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Thursday, November 20, 2008

People Background Search - 10 Ways on How You Can be Your Own Private Investigator

Want to get your own investigation rolling but don't know where to start? You'll be surprised at the huge number of resources out there that will help you tremendously. Whether you're searching for a long lost friend or to do a background check on a suspicious individual, there are quite a number of things which you can get done on your own, and avoid those expensive to hire private investigators.

However, certain tools, methods or services which you may encounter could provide you with information in which some might say "an invasion of privacy". To certain extent it is, but it is definitely not if you abide by the proper set of ethical rules behind it. Everybody and anybody who is going into this must agree that the obtained information can only be used only for appropriate, legal purposes, and in compliance with all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. Additionally and ideally, you should utilize any databases and information and NOT use them to bother, stalk, harass, threaten or embarrass any individual.

Readily available sercives with searchable databases usually disallow you to look up celebrities or other public persons, or to locate individuals under the age of 18. Being a responsible person, you should also not use any information obtained from any public record databases for telemarketing or direct mail purposes.

Having comprehend all of the above, you should start preparing yourself for the initial stages of your own personal investigation.

1) PREPARE YOURSELF
  • Examine and evaluate your motives.
  • Consider the feelings and the consequences of your actions.
  • Whether it's you, a private investigator or a genealogist, you need to ensure that the information that you disclosing will not be used to cause harm or distress to the person you're looking for.
  • Maintain a stable / strong emotional condition when choosing a time to start searching.
  • Discuss and mix your ideas / actions with your close friends or your love ones.
  • Prepare yourself in accepting the fact that your effort in searching might not be fruitful or in certain conditions might take a very long period of time and lots of patience and determination.
2) PREPARE THE INFORMATION
It's always a good habit to prepare yourself thoroughly before doing any searching. Depending on your preference you may use your computer to compile all the information you have or you could just simply write everything you need to be prepared on a piece of paper. Compile them, and organise them systematically, you'll be surprised how they would help you greatly throughout the process.

Do your homework or a "warmup" investigation yourself. Depending on the type of search that you're about to be involved in, interview or ask your family or friends or perhaps any particular group of people who you think could help you in certain way in providing initial information. Be prepared to receive negative feedbacks as some might view this as a total invasion of privacy and can be easily abused if not done correctly. Your approach in getting opinions and information should be as "unemotionally" as possible and should not be too intrusive into their personal space.

In any case that you've managed to obtain any piece of valuable information, make sure you verify it properly to ensure that you're going after or refering to an accurate group of data.
For example when getting names, make sure they are spelt correctly to avoid going on a wild goose chase. You don't want to waste your time chasing after a ghost or someone who is totally irrelevant to your search.
Some of the common information that you can write down are:-
  1. Full name? (Including middle name if there's one)
  2. Date of birth or approximate age?
  3. When was the last contact? Who made the last contact?
  4. Where were they living at the time? or last known address?
  5. Where did they or their family come from originally?
  6. Names, if known, of any family members?
  7. Where the person went to school or college.
  8. Any other information, such as their occupation and hobbies.
  9. And many more...
3) TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES
Grab hold of your good old phonebook and check it out. It might provide some if not a lot of information or in some cases, certain leading points which you may pursue further. Don't forget the availability of the numerous online phone directories out there as well.
Additional information
You may also find country / state specific telephone directories by searching it at Google or Yahoo!, e.g. "Florida telephone directories".

4) FREE PEOPLE SEARCH
Always take advantage of the various free people search services out there, especially on the web. Some portals or sites have an all rounded service for you where you can look on various pieces of information in one area. You need to be a bit careful of any site that offers free people search services. There are a lot of scams out there.
Free for some basic search functions, but you will need to pay if you need to use their advanced search feature.
Top Ten Free Public Records Search Picks
http://websearch.about.com/od/governmentpubliclegal/tp/publicrecords.htm

