Review: Top 3 PUBLIC RECORDS Sites
Posted by Belle
Updated: March 7th, 2010
Sites reviewed: 3
Looking for a Public Records Site? Do Not Pay For One Until You Have Read This!
Avoid the Scams whether it’s Birth Records, Criminal Records, Court Records, Divorce Records, Arrest Records, Marriage Records, Convictions, or Sex Offenders you’re looking for!
My Methods
In this article I have reviewed my Top 3 Public Records search sites so that you don’t have to waste your time exploring all the dead ends. After signing up for dozens of services, I ranked them in terms of accuracy, size, ease of use, and customer awareness. My findings apply to all of the popular Public Record sites listed in the major search engines! (Google, MSN, Yahoo)
How Accurate are Public Records Sites?
- No public record finder site is 100% accurate. Here is why:
- For instance, if James Jones just moved to a new state, it’ll take time for public records databases to update his records from government agencies, banks, and other private sources.
- While some sources update in days, others take weeks, and some only update annually. That’s why it’s best to pick the largest database like I did!
- After a bunch of digging, talking to private investigators and industry people, and using all the major services, I’ve come up with the findings below.
Results May Shock You!
What was amazing was how inconsistent results were! After joining dozens of “public records search” sites and searching for people I knew (friends, family, celebrities), about 7 out of 10 sites could not locate records of any people I knew… anywhere!
The good news: The 3 sites below all have solid reputations and positive customer feedback. They will save you time and money and get you the most accurate public records, hands down. Here they are, in order of rank:
#1 Net Detective
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Click Here To Visit |
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Net Detective has always outperformed the rest for me. Give it a test drive and you’ll probably agree Net Detective has all you need to become your own Internet Detective. Look up anyone–old friends, potential babysitters, bosses, employees, etc. And don’t miss out on the extra features like How-to Articles, Free Identity Theft Kit, and more. This is a great people search service overall. |
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#2 Background Searcher
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Click Here To Visit |
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The name says it all: Background Searcher is a solid tool for locating anyone anywhere in the U.S. It doesn’t have all the bells and whistles nor size of database compared to Net Detective, but with a money back guarantee and unlimited searches you cannot go wrong with this online service. |
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#3 Complete Detective
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Click Here To Visit |
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While not quite as deep as Net Detective, I did find Complete Detective to be accurate and, well, complete! You’ll want to play around with their background wizard for more advanced public records searches, but be prepared to lose a few hours of your life. It is addictive! |
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Final Word
Please… do your own testing and comparison of public records, background records, and people search sites. There are so many out there–just Google “Public Records”. While my preferred tool meets my needs, your needs may be different from mine! Best of luck and happy digging!
~ Belle
My husband was in a car accident, no one seriously hurt, but I would like to find the driving record of the other party involved. Can NetDetective do that?
And how easy is it to get a refund if I don’t like the service?
Lisa,
First of all it’s very easy to get a refund. It’s 100% money back within 90 days. Just call and tell them why. Secondly, driving records are not considered public info. You need to get those through the local DMV where the accident occurred. If anyone knows otherwise about this, I could be wrong. Please chime in.
~ Belle
I am not sure if you can help me But I really need it. I have been in a realationship, (living together,) with my fiancee’ for 4 years and have a 2 and half yr old daughter. I live in rural Ky and don’t have much money. I have a six yr old son w/ my ex-wife. We had joint custody w/ me seeing him every other wknd. In June I found out that she was in jail in Madison Co. for breaking Parole. (something to do w/ trafficking drugs and other? charges?) She is now out and we are in court trying to get custody of my son, (myself and fiancee’,) so that he will have a stable loving clean drug free inviroment. There is a lot of junk involved like her father trying to get custody … so on. They live in a different Co. and have a lot of pull. However, the judge has gave us custody, because she was involved in a DUI drugs/alch leaving the seen of acc. Failure to red aid, no ins, failure to notf dot/add and so on, but the blood test took when they caught up with her has to come back positive that she was legally intoxicated. If anyone has a membership to one of these sites and is willing to help us out please e-mail us and we will give name, B-date ect.We do have a lawyer but like I said we don’t have money to get the info, that would be helpful. Please help us out. We have looked her name up on kycourts.com and found out that she has a court date for 03/10; the accident took place sometime before June. My lawyer has informed me that we are waiting on the blood test results, (this accident happened months ago.) I called the state police post in the co. that it happened in and the officer that answered sd that the results were probably at the pros. attorney’s office, (in that county.) I don’t understand why it is taking this judge so long to get these results. It says on the site I viewed that she blew .08 which is legally drunk but my lawyer sd that d/n matter we had to have the blood test, which sometimes tend to disappear. PLEASE if you can help us send an e-mail. God Bless,
Concerned Father.
