PeopleFinders Review

Detailed Reviews

PeopleFinders was started in the year 1988, and since that time, they are collecting data of people belonging to every part of the United States. The collection keeps increasing and updating because of which they claim themselves as one of the largest record keepers in the US.

Pros

• Multiple ways to conduct searches: On the homepage itself, you can discover various ways of performing a search. The report generated will contain the data according to the selected search option.
• Fast search process: Although the application searches for the required result by going through enormous data, it filters and arranges the content within a few seconds based on the information you have provided it.
• View current location without making a payment: After getting results for background check option or criminal records, when you click on the “view details” option, it shows an additional box where a map is present. In that map, the application shows the current address of the person whose details you are viewing. However, it only shows the address for some selected citizens.
• Can purchase one single report: If you do not use the application regularly and only have a one-time use, you can make the payment only for a particular report for the chosen result.
• Find the person by entering an address or phone number: The process of entering information to find the person to whom it belongs is called a reverse search. Using PeopleFinders, you can find every piece of information about the citizen by adding his address or phone number.

Cons

• No images included in the search result: The application doesn’t have a photo of any person. If that had added, it could have made the search more reliable and easier.
• Restricted use of application: Application may allow you to perform a search for any name, place, age, etc. but the purpose for which you can use the application is limited. You can’t use it for commercial purpose such as employment screening, tenant screening, qualification screening, etc. That would be considered illegal.
• Limited to the United States citizens: The website only contains the data of the United States citizens living in the country. It cannot be used to find people from any other nation.

Use of the application

As it acts as a search engine where you can get the information about each and every individual, there could be various uses of those results.

However, the uses are restricted by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Under this act, you can’t use the application for filtering employees, finding information about tenants, screening domestic workers, etc. In short, professional usage of the application is prohibited.

We can’t say it for sure whether there is any possibility that the website identifies the usage, but still, it would be an illegal act to use it for professional purpose.

However, if you wish to use the application to identify your friends, family member, or even need to check your own data, you can use it without a doubt.

The purposes also include finding out about the people living next door. You can use the address lookup option to check who are the home owners in your neighborhood.

Before meeting a stranger, you may need to make sure the person doesn’t have a criminal record. Just by adding his name and city, you can get those details within seconds.

Like address lookup and criminal record search, there are multiple other ways of searching for people. We are going to discuss these ways in the review. But whatever the purpose of the search is, it should not be related to any sort of professional activity.

General search option

When you visit the website, there will be a few tabs appearing on the top. Those tabs are the ones that you need to use for searching for the required profile.

The rightmost tab “People Search” conducts a general search using the First Name, Last Name, City, and State. Note that here you don’t get an option for adding a middle name.

It would be easier to find a person when he has an uncommon name or lives in the city having very few people. However, there is a possibility that the person whom you are trying to find doesn’t have a unique name. Because of which there could be an immense number of search results under this section.

For instance, there can be thousands of John Smith living in New York. Going through the complete list of results doesn’t seem like a practical task. You can have a look at the below-added list to know what kind of search results the application offers.

As you can see that there are some more filters available for our help. If you are aware of the age or the birthdate of the person, it will shortlist the results. Perhaps, it may not become effortless, but still, it will get easier.

Adding a photo as a thumbnail will be helpful for finding a person as it becomes easy to scan through photographs instead of reading all the results.

Users who have not subscribed to PeopleFinders will have access to a lesser amount of information. They can only view one address which is not necessarily the current address. Hence, free users need to manage the data the company provides.

Clicking on “View Details” option will render you with the general data such as age, relatives, prior residence, phone number, and address. But, for that also you need to make the payment first.

Complete background check

Getting only the general information is cheaper when compared to a complete background search. The reason is the difference between the amount of data both the searches provide.

Here, the search box is similar to what people search has offered. However, to make the search more specific, they allow you to add a middle name in addition to the previous case.