More sites
5) PAID SERVICES ONLINE
By paying a bit of money you can access some really useful information. Some services require a one time payment for a lifetime membership and unlimited searches. Some may charge based on the number of searches you make, and some may even charge you annually. Most of the "packages" come with discounts and attractive offers, so keep an eye on those, but don't get too excited and make an intelligent decision before taking out your credit card.
6) SEARCH ENGINES
A lot of us are under the impression that search engines are meant only for information based searches, but you'll be surprised that almost a third of searches done are people based. Popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Ask.com are some of the best engines that you want to explore further. Different search engines may have different parameters or ways on how you can maximize your results. A common one such as putting quotes (") before and after your search phrase or name usually gets the search engine to search the phrase as a while instead of searching each of the individual words separately. Quotes are most commonly used when searching by names, e.g. "James Bark" (with quotes) is much better than the normal James Bark. Other information that you may want to put in include the date of birth, postcode, church, school, golf club, address, etc.
To ease up your searching work, you might want to advantage of the various built in search engines available to most of the browsers to day. For example, the latest Firefox browser allows you to switch between the top search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Answers.com, etc.
7) SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
As a blooming Web 2.0 trend, social networking sites are growing and spreading at an unbelievably pace. Tens or even hundreds of millions of people might be registered in these places, which makes them a hot place for you to get your searches done.
For a full list of social networking sites:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

8) PHOTO SHARING SITES
This might sounds stupid for a few but as the net evolves things such as photo sharing sites jump on the bandwagon as well. Latest photo sharing sites such as Flickr.com, Photobucket.com, etc. allow organisation of albums and various images one might gather. Although searching for a specific person's picture directly would be almost impossible with little results, somehow you might find the person within somebody else's picture by accident. Based on some clues, you may find pictures or photos based on location or event, and by some luck and chance, you might get what you want.

Some popular photo sharing sites:-
Other sites:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_sharing#Online_photo_sharing_websites

9) BLOG SEARCHES
Blogging is the latest trend today. Who doesn't blog? Through blog search engines / directories, you may find postings from certain individuals that might lead to more information that you're searching for. Another great platform to start your searches.
Other blog search engines:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Blog_search_engines

10) FORUMS
It is worthwhile thinking about using these reunion sites and posting your details and those of the people you seek. It is more powerful than just hoping that they may by chance read the posts. The search engines will pick up the names and should anyone put them into Google or whatever up will come the posts.
Posted by John at 4:52 AM 1 comments
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008

People Background Search

People search is one of the fastest growing interests of Web users. It is an important tool for those who travel a lot and it also makes it easier for you to track down your contacts. No doubt, people search services are fast becoming a leading vertical search category, with many different approaches to solve the problem.

Besides that, people search is used to find a person or a group of people based on a number of parameters, such as date of birth, date of death, occupations etc. The search options may be utilized individually or in conjunction with each other. People search is very easy nowadays and is well served by such a concept as ‘peoplicious’ which is just a prototype - but a brilliant one.

Someone in your neighborhood could be suspicious and you can't sleep without even making sure about the person's past history? People search is the solution and not only used in finding personal information to reconnect with people but are also used in background checks and other investigations. Furthermore, people search is the latest vertical that entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists, have gotten behind recently as well.
By some accounts, people-specific searches make up 30 percent of searches on general search engines like Google and Yahoo.
People search is still a challenge on the web, especially when using general search engines like Google and Yahoo. Other services such as LinkedIn, FaceBook, ZoomInfo, and others exist to help refine your people search. Other than that, people search is also one big aspect of any social network.

If you're interested in any of these kind of services, and have somebody in mind that you need looking for, you may check out a Full Review of 2 great online people search services on the web, Reverse Phone Detective and Gov-Resources. Or you could just simply try out the demos at the right bar.
Posted by John at 6:41 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

People Background Search - Gov-Resources


Overall Rating:
Link to Site: Click Here to Visit Site
Features:
Effectiveness:
Ease of Use:
Customer Support:

Introduction
Gov-Resources is probably one of the first websites to provide its members with access to public records. However, as the name suggests, Gov-Resources is not actually owned or operated by any governmental based organization, but by a private company, Software Doctor Inc.