IFeel for your sit.. my x aquired cust. next then I new she was in another state. court ordered (Oregon) she could not leave state. ya right, californ,. said we do not reconize.. Oregon…. see where this is goning ps. my son turns 30 yr. 3 day…. from now,,, wonder who he is?
I am looking for a free criminal history and public records search for the state of indana
I am currently trying to find a birth certificate for my father-in-law it would be for the early 1930s, he has no idea when his real b-day is, thought i would help him out by finding it if the certificate even exists
need to get any info on my daughters dad or her asap havent been able to find any thing on either
I am looking for my original birth certificate, the one that the doctor signed the day I was born. My name was Alvita Sherelle Witherspoon and my birth date is July 1st, 1961. If you can locate it can I get a copy of it? Thanks, amorr999@yahoo.com
I am looking for police certificate ~20 yrs old or confirmation that it is unavailable from Laos. Any tips for international record search?
Am interested in finding some people from my past but don”t wish them to find to learn of my inquiries re them; is there ANY danger of them finding out that someone (specifically me) is probing their life?
Beverly,
Great question. There is absolutely no risk of someone finding out you’ve been searching for them. Perhaps you’ve been influenced by the recent Facebook ads that say, “Find Out Who’s Looking For You!” Well, the public records services I recommend have their own private platform and never share your information with anyone else, let alone the public or the people whose records are kept. I hope this explains it. Let me know if you have any more questions!
~ Belle
do any of these sights let you lookup automotive license plate info thanks
I believe they do not, but I’ve never tried that! Anyone else tried it? Feel free to respond to Matt.
~ Belle
Sorry.
In my post I said Net Detective PRO.
That should have said Net Detective PLUS (Law Enforcement Edition).
Happy Hunting,
John
Duly noted!
Hello everybody,
I don’t know if this site is run by people somehow involved with (employed by, marketing or advertising for) “Net Detective” or the other search sites mentioned, but they do seem to be toeing the company line a lot.
My apologies if I am mistaken. It’s just my own personal and sceptical observation.
My personal experience with net detective was not bad as far as customer service. They were very nice and returned my money without any questions.
The problem was that many of the searches I did, didn’t find any information and the searches that did have information were all things that I could find for free online.
Now, I was using net detective. Not net detective PRO. So there may be a lot more and complete info by using net detective pro, but I don’t know.
I will say that the info I did get, was accurate and I would have had to go to two or three different sites to get it, but that doesn’t take that much time.
What does take a lot of time is the research involved in finding Gov. agecies and public record data bases online that are not scams or charging you a fee. Believe me when I tell you, I put in many, many hours researching before I found what I needed.
I haven’t seen any messages here that weren’t totally positive so I wanted to balance it out a little with a real and personal experience.
In closing, net detective is a good company and they have good people working there. I just didn’t think it was worth the money for info I could get for free.
Check out government websites for free info via your favorite search engine and also, gov.google.com is a good source.
Happy Hunting,
John
John,
Your comments are very valuable and I thank you for leaving them. You are correct in that I do “toe” Net Detective a lot. I personally find it superior to all the others, both for the reasons you mention–customer service and accuracy–and for financial reasons–I wasted a lot of money and got flat out scammed on other sites. And you’re right about another thing, that I tend to allow only positive comments on my site. That is because there is a lot of corporate bashing that happens that I simply do not believe. In most cases, it’s just competitors of the products I enjoy and use regularly. Finally, I’m glad you have good things to say here. Your recommendation to try free sites is also a good idea, if you’ve got the time. I welcome all comments and feedback. Let’s keep it coming! Thanks again.
~ Belle
I SAW THAT THERE IS A NET DETECTIVE AND A NET DETECTIVE PLUS….WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE AND WHICH IS BETTER? I WANT TO LOOK UP CRIMINAL RECORDS MAINLY BUT ALL OTHERS AS WELL! PLEASE LET ME KNOW. THANK YOU!
You are correct. The Law Enforcement Edition (Plus) has additional criminal related info that the average person rarely needs. It is used by police and private investigators, which is why it is an upgrade. I think it also contains more advanced sex offender info. Does that help?
~ Belle
I used Net Detective today and found 2 old friends plus I even looked up the criminal record of someone I saw on t.v. It took me 5 minutes to do all that! Thank you Belle!
