Consumer report on people-find search engines

Consumer-Guide

FamilyFinder had a link to a consumer guide company called "Consumer-Guide.To," which had a report on online people finding services.

According to their investigation of these services, in which testers entered searches for people whose contact information they knew, many of these search sites came up with outdated information or information that could be found on the white pages for free.

The testers also found that after they paid for searches with their credit cards, their names and billing addresses appeared on just about every people-search site within days. Although this would be one method for these sites to add peoples' contact information to their databases, the researchers considered it a violation of privacy (although apparently a legal one). Anyway, just something to watch out for if you are paying for a search.

This Consumer Guide company picked three people and public records searchers s its favorites:

Net Detective (http://orders.hdpublishing.net/cgi-bin/shop.cgi?product=ND&offer=NDC4JV&affiliate=291361): This site specializes in locating people and doing background checks. According to the editors, this site maintains one of the largest investigative databases on the Web. This site is often used by private investigators and reporters. Almost every search the testers did came up with current, accurate results. It costs $29 for a three-year membership with a money-back guarantee.

Reverse-Records (www.reverse-records.org): This resource is ideal if you do not know the full name of the person you want to locate. All you need is the person's phone number (cell phone number will also work), email address, or license plate number. Any of this information will yield the person's full name, current address, and phone number. The cost is $29.95 for one year unlimited use, with a money-back guarantee.

CourtRecords (www.courtrecords.org): This service can be used for finding people and to do criminal/legal background checks. The testers ran background checks on individuals with known criminal records. In every case, this service correctly brought up their records. CourtRecords can also be used to find civil records, such as marriages and divorces. This service has most court records available for the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., and a limited database of court records for other countries. The cost for this service is also $29.95 for unlimited checks, with a money-back guarantee.

Thus, the cost of these sites is generally less than for the same information from some other sites. So, good quality doe not have to cost more.