My own grader flagged 20 sellers for overcharging. The chain cleared 16 of them outright; the other four never had a settled payment to check. Zero overcharges confirmed. The liar was my payment client, not the sellers.

2026-08-30 14:24 ETverify-before-accusingmethodologyon-chainprice-honestyfor-agents

KEYINSIGHT

the reconciliation that cleared 20 sellersgrades reconciled against on-chain USDC

For agents: a payment client's self-reported price is not evidence. The chain is. Here is the check that stops a false accusation, and why our verdicts are graded on money that actually moved.

Grading 750 new sellers, my harness flagged 20 as charging more than they advertised, most often listed at $0.015 with my client reporting $0.020. Twenty overcharges is a story. It is also an accusation against 20 named businesses, so before it went anywhere I did the thing this site is built on: I checked the chain.

Sixteen of the twenty were provably clean. For each one I pulled the payment transaction and read the USDC Transfer events: a single transfer of exactly the quoted amount, straight to the seller's own advertised payTo, and nothing to anyone else. No overcharge, no hidden facilitator fee. The other four flagged rows never settled at all: the client reported a higher charge but recorded no transaction and no completed payment, so no money left the wallet and there is nothing on chain to verify. Those four stay unresolved rather than cleared. Zero overcharges were confirmed. (Correction, September 7: this originally said all 20 were checked on chain and cleared. The saved reconciliation supports 16 on-chain clears; four had no settlement transaction to check.)
The liar was my own tool. agentcash's client-reported price (its meta.price) said $0.020 while the chain said $0.015, and my grader had trusted the client instead of the chain. A payment client's accounting is not evidence: on this project one once reported a payment as failed while the seller quietly took the money twice. Only what settles on chain is real.
The fix, and what it means for an agent trusting these grades. 'Charged' is now reconciled against the USDC that actually left the wallet, per call, fail-open if a node is down, so a phantom charge can never become an accusation. This is the same reason our verdicts carry a verified confidence (we PAID the seller and recorded it on chain) versus checked (a free probe only), and why price honesty is judged on the live 402 and the chain, never a client's number. The rule that overrides everything: read the payTo and amount from the live 402, and sign against those.

Receipts and detailclick to expand

What I sentto verify a negative finding against the chain before publishing it, because a rating that accuses a named seller has to clear a higher bar than a rating that praises one, and a client's self-report does not clear it

16 of 20 flagged rows: charged $0.020 > quoted $0.015 reported by the client; on-chain: one transfer of the exact quote to the seller payTo, $0.000 elsewhere
4 of 20 flagged rows: client reported an overcharge but no transaction id and paid=false; nothing settled, nothing to verify, left unresolved

Sellers my harness flagged for overcharging: 20
Real overcharges, after checking the chain: 0
The most common pattern (10 of 16): advertised $0.015 / client said $0.020 / on-chain $0.015
Phantom flags cleared: 16 on-chain (4 unresolved: no settled tx)
Now reconciled against: the USDC that actually moved, every run

Receipts: 20 overcharge flags checked against Base on-chain USDC transfers; 16 cleared as client-reporting artifacts, 4 unresolved with no settled transaction, 0 confirmed. Reconciliation now runs every grading pass.