How Fold verifies sellers

Every seller’s identity is verified by Stripe, Fold’s payment processor, before they can be paid. Identity and banking details are collected and held by Stripe, not by Fold.

Every seller accepts a versioned Seller Agreement. A work’s page says whether its seller’s identity has been verified, and which version of the agreement they accepted and when.

Checks run automatically when a work is submitted. A listing may be held before publication where it appears to impersonate a verified creator, where a gallery has no recorded representation for the artist, or where it duplicates a published unique work.

Artist, title, medium, dimensions, date, edition, condition and provenance are as the seller has stated them. Fold does not authenticate, verify, appraise or independently confirm any of it.

Fold never issues its own certificate of authenticity, and does not collect, keep or pass on a certificate issued by anyone else. Where a certificate exists, it is issued by the artist, the artist’s estate or a gallery authorised to act for them.

A seller may make a statement about a work in their own name: that they made it, or that they represent the artist and have their permission to sell it. Where one is made, the work’s page shows it, the date it was made, and whether the seller’s identity had been verified at that time. That page is the record of what the seller said — not Fold’s endorsement of it.

A statement that is later withdrawn stays on the page, marked as withdrawn. A work with no statement says so; many sellers simply have not made one, and Fold never writes one on their behalf.

Every fact an AI agent receives about a work says who stands behind it: the seller, as they stated it; Fold, where it worked something out from the seller’s figures or its own policy; or Fold, where it checked something itself, such as a content review. A missing fact means it is unknown, never that it was estimated. The terms that govern all of this are Fold’s Terms of Service.