry, the accreditation body is the next step. It maintains the register and has an interest in its accuracy.

What not to do

Do not post about it. A public accusation based on a search that returned nothing is a risk you are taking on someone else's behalf, and the five explanations above are why. If it is genuine misconduct, the routes above are the ones with authority to act on it.

Do not accept a screenshot as resolution. An image of a register entry is a document like any other. Search it yourself; that is the entire point.

Do not let it sit. An unresolved certificate check in a supplier file is a decision deferred, not a decision made — and it tends to surface at the moment it is most expensive.

Recording it

Whatever the outcome, record what you checked, where, when and what you found. Two reasons.

It saves the next person repeating the work, and it is your evidence that the check was performed if a customer or auditor asks how you assure your supply chain. A dated line in the supplier record does both.

CAS — An EGAC accredited MS certification body No. 012418. If a CAS certificate does not check out, tell us. We would rather hear it from you than not hear it.

Verify any certificate: cas.com.eg/certsearch