Dear WHT,

I have a question that I need addressed. I am in the process of buying companies and I have found that people are selling "dead wood" customers, or customers that do not pay their bills. Does anyone have any method of going about determining whether or not the clients they are going to buy are active or inactive on the internet. Alexa is always a great determiner but for those low level mom and pop sites that do not have high hit ratios what do you do?

I am looking to buy active customers who pay their bills does anyone have any idea about how to determine if a customer is active when examining the books?

- 64bithost

Find out how long their sites been around, and how long they've been with their previous host.

I would want to see the host's bank statements to verify that they are really taking in the amount of money they claim.

Do a background check on their website (basic whois), check and ask for actual statement and invoices that they are taking in what they really sat they are. Also, maybe even do a basic Alexa/Google SERP and PageRank check.