# Referral contact email change: verify it first | SourceX

Canonical: https://refer.sourcex.si/guides/when-a-company-changes-its-contact-email-during-review
Last updated: 2026-11-05

Verify the new address before you use it, and change only your own record. Confirm the change through a channel you already had, such as a call to a number on file or a reply from the old address, never through the new address alone. Ask the CEO to tell SourceX directly, because the company deals with SourceX itself once it applies. Do not resubmit the introduction: its date, the 90-day window and any credit decision stay exactly where they were, and SourceX decides them from dated records.

This page is about an address, not a person or a company. If the person you introduced has left the business, start with [finding the right contact after an executive moves](/guides/how-to-find-the-right-contact-after-an-executive-moves). If the company has renamed itself, work through the [brand continuity sheet](/guides/when-a-company-has-changed-its-brand-but-kept-its-operations) first, and if its registered name changed while SourceX was reviewing it, see [when a company changes its legal name during review](/guides/when-a-company-changes-its-legal-name-during-review). If the change is on your side, a new manager at your firm, see [when a referral moves between partner managers](/guides/when-a-referral-moves-between-partner-managers).

## Six reasons an address changes mid-review, and which ones move the decision

Most address changes are mundane, and the decider stays put. Three of the six below can change who decides for the company or whether the message is genuine, and those are the ones to slow down for.

| What changed | What usually happened | Does the decider change? | First move |
|---|---|---|---|
| A new domain | The company renamed itself and moved its mail | No, if the entity and its CEO are unchanged | Verify, then add a dated line |
| A mailbox inside a buyer's domain | The company was acquired and its mail migrated | Yes, after closing: the acquirer's CEO decides | Ask who decides now, before anything else |
| Personal address to work address | The CEO first wrote from a private account | No | Verify, then add a dated line |
| A colleague becomes the working contact | The CEO handed day-to-day contact to a COO or an assistant | No: the CEO still decides, the colleague helps | Get the CEO's own written note naming the colleague |
| The CEO has left | Someone else now runs the company | Yes | Treat it as a new decision for the new CEO |
| An unfamiliar address claims to be the CEO | Unknown | Unknown until verified | Hold everything and verify through a known channel |

## What your record holds about a contact, and what it never holds

SourceX's partner agreement asks every introduction record to name six things, among them the company's web domain, how the introduction was made and when, and it says a dispute must not erase original evidence (section 3.3). Read together, those two lines settle how your file handles a new address: the introduction stays exactly as it was recorded, including the address it used, and the change arrives as a new dated line beneath it.

Each contact line needs six fields: the address, the person it belongs to and their role, the channel that confirmed it, the date it was confirmed, its status (current or superseded) and who on your team entered it.

What the record never needs is anything from inside the company's relationship with SourceX. You do not need the company's correspondence with SourceX, its application or its account details, and the terms say partners never receive access to applicant documents (section 7). Your file covers your introduction. The company's file at SourceX is the company's.

## The verified contact update protocol

Six steps, in order. A step is finished only when its last column is true.

| Step | What you do | What you never do | Finished when |
|---|---|---|---|
| V1 Hold | Pause anything scheduled to go to the old or the new address | Reply to the new address or send it the introduction, your partner details or anything else | Nothing is going out |
| V2 Classify | Pick the matching row from the six reasons above | Assume a rename because the new domain looks similar | One row is chosen |
| V3 Verify | Confirm through a channel that existed before the message: a number on file, the old address if it still works, or in person | Use a phone number, link or contact named in the new message | The CEO confirms, in their own words, that the address is theirs |
| V4 The company tells SourceX | Ask the CEO to update SourceX directly | Send SourceX a contact change for the company without the CEO's written request | The CEO says SourceX has been told |
| V5 Add a dated line | Mark the new address current and the old one superseded, with the date and the verifying channel | Overwrite or delete the old address, or edit the introduction record | Both lines are on file, dated |
| V6 Check what stayed put | Confirm the introduction date, the 90-day window and the credit question are untouched | Resubmit the introduction to refresh it | Nothing was resubmitted |

**Why V3 insists on an old channel.** The FBI's page on business email compromise tells businesses to verify any change to account numbers or payment procedures with the person who asked for it, in person if possible or by calling them (our paraphrase of its page). A referral contact change is not a payment change. It can be the first step toward one, though, because whoever controls the address a referral runs through receives every message about it. A confirmation that arrives only through the new address proves nothing about who controls it.

**Why V4 belongs to the company.** SourceX's application asks the applicant for a work email and offers a separate, optional email for legal notices, which falls back to the work email when left blank. Those details sit in the company's own relationship with SourceX, and SourceX's privacy policy says people can ask it to correct their personal information. The terms add that SourceX may communicate directly with a referred company without affecting valid attribution. Once the company has applied, its working line is with SourceX, not with you.

The one exception is the gap before an application. If SourceX has only your introduction and the CEO asks you in writing to pass on the new address, send a single dated note that adds it and leaves the original introduction as recorded. It is a note, not a new submission.

