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Fake letter of intent detection: spot edits, forgeries and AI fakes
A letter of intent is usually non-binding and it still moves money, because its real audience is a third party: a landlord shown a job offer, a rival bidder shown a competing number, a visa officer shown a sponsor's commitment. A fabricated LOI buys that leverage for the price of a letterhead. Edited ones are quieter, with a valuation raised or a condition removed after both sides had signed. TamperCheck compares the terms, the parties, and the signature block against the page beneath them.
Last updated:
Most often edited
proposed terms and valuation, party names, signature block
Reviewed by
Deal teams, property agents, and admissions offices acting on preliminary terms
Where forgers attack a letter of intent
Method
How it works and what it leaves behind
- Valuation and consideration edits
- The headline number is raised to create leverage with a third party or a competing bidder. Because the figure is repeated in the structure paragraph and often written out in words, changing it in one place leaves a letter that offers two different amounts for the same asset.
- Entity substitution
- The counterparty is renamed as a better-known company or a group parent, turning an offer from a small buyer into one that appears institutionally backed. The substituted name usually sits at a different tracking or weight from the surrounding text, and it contradicts the signatory block further down the page.
- Signatory and title upgrade
- The person signing is elevated to a title carrying authority they do not hold, so a letter signed by an analyst reads as signed by a managing director. This costs the forger a single line and transforms how the recipient weighs the document, which is why the title line deserves as much scrutiny as the signature above it.
- Issue and expiry date changes
- The date is moved to revive a letter whose acceptance window closed, or to make an expired exclusivity period look live. Everything downstream is computed from that date, so the deadline stated in the body frequently stops matching the date printed at the top once one of them is edited.
- Conditions quietly removed
- A condition precedent, a financing contingency, or the sentence establishing that the letter is non-binding is deleted so a preliminary document reads as a commitment. Removing a line reflows the paragraph beneath it, leaving spacing and justification that no longer match the rest of the letter.
- Letters produced without a counterparty
- Nobody on the other side ever wrote it. Drafted or generated against a real company's letterhead, the letter is coherent throughout and defeats a read-through entirely. It is exposed by the letterhead and signature instead: a logo at the wrong resolution, and a signature that carries none of the artefacts a real capture leaves.
How to check a letter of intent step by step
1. Check the fields against each other
Read proposed terms and valuation, party names, and signature block together rather than one at a time. Forgers typically change one value and leave the rest of the document describing the original.
2. Inspect the file metadata
Open the document properties and look at the producer, creation date, and modification date. A document produced by a consumer PDF editor, or created long after the date printed on its face, is worth a closer look.
3. Ask for a second document
Request a corroborating document from the same issuer or an adjacent period. Forgery effort concentrates on one file, so inconsistencies surface as soon as there are two to compare.
4. Run a forensic check
Manual review catches obvious edits but not field-level pixel manipulation or synthetic generation. TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks on a letter of intent and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 within seconds, on published per-document pricing.
Visible warning signs in a letter of intent
Proposed terms and valuation that read right but render oddly
Zoom in on the proposed terms and valuation and look at the background behind the characters. Edits often leave a faint halo, a patch of slightly different texture or spacing that was fine at full-page view.
Party names that are set in a slightly different hand
Zoom in on the party names and compare weight, spacing and edge sharpness with the lines above and below it. A substituted value is rarely typeset exactly like the original, even when the typeface name matches.
Pages that were swapped after signing
Check page numbering, running headers and font consistency across the whole document. A replaced page often differs in margins, spacing or typeface.
A signature that appears on more than one page of the same file
A genuine pen stroke is never identical twice. A pixel-identical signature or initial is a pasted image.
A notary or court stamp with no register entry
Find the notary or court in its official register and compare the stamp against a known genuine impression.
The forensic checks that matter most for a letter of intent
Signature forgery analysis
Signature regions are assessed for ink consistency and for how the stroke sits on the page, which distinguishes a genuine pen stroke from a pasted image of one.
