# Detect tampered and deepfake Shipping Company Invitation > A shipping company invitation is what turns a seafarer's flight into a crew change. It names the vessel, the port and the date the seafarer is due to join, and it commits the company to the cost of getting them home again if the joining fails. That repatriation undertaking is the part consulates read most closely, because it is the reason a seafarer visa carries less risk than a visitor one. TamperCheck examines the letter for details rewritten after it was issued. **Canonical URL:** https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/shipping_company_invitation **API document class:** `shipping_company_invitation` --- ## What a genuine shipping company invitation contains The invitation is issued on the shipping company's or manning agent's letterhead and identifies the seafarer by full name, date of birth, nationality, passport number and seaman's book number, with the validity of both. It then identifies the ship: name, flag state, IMO number and current or expected position. The operative detail is the crew change itself - the port and date of joining, the expected port and date of disembarkation, the airport and date of entry to the Schengen area, and the local agent meeting the seafarer. It closes with a signed undertaking to bear repatriation costs. The letter only works if its dates and its geography hold together. The entry date has to precede the joining date by a plausible margin, the entry airport has to make sense as a route to the joining port, and the vessel has to be capable of being in that port on that date given the position stated higher up the page. The seafarer's passport and book numbers have to match the documents filed with the application, and both have to stay valid past disembarkation. The IMO number is a seven-digit identifier with a check digit that stays with a ship for life, even when the name and flag change. ## How shipping company invitation forgeries are made ### Vessel details that do not belong together A ship's name, flag and IMO number are combined from different sources, or the number is invented outright. The IMO number carries a check digit and ship registers are public, so a vessel that is not where the letter places it, or that holds a different number, is a plain contradiction. ### Repatriation undertaking weakened or removed The clause committing the company to the seafarer's return costs is the clause that matters, and in copied letters it is often missing, truncated, or lifted verbatim from another company's template in a register of English the rest of the letter never uses. ### Seafarer identity replaced A genuine joining letter is reissued with a different name, passport and book number, selling a crew change to somebody with no berth. The replaced fields disturb the alignment of the identity block while the vessel details, the signature and the letterhead stay exactly as they were issued. ### Joining dates moved The joining date is pushed back to fit a later flight, or brought forward to match a booking already made. The vessel's stated position and the disembarkation date are normally left alone, which leaves the ship making an implausible passage between the two ports named. ### Manning agent letterheads copied Agency headers, stamps and signatures are taken from published circulars and applied to fabricated letters. The header shows the artefacts of a web image dropped into a word processor, and the signature repeats without variation across letters supposedly signed weeks apart. ### Invitations assembled from templates Complete letters generated from a form, naming a real vessel, a plausible agent and a correctly worded undertaking. Nothing inside disagrees with anything else, so these are separated by how the page was produced rather than by what it says. ## What TamperCheck checks on a shipping company invitation TamperCheck runs 200+ forensic checks across three layers and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 with plain-English findings tied to specific regions of the document. These three carry the most weight on this document class. ### 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. ### Reference and document number checks Document, account, and reference numbers are checked for issuer format conformance and against every other place the same value appears on the page. ### 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 shipping company invitation. 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. ## Who verifies a shipping company invitation, and why Consulates assessing Schengen seafarer visa applications. In each case the document is being used to unlock money, access, or a legal status, which is exactly what makes it worth forging. ## How to verify a shipping company invitation in 4 steps 1. **Check the fields against each other.** Read vessel and port details, seafarer identity, and repatriation undertaking 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 shipping company invitation and returns a risk score from 0 to 100 in about a minute, at $0.50 per document. ## Frequently asked questions ### How do consulates verify shipping company invitations? They contact the company or its manning agent to confirm the crew change, then test the letter's internal logic: the vessel's position against the joining port and date, the entry airport against the route to that port, and the seafarer's passport and seaman's book numbers against the documents filed. The repatriation undertaking is read to see whether the company has genuinely accepted the liability. ### What is a shipping company invitation for a visa? It is a letter from a shipowner or manning agent confirming that a named seafarer is joining a named vessel, stating the ship's details and position, the port and date of joining, the intended disembarkation, the entry airport and the local agent, and undertaking to bear repatriation costs. It is the core document in a Schengen seafarer or crew-change application. ### What is an IMO number and why does it matter here? An IMO number is a permanent seven-digit identifier assigned to a ship, with a check digit as its final figure, and it stays with the vessel even when the owner, the name or the flag changes. On a joining letter it is the field that cannot be talked around: it either belongs to the ship named beside it or it does not. ### Can an edited joining letter be detected? Yes. Replaced identity fields disturb the alignment and rendering of the block they sit in while the letterhead, stamp and signature stay exactly as issued, and an altered joining date leaves the vessel's stated position implausible against the ports listed. TamperCheck reports each finding against the region of the letter it came from, at $0.50 per document. ## Related document types - Invitation Letter: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/invitation_letter - Sponsor Letter: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/sponsor_letter - Travel Itinerary: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/travel_itinerary - Travel Agency Booking: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/travel_agency_booking - Accommodation Booking: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/accommodation_booking - Host Accommodation Form: https://tampercheck.ai/documents-support/host_accommodation_form --- Try TamperCheck now: https://tampercheck.ai/dashboard · Docs: https://tampercheck.ai/docs · Pricing: https://tampercheck.ai/pricing