TFN, In fact, the CEO himself said not to base decisions on PRs either. So, to follow your logic... we can't believe anything on a message board (that one is true), and we also can't verify PRs either, since they are just words.
So, short of going to visit ALL the partner companies (maybe even demanding to see contracts and partnerships in writing instead of verbally (even in-person) if we truly need verification) we can really never verify anything. Except that a company exists (credit reports, etc).
That doesn't leave us with much to base any decisions on.