Background Checks – Services
Best Online Background Checks
I’ve said any number of times that there’s seldom a reason to hire background checks services to perform searches you can perform yourself. That’s generally true, but some people don’t have the time to devote to searching through another person’s background, and would rather devote money to that pursuit. So I broke down and decided to give a review of some of the top background check services online, in case some of our readers wanted to hire a background check assistant.
One thing that can be said is the people at these online background check companies like Intelius and US Search know where to look. That’s the key to finding records and background information on the Internet – having the knowledge of where to start a search.
Once again, I don’t want you to think I’m encouraging you to spend your hard-earned money to have someone else find background records for you. Usually, you can find what you’re looking for yourself, if you spend the time searching.
But if you don’t have time to read through our blog and learn how to search for records yourself, I recommend you choose one of the companies below and get the search out of the way.
I suppose you’re trading money for time, which is perfectly legitimate. I do it every time I pay the kid down the street to mow my lawn.
Background Check Options
When searching people’s backgrounds on the Internet, you can find services that offer a number of different search plans. I’ll list some of the most common searches below, and try to give you some idea what these might entail.
- People Search – This is an enhanced version of what you would do yourself online, but you pay for full results. Information would include address history, aliases, bankruptcies, marriage records and that kind of background information.
- Background Check – These might fall into the “background check” and “advanced background check”, depending on the company. Prices tend to range from $15 for the basic search to $50 for more advanced options, including arrests, fines, misdeanours, visits to the “department of corrections”, sex offenses and other felonies. This package usually includes the people search option, too.
- State Criminal Records Search – If you’re pretty certain the person has only lived in one state, getting a state criminal records search is a more cost-effective option.
- Nationwide Criminal Records Search – This goes into more detail than the background check and is the closest you’ll get to comprehensive. This includes a nationwide database, instead one single state database.
- Expert Assisted Search – According to Intelius, an expert assisted search is when a “search specialist” is assigned to your case. This person does a cross-search using multiple databases, then contacts you personally via email to liason with you. These searches tend to take 2 business days.
Other options you might find include court records, real estate reports, financial searches (credit scores) and the basic “people locate”. Any company you consider using for a background check should list every available service up front. For instance, US Search 2010 has nearly 30 different search plans. Speaking of which, that brings me to our first competitor.
Top Background Check Services
U.S. Search – US Search is considered by many experts to be the finest online background search firm, with over 10 years experience and the most comprehensive background search package. Unlike it chief competitor, US Search offers a “No Hit, No Fee Guarantee” and slightly lower prices on most of the competitive searches.
US Search offers several types of information that Intelius doesn’t offer: arrest date, political party affiliation and asset search, while Intelius offers average income and identity protection for who is searching.
Intelius – You’ve read about Intelius on here before, because Intelius offers a good free background check search function, but Intelius also has payed background searches. The Intelius background check plan is $49.95, while the basic people search costs $19.95. The basic search is therefore the same price as its US Search counterpart, while the background check is $30 higher. Intelius’s expert assisted search plan is $59.99, which comes in at $40 less than US Search. I suggest you hire Intelius for this option, if that’s what you have in mind.
One thing Intelius doesn’t offer is the “No Hit, No Fee Guarantee”, while it doesn’t offer “advanced” versions of searches and background checks. At the same time, the state and national criminal background searches are cheaper than US Search. Both Intelius and US Search offer immediate results on most of their searches.
eFindOutTheTruth – While the name is a bit of a mouthful, and therefore hard to remember, one of the more competitive online background search companies is “e Find Out the Truth”. eFind really lowballs the competitition with its low price search at $14.95, though it also has search options that far exceed the higher price of others, at $199.95 for its advanced people search option.
“eFind Out the Truth” actually has the most comprehensive coverage in background plans, offering every single bit of background and criminal information that US Search and Intelius offer. On the other hand, you often have to wait 24 hours for this information, while you get immediate replies from the other two companies I’ve mentioned. If you find you can’t get exactly what you’re looking for at either of the other two, I suggest you take a look at eFindOuttheTruth.
More Background Checks Services
If you want to do some comparison shopping, other Internet background search companies to consider are “Identity PI“, “Background PI“, “KnowX“, “CrimCheck“, “Background Checks” and “Easy Background Checks“. Each has some variation on the background search plans covered above, so you might find the service with the right plan at the right price.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Background Checks, Private Investigation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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