This page describes how PayoffPath is researched, written, reviewed and corrected. It is written down so that it can be held against us.
Sourcing
Statements of law and of federal policy are sourced to primary material: the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the United States Courts, the IRS, the Federal Reserve and state statutes. We link the source, not a secondary article about the source.
Numbers
Two rules. First, every payoff calculation states its interest rate and its assumptions and is reproducible from them. Second, market figures that move over time — average card APR, household debt, approval rates — are not asserted from memory. They are linked to the agency that publishes them, or they are left out.
Where a figure varies by state, such as a statute of limitations or a bankruptcy exemption, we explain the mechanism and send you to the statute. We will not publish a fifty-state table we cannot keep current, because in this subject a stale table is worse than no table.
Review
This is a YMYL subject: money and law. Our standard is that an article is not finished until someone with the relevant credential has checked it.
- Bankruptcy articles — practicing bankruptcy attorney.
- Debt, credit and payoff articles — Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC®) or CFP®.
- Tax articles — Enrolled Agent or CPA.
Current status: review is in progress and not complete. Articles that have not been through it carry a note saying so, on the article. We do not use a generic “Editorial Team” byline as a substitute for a credential.
Independence
No advertiser, affiliate or sponsor sees an article before publication, and none has any input into its conclusions. See the Advertiser Disclosure.
Corrections
When we get something wrong we fix it in place and add a dated correction note. We do not quietly delete errors. Report one through the contact page.
Use of AI
We use software in research and drafting. It does not decide what is true here: every factual claim is checked against a primary source by a person before publication, and the review requirements above apply regardless of how a draft was produced.