Does that really help? It may cut down the searches according to the middle name, but in the end, you need to manually find the person. No images, no access to multiple addresses, and only a few relative names you can check. As you can check in the included screenshot, the result window appears to be similar to the people search result window.

It may arise a question in your mind regarding the credibility of the results and the applications. You can compare these results with the previous results’ screenshot. Both of the search options provide us with different results. That means there is no proper format of how the application sorts the results. Thus, including a sorting option based on age, surname’s alphabetical order, etc., could act as a helpful tool.

When the amount of data is concerned, the results look similar here. But when you click on the view details, an additional window will appear.

This window confirms that this website will show you the results related to criminal records, location records, county records, state records, national records, and property records.

That will leave no detail unknown to you about that person. There is a map on the left side of this window showing the current location of the person. You do not need to pay any amount for viewing the location. In case, you want to get all the details as a report, click on the “Generate Report” and it will take you to the payment window.

However, remember if you purchase a particular report and not a plan offered by the application, you can only view one report.

After payment, if you realize that the report belongs to a wrong person, you can not expect a refund or option to create a new report with that purchase. Hence, only generate a report when you are sure about the person.

Criminal records search

You would surely don’t want to deal with criminals, neither in personal life nor in professional. However, it is not easy to judge a person by his behavior. For the peace of mind, you may require knowing his history and make sure he never had any charges.

The government provides information regarding criminal records, but that task is tiresome as well as time-consuming. In those cases, you can take the benefit of these people searching website. However, as we have mentioned earlier, in case you need criminal records to make decisions regarding your professional life, the use will be unlawful.

The above-added image shows the data you need to enter for performing a search. You must at least know the name of the person and city where he lives.

The criminal records search window asks for the same information what background search asked for. As the information added was the same, the results obtained were also alike. For a better idea, you can compare the screenshots.

Thus, the criminal records window doesn’t serve any purpose. It is merely placed on the website to let the visitors know that you can get information about the criminal activities of a person which he performed in the past.

At the end, when the reports for both the cases (background check and criminal record search) are generated, they will house identical data. In case, the user is planning to use the website, he must make a note: after purchasing the background check report, it is not required to get the criminal records to report also.

Checking public records

As the public records section also has the same input boxes (name, city, and state), we have not added that screenshot here. The results obtained were the same as what we found using the people search option.

Even though the search results obtained were alike, the type of information added was different, i.e., in previous cases, we were able to view only the relatives name, but in this case, you can also view first seven digits of their phone number and the initial letter of their email id.

That may not be much helpful, and thus, you will need to view the report for sure. When you go to the view details sections, it will redirect you to the payment window where you will realize that there is one single report that contains all the information of other reports also. Thus, even if they have added multiple search option, a background check report will provide you all data about the person.

About these reports and their purchase, we will have a look at an upcoming search. Before there are a few ways to conduct the reverse searches which we are going to discuss next.

Know who’s calling

Getting a call from an unknown number may not be a big deal, but when you find the call suspicious, it is required to check that who is on the other side of the call.

For that, PeopleFinders has an amazing tool which is different from what we have seen until now. In the previous cases, the website showed the information according to the name we entered.

In the case of reverse phone lookup, the opposite takes place. Here, you just need to enter the number, and name of the person to whom the number belongs appears on the screen. However, this process is comparatively slow which seems justified as it conducts a revered search.

After the site goes through the data, it directs you to the screen informing about the availability of details.

It will show you the full name, current address, and his possible relatives. You can also get the information about his date of birth and age. Also, you don’t need to be concern about your privacy as the search remains confidential. The other person or anyone else will never know that you searched for him.

Address lookup

There is one more reverse search option which is address lookup. You just need to add the exact location, and you will get the information about the owner.

The address lookup comes under the people search category. In that category, you need to select “Additional ways to search” and select “Search by Address.” A new webpage will open the same as the one added below.