Features
Their membership includes lifelong access to their directory of public records (and sources) as well as access to their proprietary databases that can be searched just like a regular search engine. With Gov-Resources, anyone can have the power to gain access to over two hundred million public records and resources about each and every citizen of the United States. Gov-Resources also boasts a coverage of unlimited people searches for other countries such as United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

What you can do with Gov-Resources...
  1. Companies can determine who among their new employees or applicants have criminal and court records.
  2. Investors can access corporate filings and pertinent business information of their prospect companies.
  3. Lending companies can detect who among their aspiring creditors have outstanding loans, bankruptcy files or bad credit histories.
  4. Students can gain access to public records that they need for their researches and papers.
  5. People can recognize who among their neighbors is a sexual offender.
  6. One can even track down his family history.
  7. Find where his former classmates and friends are.
  8. Locate his missing relatives and friends.
  9. Find potential dates and life partners.
  10. One can even conduct a cell phone trace and determine where exactly an unknown caller or stalker lives.
  11. Also allows one to determine addresses, phone numbers, and location of various individuals in every state all over the country.
And the categories that they cover:-
  • Death Records
  • Marital Records
  • Criminal Records
  • Inmate Records
  • Arrest Records
  • Absconder Records
  • Jail Records
  • Sentencing Files
  • Parolees
  • Most Wanted Criminals
  • Sex Offender Records
  • Mugshots
  • Missing Children & Adults
  • Court Records
  • Civil Records
  • Bankruptcy Records
  • People Census Records
  • Cell Phone Trace
  • People's Addresses
  • People's Phone Numbers
  • People's Location information
Ease of Use
Based on our evaluation and research, Gov-Resources is pretty much on par with the other industry leaders, but I believe their interface has rooms for improvements. However having its main functions to be similar to a search engine, you could never go wrong on how to use it for your own research and benefits. If you know how to use Google or Yahoo to search, this should be a walk in the park for you. A "how-to" user manual could be of great help here as well, including techniques on how users can maximize their search results.

Drawbacks
Searches / database limited to few selected countries only.
Provides support through contact form / email only and no indication of a time frame for a response.

Technical Support / Customer Service
Gov-Resources only provides users with an online email form for technical problems or payment questions. The form does not specify how long it will take to get a response, so don’t count on immediate help if you experience any issues. There's no phone number for this service as well, which personally, I think is essential in any customer support department.

Membership / Pricing / Money Back Guarantee
Once you have paid the one time membership fee, Gov-Resources grants you with unlimited access to its 100% legal and fully organized databases and resources that is continuously updated for relevant public record searches. This unlimited access will gain you access to their entire network which includes:-
  1. Over 20,000 data sources nationwide.
  2. Database used by government investigators.
  3. Discreet investigation searches.
  4. and much more...
There are 2 packages available for purchase.
  1. 5 Year access to Unlimited People Searches for $29.99 (usually $199.95), OR
  2. 1 Year access to Unlimited People Searches for $19.99 (usually $59.95)
They provide a 8 week money back guarantee, should you find that the search results are non satisfactory.

Testimonials
"Using Gov-Resources helped me find the appropriate background checks on my new employees. This method saved me a great deal of time! Thanks."
-David Lohan
"I love this classmate search! I was able to locate almost my entire highschool class for our reunion. Thanks Gov-Resources, this tool is very helpful!"
-Mya Banks
" This is the most unique search tool I have found on the internet today. I was able to track down my family history in just a few short minutes! Great research tool. "
-Patty Lynne
" My daughter went missing over a year ago and the police closed the investigations. I used your Gov-Resources missing people search and instantly had leads on my daughter. Thank-you so much! "
-Dianne Lemming
There are more testimonials on Gov-Resources. So click on the logo or the link below to start browsing and kicking out results!


Click Here to Visit Site

And don't forget to leave your comments / feedback or any of your personal review of this service. Enjoy doing your own private investigating!
Posted by John at 3:01 AM 0 comments
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Monday, November 17, 2008

People Search - Reverse Phone Detective


Overall Rating:
Link to Site: Click Here to Visit Site
Features:
Effectiveness:
Ease of Use:
Customer Support:
Demo: Look for the demo at the right panel of the site.

Introduction
Reverse Phone Detective, as the name clearly suggests, is an online service which provides you with a great feature in which you can locate an individual's name, address and any other related information by just having his / her phone number. One might think this is an invasion of privacy, but looking at it in a right direction, it can be positively utilized to locate and identify "problematic" individuals who are giving you a hard time, e.g. prank callers, unfaithful spouses, etc.

Established in 1996, Reverse Phone Detective has been in the market for more than a decade, used by literally millions of people, providing excellent set of features and results with a simple to use, user friendly interface. If you think Google is easy to use, so will you when you use Reverse Phone Detective.

