---
title: "Duplicate prevention — Reports for Laravel | Roundly"
description: "Stop the same reporter or guest from reporting a subject twice — scoped to open reports or to every report ever filed."
url: https://roundly-consulting.com/open-source/docs/reports-for-laravel/duplicate-prevention
language: en
---

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# Duplicate prevention

With prevent\_duplicates on (the default), a reporter — or a guest identifier — cannot file a second report against the same subject. The attempt throws DuplicateReportException carrying the existing report. Filings against one subject are serialized, so a double-submit can’t slip through:

```php
use RoundlyConsulting\Reports\Exceptions\DuplicateReportException;

try {
    Reports::report($post)->by($user)->for(Reason::Spam)->create();
} catch (DuplicateReportException $e) {
    $e->existing; // the Report already on file
}
```

## Scope

| duplicate\_scope | A new report is blocked when… |
| --- | --- |
| `open` | the same reporter already has a Pending or InReview report on the subject. Once it is settled, they can report again. (Default.) |
| `any` | any earlier report from the same reporter exists — settled or not. |

The lookup goes through the model’s default query, so soft-deleted reports never block a new one.

## What is compared

- A signed-in reporter is matched by reporter type and id.
- A guest is matched by guest\_identifier among reports without a reporter.
- A fully anonymous report — no reporter, no identifier — has nothing to compare and is never deduplicated.

Set prevent\_duplicates to false to switch the check off entirely.

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