Imagine checking a used car before buying it. The page returns zero traffic fines. Three sources answered successfully; a fourth timed out. If the interface presents one reassuring green total, it has quietly converted a technical failure into a claim about the car.

The database may be available, the API may return HTTP 200, and the JSON may be valid. The answer can still be misleading. This is a design problem for any product that aggregates records from independent sources: the response must describe what was observed and what remains unknown.

Disclosure: I am Enrique Orione, founder of multas.ar , an Argentine platform for traffic-fine lookup and notifications for individuals, with an API and fleet-management tools for businesses. The following is a proposed design pattern, not a report of a particular production incident or a claim about nationwide coverage.…