Features
This service does not only cover land line numbers but cellphone and mobile numbers. With Reverse Phone Detective's 250 million (and counting) phone numbers in its database, you could never go wrong. Besides cell phone numbers, you can also make reverse lookup on residential and business numbers, unlisted numbers, and private numbers. No worries though, as their database is constantly updated with the latest numbers and information. At least you won't be searching the wrong person based on an outdated & faulty database.

Their overall search function is pretty quick as well, ranging below 10 seconds per search. With their easy to use interface, I'm sure it's easy to navigate through and find what you're after.

The only minor drawback is Reverse Phone Detective only covers the USA. For those of you who are searching somebody outside of this country, you will find this service somewhat irrelevant. If you're really curious on what kind of information that you can obtain by using this service, some of them include:-
  1. Phone owner name and current address
  2. Line type - landline or mobile
  3. Household members
  4. Phone company and carrier
  5. Possible neighbors and relatives
  6. Issuing location
  7. Satellite maps
  8. Other phone numbers belonging to owner
  9. Owner's address history
  10. And more!
That's all you ask? No. Interestingly enough, Reverse Phone Detective does not only restrict themselves to just searching people from phone numbers. With a membership with this online service, you may also get yourself an abundant of other features, such as:-
  1. Background Check Resources
  2. Blog & Social Networking Search
  3. Classmate Finder
  4. Birth, Adoption & Death Records
  5. Marriage & Divorce Filings
  6. News & Media Archives
  7. Property Value Records
  8. Registered Sex Offenders Database
  9. Reverse Address Searches
  10. Reverse Email Searches
  11. Social Security Number Verification
  12. And Much More...
Privacy Policy
And of course, if you think out of the box, the thing that you're currently doing may backfire and you may get this "background search" applied back to you, and you start to wonder if your "SEARCHES" are private. Fortunately and for some obvious reasons, YES - every single search that you make within Reverse Phone Detective will be kept strictly private & confidential.

Customer Support
Having million of users using their service, I'm pretty sure that their staffs are pretty busy people. However they do have a very efficient customer support as all enquiries (through their online contact form) are gotten back to within 48-hours. I still do prefer a phone number to be present for an "almost-instant" feedback / answer, and would highly recommend for them to have one if they have the resources and manpower to do so. I believe a phone number could also increase their level of credibility and somewhat their overall reputation as a legitimate online service provider.

Interface screenshot


Sample report


Price & Guarantee
Now let's talk about the PRICE. I left this last as this is the "best" part everybody has been waiting for. For me, I was under the impression that this service would get me paying a certain amount of money every month, but hey I was wrong. You're only required to pay a one-time fee of $39.95 in which you will get a lifetime access to the Reverse Phone Detective database, and make not mistake about it as this access allows you to an unlimited amount of reverse phone lookups. However if you're planning to use this for a short term, you can choose to purchase a single Full Phone Report for just $14.95. Sounds good to me.

Now let's look at their guarantee policy. They claim that should your search turns up with no results, and their professional staff is unable to help you locate the records in anyway, you may contact their support department for a return request. If their staff finds that the product was "defective" for your specific needs, a refund will be issued. And this only applicable within the first 2 months or 8 weeks or 60 days. All major credit cards are accepted within a secure environment.

Within the membership area, you will get:-
  • Unlimited reverse phone lookups
  • Unlimited people search (over 217,582,471 U.S. households!)
  • Privacy protection tools
  • Household member search
  • Reverse address search
  • Neighbor and relative finder
  • Deep web crawl and universal lookup searches
  • Background checks
  • And more!
Also make sure you read their End User Agreement. An excerpt from it ...
You must agree to use our information only for appropriate, legal purposes, and in compliance with all applicable federal, state and local laws and regulations. Our databases and information may not be used to bother, stalk, harass, threaten or embarrass any individual. You may not use the service to look up celebrities or other public persons, or to locate individuals under the age of 18. You may not use any information obtained from the Public Records Databases for telemarketing or direct mail purposes.
You can read more of this once you're at the site.

Enough reading, time to check it out, click on the logo or link below to head off to the site. Don't forget to leave your comments / reviews or any constructive criticisms by clicking here. Your feedback and views are greatly appreciated.


Click Here to Visit Site
Posted by John at 11:52 PM 0 comments
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