Reunited (by phone); Zaba Search; Intelius

Reunited by Phone

Good news! Jennifer has spoken with Melanie by phone, and Melanie is planning to go to Florida in the near future to meet Jennifer and her fiance.

So, my ends have been achieved, but this is a project about the means used to find information. Therefore, as I mentioned in the last blog, I decided to compare the results I found on Classmates.com with the results I found using other search tools.

Zaba Search

So, I decided to do a search using Zaba Search at www.zabasearch.com. This is a free search engine that combs through public records to locate people and public information. I entered Jennifer's name on this search engine, and it found her. I knew it was her because it listed her birthday. It had an entry for her at a previous address she lived at, in 2003. I found out this was a previous address, since Melanie found out she recently purchased a new home in a different city. It did not list a phone number for her, presumably because she was unlisted.

I also searched for myself on Zaba Search to check its accuracy. It located me at my former address, which I lived at until a few months ago. It also listed my home phone number at that apartment, since I was listed in the phone book. However, it listed my birthyear as being 1946! I didn't realize I was that close to retirement. So, Zaba Search is not entirely accurate, but is still pretty good.

Intelius

If you want more detailed information than the person's latest recorded address and phone number, Zaba Search refers you to a company called Intelius at www.intelius.com. For $49.95, Intelius will find previous addresses, do a criminal check, search for financial information such as bankruptcies, find aliases, and also search for relatives and associates of the person you are doing the background check on. I did not want to shell out $50, but it is good to know that for a relatively inexpensive fee, there is a service that will run a background check. This would be a good service for employers hiring a prospective employee or landlords checking out the background of prospective tenants.