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Intelius Review: People Search and Background Checks |
| Sign up for Intelius | |
Rating: |
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| The most comprehensive service in terms of depth and accuracy, though results could be more focused | |
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Introduction:
Intelius has become a leader in the people search business. They've even recently expanded into the mobile space with a mobile app called datecheck, so singles can scope out potential dates on the go. The core business for Intelius, however, is the basic background search used by employers, landlords, and nosy neighbors. How does it really do at digging up dirt? We put it to the test. Pricing and Features: A basic people search will cost you $1.95, and it can return full name, date of birth, address, home phone number, home value, known relatives, and income. If you want greater depth, Intelius's Background Report starts at $49.95 per name and includes all of the above as well as a complete address history, statewide criminal check, alias names, relatives and roommates, home value, sex offender status, small claims and judgments, marriages and divorces, average income, and more (see sample below). At least in theory. As we learned, background check services are not the eyes of god, and even the best is liable to miss something. Intelius does offer a $10.00 discount if you enroll in their Identity Protection program, but at $19.95 per month, it's a bit pricier than many separate identity theft protection services we've reviewed. In our opinion it's not really worth the savings. Our Test: We found two brave individuals (who will remain nameless) to act as our subjects, one with a highly unique name, another with a reasonably common name. We ran the searches and asked them to verify their information. The results were mixed, but relative to other background check services, it had some of the best data. In fact it got the two big things for our subjects, earning this service our top recommendation. It found the bankruptcy of one of our subjects and, more importantly, it was one of two background check services which found an arrest record for our other subject. It's important to note that the exact nature of the charges were not known by Intelius (to be fair, it wasn't known by the other service, NetDetective, either). For an additional $40.00 you can order a personal court verification of the criminal charges, which may be money well spent if you need more details. You can see an example of a criminal check below On the negative side, it got a few facts wrong, particularly for our subject with a common name. We felt it could have improved on its focus by more uniquely identifying our subject (IntegraScan, for instance, matches based on the first-three digits of a social security number, which really narrows down its results). However, the results overall were rather good. Additional Features: As with other people search and background search sites we reviewed, they offer a host of other searches including email, reverse phone, social network, and stand-alone criminal searches. In fact, if you want a nation-wide criminal search, that will cost you an extra $29.95. Conclusion: While we thought Intelius could have been smarter about narrowing things down, we think its background checks are pretty good. By nature, none of these services are going to be perfect, but this one definitely managed to find the dirt we'd hoped it would find. The key term there is "hoped." Since most customers probably won't have the benefit of having their subject verify the information, we actually recommend that individuals get background checks from two different services in order to compare results. Sign up for Intelius | Compare to other people search services |
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| Report Price: | Basic: $1.95 Advanced: $49.95 |
| Information Included: | Basic: Full name, birthdate, address, phone number, home value, relatives, income Advanced: Address history, marriage, state criminal check, bankruptcy, property, income |
| Best For: | Bankruptcy info, criminal checks |
| Depth Grade: | A |
| Accuracy Grade: | A |
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