Date and validity consistency
Issue, expiry, and period dates are checked against one another and against the file's own creation metadata, which catches backdating and validity extension.
Field-level forensics
Every text region is analysed in its own right rather than as part of one whole-page image. This catches the smoothed and feathered edits that whole-image Error Level Analysis misses entirely.
And many more checks
The three above are the layers that carry the most weight on a letter of intent. Every upload runs the full suite of 200+ checks regardless of document class, spanning file structure and metadata, pixel-level forensics, font and text rendering, optical and print characteristics, provenance signals, AI-generation signatures, and many more checks.
Anatomy of a genuine letter of intent
A letter of intent names both parties by their legal entities rather than their trading names, identifies the subject precisely - the asset, the property, the programme, the role - and states the headline consideration or valuation. It sets out key dates: the date of issue, any exclusivity or standstill period, and a deadline for acceptance. Conditions precedent follow, typically due diligence, financing, or board approval, along with a clause stating which provisions are binding and which are not. Each side signs through an authorised signatory whose name and title appear beneath the signature.
The binding clause governs what the rest of the letter is worth, so it has to be read against the confidentiality, exclusivity, and cost provisions it carves out. The consideration normally appears more than once, as a headline figure and again inside a payment or structure paragraph, sometimes in words as well as numerals. Acceptance and exclusivity deadlines count forward from the issue date, so moving that date moves both. The signatory's title has to carry authority to bind the entity named at the top, not a related company.
Questions people ask about a letter of intent
How do I verify a letter of intent is real?
Contact the issuing party directly using details you source independently and ask them to confirm they issued it on that date with those terms, because an LOI is not registered anywhere and the counterparty is the only authority on it. Then check internal consistency: the figure stated twice, the deadline against the issue date, and the signatory's title against the entity named at the top.
Can a letter of intent be forged?
Yes, and it is a common fraud precisely because an LOI is just a letter, with no seal, no registry, and no issuing authority behind it. The two shapes are a letter no counterparty ever wrote, produced on a reproduced letterhead, and a real letter with the valuation, the dates, or the binding clause edited after both sides signed.
Is a letter of intent legally binding?
Usually not as to the transaction itself, but specific clauses inside it normally are, and the letter will say which. Confidentiality, exclusivity, and cost allocation are the provisions ordinarily drafted to bind. That split is exactly why deleting a single sentence is a worthwhile forgery: it converts a statement of intent into what reads like a commitment.
How can I check whether an LOI's terms were changed after signing?
Compare the copy you hold against the copy the other side holds, then examine the file itself for edits that were never mirrored. A changed figure leaves the document stating two amounts, a removed condition reflows the paragraph around it, and both regions carry a rendering history that differs from the untouched text. Findings come back tied to the region that changed.
Where does a forensic review of a letter of intent start?
It starts where forgeries of a letter of intent most often break: the parties named, the headline price or consideration, and the binding and non-binding clauses. Pixel, font and metadata checks then run across the rest of a letter of intent.
How can I tell if a letter of intent was altered after signing?
Look for pages of a letter of intent that differ in margins, spacing or typeface, signature images that repeat, and metadata showing a later modification. The strongest evidence is a region around proposed terms and valuation that does not share the compression history of the pages around it.
Can a signature be copied onto a letter of intent?
Yes. Signatures are easily lifted from another file and pasted onto a letter of intent. A real pen stroke varies and sits within the paper of a letter of intent, while a pasted image repeats exactly and sits on top of it.
How quickly can a letter of intent be checked?
Within seconds of upload. The result names any altered field, such as proposed terms and valuation, and gives a risk score from 0 to 100 so you can route a letter of intent automatically.
Check a document
Upload a PDF or a photo of letter of intent. TamperCheck returns a risk score from 0 to 100 and marks the region that was edited, usually within seconds.
For developers, the API class is letter_of_intent. See the API and MCP documentation.