See, it works!! Thanks for sharing with us!
~ Belle
Belle, you are a positive asset to the internet community. I appreciate what you do. Please keep it up! Regards, Dr. P
Thanks very much, Dr. P!
My mother needs a copy of her marriage license in order to get her enhanced license. She was married in Yarmouth,MA in 1935 or 36…wondered if there is a form that we need to fill out, or if we could get a copy of this certificate on line.
any help would be appreciated.
Have you searched “Marriage Licenses in Massachusetts” in Google? There are a few sites. You’ll have to pay a small fee, but it’s probably worth it! Good luck to you.
~ Belle
is there a site that is really free i have beeen to alot but when you get there, you always have a fee
Donna,
~ Belle
I get asked this all the time and my answer doesn’t change: Net Detective and others have been collecting data on U.S. residents since the 1990s; they have followed people’s public info, creating address histories; they can tell where someone lived, whether they rent or own, how much their house cost, their estimated income, their credit rating, their relatives, etc. And they tie this together with map information, which then ties into other databases like the sex offender registry. Basically, they are data professionals. Want to find it fast? No problem. Need to cross-reference, repeat an investigation, and search unlimited names, addresses, and phones? No problem. Now you tell me… how in the world are you going to do all of that without a huge web-based database? Believe me, it’s the best 29 bucks I’ve spent on the web. Hands down. But then again, I do love to snoop… on friends, neighbors, celebrities, politicians. It gets addictive!!!!!
My interest lies with the genalogocial aspect. What website is recommended for this type of research?
Too many for a layman to decide on.
Connie,
Thanks for posting. Yes are many to choose from. I wish I could steer you in a particular direction, but unfortunately I haven’t tried this aspect of people search. Maybe there’s someone reading this who can make a recommendation. Anyone?
~ Belle
i’ve seen in people finder sites that if you pay a fee, you can view someones ss#. I thought that was private info. Is it true? SCARY!!!!!
John,
I get asked this question a lot. Here’s the scoop: you cannot see someone’s SS#, even with a paid service like Net Detective or something similar. SS#s are considered private information still, thankfully. However, you CAN perform a reverse SS search which will tell you if an SS# is “valid” and where it was issued, but it won’t give you a name. Thanks for posting!
~ Belle
what are the sites that are really free to see the records and u dont have to complete any offers to view them
Brittany,
Great question. To my knowledge, there are no free services that provide public records. While public records are themselves free, meaning you can go down to the courthouse and look up whatever you want at no charge, a service that culminates these records, adds them to historical data, and allows instant searches, should not be free (in my humble opinion). When you really look at it, the cost of these services is pennies when considering how much time it would take to track down all that info on your own.
Now, having said all that, if and when a free service comes along, I will be the first to blog about it!!!!! Stay tuned, and keep on searchin’!
~ Belle
I won a rather large judgement on a rather sneaky person that has kept his properties and incomes very hidden, behind contracts, company names, family, etc. Is there a professional person or group that is adapt in IT tech that can do the checks re ownership etc to a much higher degree of success? Collection agencies “do” nothing, lawyers want huge amts up front…ideas?
Willy, personally I cannot do anything like that–don’t have the time or resources–nor can any of the paid services which are largely related to people search and background checks.
Best of luck!
~ Belle
I am trying to find out where my ex-husband is presently employed. He owes me thousands in back child support, I have his ss# where do i go?
Candi, please see above question and my answer. You cannot do reverse SS# searches. This is set up for identity protection, thankfully. It’s hard to find someone’s employer since people are always changing jobs. But I will do some digging to see if there are some services that do this. Thanks for posting and keep on searching!
~ Belle
If you have the social you can go to your local child support office at the Dept of Human Resources and they will verify it and collect.
I won my small claims case and now need to proceed with a garnishment I need to find out where he banks is that possible.
Hmmm, that would be interesting! But I don’t think Net Detective or any other paid service will reveal banking info, other than mortgage rate, estimated income, and home ownership (yes/no). The basic reason why not is, that is not public information to begin with! Make sense? Let me know if not and I’ll try to explain further what is public and what is not.
~ Belle
That information is protected in the Privacy Act. The Banks are not allowed to even remotely hint that someone banks with them without getting in big trouble with the OCC. You would have to stumble upon that by sheer luck. See if he has written a check to anyone you know and get them to get an image of it from their financial institution. That’d be the first thing I’d try. Good Luck!
~LaDonna
Makes sense! Thanks LaDonna!
~ Belle