diff --git a/src/late/mcp/auth.py b/src/late/mcp/auth.py
index 685abeb..0821d0e 100644
--- a/src/late/mcp/auth.py
+++ b/src/late/mcp/auth.py
@@ -66,8 +66,16 @@ def is_allowed_origin(request: Request) -> bool:
 
 logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
-_VERIFY_URL = "https://zernio.com/api/v1/accounts"
-_VERIFY_TIMEOUT = 5.0
+# /v1/auth/verify authenticates and returns, nothing else. The old target,
+# /v1/accounts, answered the same question by running a full account listing
+# (team resolution, ads status, counts): during the 2026-08-03 API degradation
+# 29% of those calls crossed the timeout below, and every one of them reached a
+# user as "your token is invalid, clear it and re-register". Overridable so a
+# bad endpoint is an env-var flip on Railway, not a redeploy.
+_VERIFY_URL = os.getenv("MCP_VERIFY_URL", "https://zernio.com/api/v1/auth/verify")
+# Generous because a slow answer is still an answer: only an exception here
+# costs the caller its verdict.
+_VERIFY_TIMEOUT = 10.0
 
 # Positive-only verification cache: sha256(token) -> monotonic timestamp of the
 # last upstream confirmation. Positives only, so an attacker cannot grow it by
diff --git a/tests/test_mcp_auth_verification.py b/tests/test_mcp_auth_verification.py
index 939037b..a9a248e 100644
--- a/tests/test_mcp_auth_verification.py
+++ b/tests/test_mcp_auth_verification.py
@@ -166,3 +166,22 @@ def test_verification_cache_is_bounded():
     # Eviction is LRU, so the oldest inserts are the ones that went.
     assert "token-0" not in auth._VERIFIED_AT
     assert f"token-{auth._VERIFIED_CACHE_MAX + 49}" in auth._VERIFIED_AT
+
+
+async def test_verification_targets_the_auth_only_endpoint():
+    """A data endpoint would make every MCP request pay for a listing it
+    discards, which is what pushed verification past the client timeout during
+    the 2026-08-03 API degradation."""
+    seen: list[str] = []
+
+    def handler(request: httpx.Request) -> httpx.Response:
+        seen.append(str(request.url))
+        return httpx.Response(200)
+
+    client = httpx.AsyncClient(transport=httpx.MockTransport(handler))
+    verifier = ZernioTokenVerifier(client=client)
+
+    await verifier.verify_token("some-api-key")
+
+    assert seen == ["https://zernio.com/api/v1/auth/verify"]
+    await client.aclose()