I ran 2,400 records through Apollo, Lusha, and a ZoomInfo export over a 90-day period last year, cross-referencing each enriched job title against the person's actual LinkedIn profile at the time of outreach. The mismatch rate was 34%. Not typos or formatting differences — actual wrong titles. VP of Sales who was now Chief Revenue Officer. Director of Engineering who had moved to a competing firm four months prior. "Head of Growth" who had been laid off and was actively job hunting.

The platforms weren't lying. They were just showing me a photograph of a person taken somewhere between six and eighteen months ago and calling it current.

What "Verified" Actually Means in These Platforms' Documentation

This is where the forensics get interesting.…