How to Find People Online

If you’re on the hunt for your ex because he owes you a ton in child support, you totally get how tricky it is to find someone who’s dodging you! But just because he’s playing hide and seek now doesn’t mean he can keep it up forever—especially with a squad of licensed investigators backing you up!

But can investigators REALLY locate people who are doing their best to stay hidden?

Yes!  In fact, it’s done all the time.  Under the right circumstances, it’s perfectly legal to hire an investigator to conduct a people search.

Like when?

We’ve already discussed folks who’ve dodged their child support payments, but they’re not the only ones that might need tracking down. Landlords also rely on these services to locate tenants who bailed on their lease and left a trail of costly damage. Plus, if you’re looking for someone who’s taken advantage of you—like a contractor who didn’t deliver, a shady employee, or even an identity thief—a people search can be super useful.

OK, so how does the process work?

How to Find People

If you think you need to hand over a ton of information to your investigators before they can start on their people search, think again.  Sure, having detailed information like the person’s Social Security number is helpful, but it’s not required.  Because good investigators have access to databases that are normally just reserved for law enforcement, they can search for people even if you don’t have a bunch of details to give them.

For example, even if you only have the name and a previous address for the person in question, a good investigator can track down their current whereabouts.  Or, if all you have is a phone number to go on — either a landline or a cell number — a good investigator can find the person and the address it’s registered to.

If you have a little more information to base your search on, your investigator can provide you with more details.  For example, if you have the person in question’s Social Security number, your investigators can start by validating it — to make sure it was really provided to this person by the Social Security Administration.  Then, your investigators will be able to uncover the person’s current and previous addresses.  They’ll even be able to tell you if that Social Security number is the subject of any alerts for fraudulent activity!

How is that possible?

Good investigators don’t rely on internet databases, like many of the people search services you see online do.  Instead, they have access to a wide variety of information — including credit bureaus, utility records, catalog houses, mail order firms, and even details that are housed at the Social Security Administration.  They go through all of these sources by hand to find the information you need.

Why is searching by hand so important?  It sounds way too time-consuming!

People Search Done Right

While a good investigator will certainly take longer to locate a person than those online services do, you can rest easy knowing that the information you get from an investigator is accurate.  The vast majority of those online people search services you see advertised use outdated databases.  That’s why they can give you instant results — because they’re looking in one place, without even checking to make sure the information is accurate.  In many cases, those instant results spit out information that’s several years old!

Searching their sources by hand means that you won’t have to worry about getting any false positives.  Instead, the information you get from an investigator is accurate and current.  They know it is because they checked to make sure it is!

And, all of this searching doesn’t take as long as you might think.  Because of their training and experience, good investigators know exactly where to go to locate someone based on the information you were able to give them.  In many cases, they can get a people search done in as little as a few hours!

What about the price?  Is it actually affordable to locate people this way?

Absolutely!

You might be inclined to think that all of this hand-searching is going to cost you an arm and a leg.  Luckily, though, that’s not the case.  A good team of investigators will have a variety of different people search services — each with its own price — depending on the input information you’re able to give them.  As you can probably guess, the more searching that needs to be done, the more you’re going to pay.  However, even the most time-consuming people search will cost you less than $200!

Best of all, good investigators will respect you and your hard-earned money.  If, for some reason, they can’t locate the person you’re looking for, they’ll return your money.  It’s as simple as that!

Ready to move forward?

If someone really is trying to hide from you, you’re not going to feel better until you’ve located them.  So, take the bull by the horns and start your people search today!