Why some names come back partly hidden

The people database Growth searches is free to search, but it hides part of many names — you will see something like "Peter Ac***g". Growth will never guess the missing letters, and it will never ask the research step to judge somebody it cannot properly name. That would produce a confident answer about a person who might not exist.

So every candidate takes one of two paths.

The name is already usable. Growth researches that person as they stand, using public sources with citations you can click. It does not buy a lookup merely to re-identify somebody it can already see. This is the cheaper path and most people take it.

The name is partly hidden. That person stops and waits for you. Growth keeps the database's own record for them, so nothing is lost.

The one paid decision

When people are waiting on a hidden name, Direct buyers shows a single card:

8 people still need identity lookup. Allow up to 10 paid lookups.

You decide the number once, for the whole batch. Growth can only ever use what is left of that allowance, and when it runs out it stops and asks again.

A few things are worth knowing:

• The allowance is held in your account, not in the page. Refreshing, clicking twice, a retry, or Growth's own daily check can never multiply what you approved.
• Each person is claimed separately, so the same person's lookup is never bought twice — even if a batch half-fails and is run again.
• Lookups use the database's own record identifier, not a name-and-company guess, so the match is the provider's own.
• No phone numbers and no personal addresses are ever bought.

What you are told afterwards

Plainly, and without rounding up. For example: 3 of 5 identities were resolved. 2 were not processed and were not charged, so they are still waiting. Where the provider states how many credits it used, that number is shown as the provider's own figure. Where it does not, no price is invented.

The latest completed batch stays visible as a compact summary: lookups run, identities resolved, people now being researched, people qualified, and the provider-reported credits consumed. Direct buyers are ordered by what can move next; records that did not qualify or could not be resolved stay available in a collapsed section rather than crowding the working queue.

What a resolved name does and does not mean

Resolving a name means Growth can now research that person properly. It does not mean they are qualified. Qualification is a separate step, grounded in cited evidence about who they are, whether they fit this campaign's buyer, and whether at least one of your qualifying criteria is actually met. Someone whose name is now clear but whose evidence does not hold up leaves the working list rather than sitting there looking like a live buyer.

And nothing here contacts anybody. The first message to any person still waits for your approval.