India's booming interest in stock markets has brought with it a parallel boom in people selling stock tips. WhatsApp groups promising multibagger returns, Instagram reels with screenshots of massive gains, Telegram channels charging monthly fees for "insider calls" — the market for investment advice, legitimate and otherwise, has never been bigger or more chaotic. And somewhere in the middle of all that noise, a lot of people are losing real money to advisers who have no business giving advice in the first place. SEBI, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, requires anyone who provides investment advice or research analysis for a fee to be registered with the regulator. That registration is public, searchable, and free to verify. The problem is that most people who pay for stock tips never think to check it.Why this matters more than most people realiseAn unregistered adviser is not just an inconvenience. They are operating outside the regulatory framework entirely, which means there is no grievance mechanism if something goes wrong, no compliance requirements they are obligated to follow, and no oversight of what they are telling you or why. When a registered adviser gives you bad advice, you have recourse. When an unregistered one does, you have very little.Fake registrations and fabricated credentials are also a documented problem. Some tip sellers display what appear to be SEBI registration numbers on their websites or marketing materials without those numbers being genuine or currently valid. A thirty-second check on the SEBI website is the only way to know for certain.Here is how to verify before you payGo to the official SEBI website at sebi.gov.in and look for the section on intermediaries and recognised entities. Within that section, find the search tool for registered intermediaries, which allows you to look up individuals and firms by category. Select either Investment Adviser or Research Analyst depending on what the person you are checking claims to be. The two are distinct categories with different registration requirements, so make sure you are searching in the right one.Enter the name, registration number, or email address of the adviser you want to verify. SEBI's database will return the registered details for that entity if they exist. What you are checking for is straightforward: the name should match the person or firm you are dealing with, the registration should be currently valid rather than expired or cancelled, and the contact details listed in the database should correspond to the ones the adviser has given you. If the registration number produces no result, or if the details do not match, that is your answer.Do not proceed if anything does not line up. A genuine adviser will have no objection to you verifying their registration. If someone becomes defensive or dismissive when you say you want to check their SEBI credentials before paying, treat that reaction as the clearest possible signal to walk away.A few things worth understanding about what registration actually meansSEBI registration confirms that an adviser has met the regulator's requirements to offer investment advice in India. It does not mean their advice will be profitable, does not guarantee returns, and does not mean they are above making mistakes or giving recommendations that do not work out. The most dangerous version of the stock tip industry is not always the obviously fake adviser with no registration. Sometimes it is the registered one making promises they have no basis for making.Any adviser, registered or not, who guarantees returns or promises specific profit percentages is telling you something that no honest market participant can truthfully say. Markets do not work that way, and anyone who suggests otherwise is either uninformed or deliberately misleading you. A registration check weeds out the outright fraudsters. Your own scepticism about extraordinary claims handles the rest.One final thingIf you have already paid an unregistered adviser and believe you have been defrauded, SEBI has a complaint mechanism through its SCORES platform at scores.sebi.gov.in. Filing a complaint there is the appropriate first step, and it also helps the regulator track patterns of fraud that may be affecting other investors in the same way.