Why Use a People Search Service?

People search services are useful for finding people you have limited information about. Using the phone book or the white pages online is only good if you know the general whereabouts of a person. But what about your old friend from school that you haven’t seen in 20 years? Or what about your cousin that you lost contact with? People search services are perfect for these kinds of situations because you can search records from all across the country in seconds. Still, many people wonder why they should pay for a people search when the white pages and public records are available for free. Here are just a few reasons for using a people search service:

Use a People Search Service to Save:

• Time – The problem with sifting through white pages and public records yourself is that it could take quite a while. People search services offer fast turnaround times. Some even provide results in just a few seconds. It would take you much longer to check multiple databases when the people search engines pull results from all of them at once.

• Money – Even though a people search service uses public records, some of the public record databases can require a small fee to access and extract information. People search services have access to multiple databases and only charge one small fee to get information from all of them.

Use a People Search Service to Find:

• Friends and Family – Even though you may not have spoken to a friend or relative in many years, their information is still available in public records, no matter where they have moved to. People Searches can help you identify your friends and relatives from anywhere in the country.
• Contact Information – Not only will a people search tell you where someone is, it will also give you the information to get in contact with them. All people searches will include any available information about mailing addresses and phone numbers, but some may even include email addresses and places of employment.

On this site, you’ll find reviews of the best people search services along with side-by-side comparisons of each company and their service. We also provide articles and news stories related to people search. All of this is designed to help you find the people search service that will best serve you. At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don't Have To.™

What to Look for in a People Search Service

A good people search is all about information. That’s why we based our review on what kind of information the search provides. The best services will be able to give enough information to help you identify the person you’re looking for and give current contact information. Of course, a good people search service should also make it easy to find the information you want and purchase it. And finally, the people search service should have good customer support in place to help you if you get stuck or have problems.

Below are the criteria TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate people search services:

Pricing
This category isn’t just based on the idea that cheaper is better; we also looked at the type of reports you can buy. The standard is buying a single report with a list of contacts that match the search criteria. Some services allow you to simply buy the information about a single contact, though this might not be as useful because it’s difficult to narrow your search to one person from limited information. Many services also offer 24-hour and 30-day passes into their databases. These are only important if you have multiple searches to do.

Possible Report information
This is the most important category because this is what the customer is paying for. The best report will include identifying information, like age, date of birth, possible aliases, address history, and possible relatives, along with contact information, like current address and phone number. While the current contact information is most important, identifying information is useful for making sure you have found the person you’re looking for.

“Search By” Criteria
This deals with the information you enter to conduct a search. We found it important to be able to search by name alone, since you may not remember anything else about a person. The next most important criterion was approximate age because that would be the next most likely thing for people to remember, followed by state of residence. Other information is useful for narrowing down the search but isn’t common for people to know about a person they have lost contact with.

Help/Support
Customer support should be prompt and helpful. One of the most important support resources is the FAQ because it can answer many questions without the bother of contacting customer service. However, good email, phone and live chat support are extremely useful for solving problems.

These were the major factors in ranking the people search services. Take a look at our top three choices for people search services, PeopleFinders, Intelius and  USA People Search to see how these criteria are applied.