As you can see, there are three boxes where you need to add the Address, City, and State. In the address box, you can add the area where the house is located. It will show the results if that area is included in the database. Clicking on the search button will lead you to one unique result as you can see in the image.

It not only shows the information but also the satellite image of that particular house or area. In addition to the details of the owner, you also get data about the property.

It is a powerful tool to know about the specifications of any building; the number of rooms, total area, cost, year built, etc., all can be found out through it. Information related to the previous owner or the seller of the house will also be delivered.

When you go to “View Details,” it will direct you to the payment page as usual. After choosing the plan and making the payment, you will be able to view the whole report.

The opt-out process

PeopleFinders offers a very simple procedure for removing your information from their website. There was no direct link for opting out on their homepage, and thus, we required to search for it.

It is available in the privacy policy in the choice and opt-out section. You need to click on the link which will direct you to the opt-out page. The same link can be reached from the FAQs section.

Now, you need to search through your own profile by entering the name and location. A list of results will appear. Selecting yours will take you to the final opt-out page as shown in the image.

All you need to do now is to checkmark all three points and prove yourself as a human. After this clicking on the continue button should complete the job.

However, in our situation, we were unable to finish opting out. As you can on the top of the image, an error had occurred while we were opting out. We tried it multiple times, but we were not successful in removing the data.

Truthfinder has multiple ways opting out which could be helpful when one way doesn’t work. In the case of PeopleFinders, they only offer this one path through which data can be deleted.

In the privacy policy, it is mentioned that they do not entertain the opt-out requests through fax and email. This all shows that it is going to be a tiresome process or actually an endless process to get your details removed.

Final report

We have already mentioned that different reports are generated according to the search you choose.

However, if you purchase the background check report, you will get all the information in it. It will contain the criminal records of the person, public records, and general details too. You can see the comparison between the various files below.

As you can check, we have added three different reports in the application. The leftmost is the people search report which contains the least information, and it is the cheapest one. If you purchase a single people search report, it will only cost you around two dollars.

Surprisingly, when you purchase the report along with the free trial, they will make it available at one dollar. While purchasing a trial plan, you need to be careful as if you forget to cancel it, you will get charged for the monthly plan.

The public report search has a higher price comparatively, as it contains more information. However, when you purchase the report and trial together, the price drop downs to a dollar like the previous case.

Reports generated using the background check search, and criminal records search contains nearly the same information. Even after that, the price of both reports is different.

When you generate a report for criminal records, it will direct you to the page shown below. Using background search option too, the same page appears.

But when you use the people search or public records search, the site provides a choice to get the background search report.

The reverse phone lookup has a different report price when compared to these reports. But whatever information it contains is present in the background search report. Thus, it would be suggested to purchase background search report instead of any other report.

Conclusion

An important characteristic of this application is its fast search. When we compare it to other background check websites such as Trustfinder, it is far better in terms of time consumption.

The site will offer you various search options depending upon the information you require. We would suggest when you choose to use this platform for finding someone, purchase the background search report as it contains all the information.

The website also offers reverse search attributes which are address lookup and phone lookup. Just by adding the address or phone number, you get all the details about the owner of that house or number respectively.

Adding filtering and sorting options are required to decrease the effort required while manually finding a particular person amongst all the results. As of now, you only get the option of entering the age or birth date to filter the profile.

It would not be helpful if the profile seeker doesn’t know about the exact age. However, adding an age group filter, shortlisting using the marital status, etc. can be considered.

The opt-out process is uncomplicated, but non-functioning at the same time. You can find the link of the opt-out process in the privacy policy, but in the end, when you try to opt out, it shows an error. You have no other way of opting out as the company doesn’t entertain opting out a request through mail or fax.

Overall, it has a large database whose benefit you can take to find the people with whom you lost the connection. As it is tough to opt out, it is very likely that you will discover the person will ease. The only details you should know about him is his full name and current or any of the previous addresses.