Whenever a stranger enters your life, be it as a potential partner or as a new employee on your team, it’s always a good idea to carry out a background check. Websites like checkpeople provide accurate people lookup, but you can use a platform of your choice as well.
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Why People Run Background Checks
Well, suppose you just started a new relationship. On the one hand, it’s somehow awkward to ask your would-be partner to present a police clearance certificate. On the other hand, you want to make sure that the person who’s just entered your life isn’t a registered sex offender, a con artist, or on the FBI’s terrorist watchlist. So, a brief background lookup on this person will make you feel safe and give you peace of mind.
Married couples also resort to people lookup services when they suspect that their significant other is cheating on them. When you use a reliable service, you can find out if your husband or wife has secretly opened an account on an online dating site or a social media account that you don’t know of.
What Info Do I Need to Run a Background Check on Someone?
When you visit an online lookup site, you’ll have to enter the first and the last name of the person you’d like to check as a bare minimum. The obvious problem is that there are millions of Jack Smiths or Peter Boltons in the United States, so you should narrow down your search by choosing a state and a city where to look.
Most background check websites are search engines specialized in browsing through publicly accessible records. If you want to get the most out of them, you have to enter as much preliminary info as possible. It’s like entering the right search terms in Google. The more you narrow down your search, the higher the chance of getting an accurate background lookup on the right person.
If, for example, you know a person’s phone number and their full name, you can do a reverse phone lookup. This way, you might find out if the number is still registered on that name and what the person’s address is.
Get Legal Advice Before Running Background Checks on an Employee
If you run a business and you need a standard background lookup on a current or potential employee, you should first consult your legal team. This is necessary because background checks sometimes reveal sensitive personal data that is illegal to obtain and store in some states.
If you skip this important step, you risk turning from investigator into investigate. No matter where in the U.S. your business is based, it is illegal to run a background check on a candidate before you have made them a job offer.
How to Choose an Online Background Check Service?
When visiting a people check the website, try to find out if it complies with the rules and regulations of The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA). They clearly state how much information about an individual’s credit history you can legally obtain from an online background check service.
A site can be FCRA-compliant, but still provide info that’s defined as “too sensitive” by the law in some states. Therefore, you should find the Terms & Conditions section (usually located at the bottom of the landing page) and try to establish if States prohibit the use of the said website for collecting personal information on natural persons.
Paid or Unpaid Background Check?
This is the Hamletian question when it comes to choosing an online background lookup service. A free service usually reveals the tip of the iceberg in the form of criminal records, traffic records, social media accounts, and maybe a current address.
However, paid services offer much deeper insight, including education records and spider diagrams depicting connections between individuals. Most importantly, some paid websites let you order a detailed report on a person of interest that is prepared by professionals, not generated automatically.
Most importantly, paid background check websites offer so-called self-monitoring tools that let you run a background check on yourself to see what other people can find about you online. If you see something that you don’t like, you can contact the website and ask them to remove this info.