Once upon a time, it was nearly impossible to check people’s background. It would take many weeks and the completion of mountains of paperwork. Today, however, we live in the age of information and all of this has changed. It is now possible to check someone’s background by doing something as simple as entering their name on Google! Naturally, doing that will only reveal very limited information, but there are services out there that can delve a lot deeper as well.
This is now so popular, perhaps feeding our human nature to be curious, that there are literally thousands of companies out there that offer these types of services. This can make you feel quite overwhelmed, because they have many differences in terms of how much they cost, what they do, and how they do it. Hopefully, however, the following information will be able to show you exactly how to find a good service to work with.
What to Look for if You Want to Check People’s Background
There are many different reasons why you may want to look into someone’s background. Generally, however, it is to confirm their identity and to determine whether they have any hidden skeletons in the closet. However, there may be certain things that you are more interested in than others. For instance, you might want to know if they have ever been arrested or even convicted, whether they have been declared bankrupt in the past, whether they are married, or where they went to school.
The more information you want, the more extensive the background check becomes. Good services, however, can look up everything from a birth record to a criminal record. Essentially, they hold all the information available in all public records in the country. You can probably imagine what a mammoth task it was to collate all the information, however, which is why the better services also aren’t free.
In fact, free services have often been reported as being a scam. Essentially, they allow you to look yourself up for free and then present you with a wealth of negative information, encouraging you to pay in order to have that removed. You must avoid those companies as much as possible. Before you agree to sign up anywhere, therefore, make sure you look up their BBB rating and check them out on other review websites as well. It is unlikely that you will be able to receive a refund after you have used a service, so check them out before you agree to pay at all.
Speaking of payment, you have to be realistic about the fact that it will cost you some money to search through all of those records. It is a lot of work, with the more information you require the more work is involved. However, completing a background check of this kind doesn’t cost the earth either. It is safe to assume that you won’t have to pay more than between $20 and $40 for a full check.