**Why V6 matters.** Section 2 of the terms says attribution "is decided from dated records, including written introduction evidence, existing applications and preexisting relationships". A new address is none of those things. It does not restart the 90-day window, and the terms say the window does not extend because contact protection continues. If the new domain belongs to an acquirer or a parent, the address is a clue to a bigger change. Once the deal closes, the acquirer's CEO decides for the company. There is no cap on rewards, but the USD 50,000 floor applies once per referred company, so which entity counts as the referred company matters. Whether the group's own past dealings with SourceX affect credit has no published rule, so SourceX settles that in duplicate review. Matching the old and new domains to one entity in your CRM is covered by the [entity-brand matching rule](/guides/a-crm-deduplication-rule-for-legal-entities-and-brand-names).

## Who owns each step, and when the operations lead takes it

| Step | Owner | Goes to the operations lead when |
|---|---|---|
| V1 to V3 | The colleague who holds the relationship | Verification fails, or the message pairs the new address with a request for money, bank details or your partner login |
| V4 | The company's CEO | The CEO asks your firm to tell SourceX on the company's behalf |
| V5 | The relationship holder, checked monthly by the operations lead | Anyone has overwritten or deleted an earlier address |
| V6 | The operations lead | The new domain belongs to another company, or the CEO has left |
| Credit and duplicates | SourceX, from its own records | Never: read your dashboard, which shows your own referral in generic stages |

The operations lead's job at escalation is to decide whether anything should be sent at all. In most escalated cases the answer is nothing, until the CEO confirms through a channel you already had.

## Three address changes, worked through (Illustrative)

Illustrative. Generic companies, made-up addresses, invented dates, no outcome implied.

**A. A rename during review.** A 230-person engineering consultancy has applied and is in SourceX's review when its CEO writes from a new domain. The partner holds every reply (V1), recognizes a rename (V2) and calls the CEO's mobile number from the original introduction thread (V3). The CEO confirms and says the company has already updated its SourceX account (V4). The partner's file now reads:

| Line | Address | Status | Confirmed by | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ceo@old-name.example | Superseded | Original introduction thread | 2 Sep |
| 2 | ceo@new-name.example | Current | Call to the number on file | 14 Oct |

Nothing was resubmitted (V6). The introduction still reads 2 September.

**B. A message that fails V3.** An address one letter away from the CEO's name asks the partner to "resend your introduction and your partner payment details here, today." The partner calls the number on file. The CEO knows nothing about it. The operations lead confirms that nothing was sent, the CEO is told through the known channel, and the company decides what to do next. The partner's file gets one line: unverified message, nothing sent, CEO informed.

**C. Mail moved into a buyer's domain.** A company's addresses switch to its acquirer's domain the week after closing. The partner asks the former CEO, by the old phone number, who now decides. The answer is the acquirer's CEO, who chooses whether the company carries on with SourceX. The partner adds the new decider's contact only after that CEO confirms it, and leaves every credit question to SourceX.

## Keeping the contact history clean until the referral closes

Once a month, the operations lead runs three checks across open referrals: any superseded address that still has messages scheduled to it, any referral where the CEO has not yet confirmed that SourceX was told, and any line entered without a verifying channel. Each check is a yes or a no; none needs the company's details.

When the referral closes, keep the introduction record and its dated contact lines with your reward records. The partner agreement's return-or-delete clause makes an exception for records needed for reward accounting and dispute evidence (section 4.4). Personal addresses you no longer need go under your firm's retention policy.

## Four things a verified update still cannot settle

- **You cannot see SourceX's side.** Whether SourceX received the CEO's update is between SourceX and the company. Your dashboard shows your referral's stage, and the agreement limits partner updates to generic stages or reference codes.
- **Old channels age too.** A number on file can be stale. When every channel that existed before the message fails, stop and wait for the CEO to reach you.
- **Personal data.** A new address belongs to a person. Keep only what the referral needs and drop personal addresses once they are superseded and no longer needed.
- **No outcome data.** Nobody has published how often a contact change disrupts a referral. Count your own: changes per quarter, how many passed V3 and how many were never genuine.

The partner-side basics of an introduction are on [introducing a company](/guides/introducing-a-company), and more operations guides are in the [guides library](/guides).

## Next step

> **Refer a company. No cap on rewards.** Default reward on a company's first qualifying transaction: the greater of $50,000 plus 5% and 15% of Actual Supplier Payout, with no cap; further qualifying transactions first agreed within 12 months of the first Closing pay 15%. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, including the USD 100,000 Minimum Transaction, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.

Before your next introduction, [register your firm as a partner](/register), note in the record a phone number the CEO is happy for you to keep so V3 has something to use, confirm the company against [who qualifies](/who-qualifies) and keep the [program terms](/terms) version beside the introduction date.

## Sources

- https://refer.sourcex.si/terms
- https://sourcex.si/documents/partner/SourceX_Channel_Partner_Agreement_Sample.pdf
- https://sourcex.si/apply
- https://sourcex.si/privacy
- https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/common-frauds-and-scams/business-email-compromise