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Finding People Through The Internet-Step By Step
1. When The Person's Whereabouts Are Unknown
2. Internet Phone Books
3. Listing What You Know About The Person 
4. Search Engines
5. Special Search Engines 
6. Search Tricks

Find Also:

People With Common Last Names
People By First Name Only
Women Who Have Married Or Divorced
Old Classmates
 

See Also

People Search News
Articles include the latest developments, innovations and people search engines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I. Finding People When You Don't Know Their Whereabouts
When you don't know where someone lives, look for National Directories and search for them just by name. The goal is to get their city and state so you can look for them locally.  (To find women who may have married, click here.)   

A good directory will give you the person's address, phone number or at least the city and state where the record was obtained. You may also be able to learn their profession or something else useful.  

Your first stop should be the Age lookup sites. These sites are far more comprehensive than the Internet Phone books, which omit people with unlisted numbers. Age lookup sites will help you identify the person by their name, their age and even the people they've lived with. You may also learn the city and state where the person is living now.

Search Tips For Age Lookup Sites: When looking for someone, enter their first and last name only.  Ignore the box for age, state, middle name, etc. Being too specific could cause you to miss a name because the data gatherer entered the wrong age or forgot a middle initial.

Once you get a hit, find their address or phone number through
Zabasearch or the Internet Phone Books.

To learn even more, search for them through General and Specialized Search Engines such as Google, their state, county and city homepages, their chat groups, their state bar/professional association, local newspapers, court records, etc. See also Search By Their Photos.

Still no luck? Then look for relatives in their home state, i.e. people with the same surname. Also, contact the "possible relatives" that were listed on the age lookup sites.

A relative by birth or marriage may be your yellow brick road to the person you're looking for.

Good National Directories Include

Internet Phone Directories
Search Engines (like Google and Yahoo)
Age/Birthday Records (Find Their Zip Code To Get City & State Info)
Death Records
Federal Records such as the FAA Pilot Registry, Federal Bureau Of Prisons or database of Federal Campaign Contributors. 
Search Engines That List Professionals such as Doctors and Lawyers (i.e. Martindale Hubble Directory)

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Finding People On The Internet

2.The Internet White Pages/People Search Sites
Don't stop with one. Try several of them for a thorough search.
You're most likely to score when you know the person's name and address or at least the city they live in. Some sites also offer reverse lookups, where you can find a person's name just from a phone number or an address.

No hits?  Try shortening the person's first name to an initial or Nick Name. This allows you to find those people (usually women) who avoid use of their full name.

For tough cases, see step three.

3. Make A List Of All You Know About The Person
Include:

A. Contact Information Such as
Their first, last and middle name (if known), nickname, city or state where they once lived, last known phone #s, address/other addresses, other phone #s, email addresses, website addresses, companies they own, names of friends or relatives and the last time you heard from or of them.

B. Other Identifiers that Make Them Unique (And Can Help Distinguish Them From Other Leads with the Same Name)
Race, gender, age, religion, former schools, hobbies, interests, languages spoken, profession, tattoos, birthmarks, unusual features, disabilities (blind, deaf, bi-polar...), certifications/degrees, fraternity/sorority/other affiliations, etc.  Even if you know almost nothing, put it down anyway. The Internet is teeming with information and anything might prove useful later on.

For example, I found an ex-girlfriend of 9 years back knowing only she spoke Russian and once lived in Ohio.

Putting her name in quotes, I combed the major search engines and found a letter she once sent to a Russian newspaper.  This letter gave me the city and state she currently lived in. With this information, it was easy to find the home page of her city government and also to look up their local court records.

Sure enough, my ex-girlfriend had gotten a traffic ticket back in 1989. This ticket proved invaluable as it listed her name, address, age and telephone number. Although she obviously didn't live there anymore, it was still worth looking into.  Through a reverse search on the phone number, I found her father, who after 12 years was still living at the same address! I called him and got her number.

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4. Use The Big Search Engines ie GOOGLE, YAHOO, Etc.
 Start with Google first. Do a search with the person's name in quotes i.e. "Jon Doe" or "Carol Smith".  Also try their last name first i.e. "Smith, Carol".

For a thorough search, try other variations such as using their middle name.

For example, you could get different hits with:

"John Smith"
"John L Smith"
"John Lewis Smith"
"John Smith, L"
"John Smith, L" Atlanta
John Smith (No Quotes) (for hits with spouse i.e. John and Mary Smith)

To refine your search, add the person's city or state (if known) or add other terms.  For example.  If your friend speaks Russian, try "Jon Doe" Russian. If you know Jon was once in the Army, try "Jon Doe" army.

With unusual or rare first/last names, try leaving off the  name that's common.  This is a good thing to do especially when searching for a woman who may have married or stopped using her maiden name.

Don't forget to search by Nick Name. For example, "Elizabeth" might be found under "Libby", "Richard" under "Dick", etc.

Once you get to a desired web page, find the name quickly through a mini-search. On your keyboard, hold down the control key and the letter "F". When the search screen appears, type the one word you're looking for and click Find Next. Click "Find Next" again to go further down the page where that word appears again.

See Googling People By Their Address, Phone # or Email

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5. Use Specialized Search Engines.
Search engines abound to locate, Regular People, Military Personnel, Classmates, Doctors, Birth Parents, Genealogies, Lawyers, Veterans, Smokers, etc. They are also good for tracing people through their Chat Groups, clubs & associations.

Never forget to search the home page of the city and county government where the person once lived. There you will find access to local information such as court records, marriages, births, deaths, clubs and community news. 

Have an address with a bad phone #? Use reverse lookups (address or phone) to get the names or phone numbers of the person's neighbors. Then call them for more information.

Also checkout the county tax assessor, which sometimes lists the names and addresses of property owners within its jurisdiction. To locate this agency via GOOGLE, plug in the terms  "X county" "Tax assessor".

 To find more information, do a word search in the local newspapers and/or check out the homepage of the local library.

On line local papers are truly an invaluable source.  Papers in small towns will publish anything, including obituaries, letters to the editor and local events missed by other search engines. You may learn your subject got married, or rescued a cat from a tree or became a school teacher.  Even if you can't find the person you're looking for, perhaps you'll find one of their friends or relatives who can point you in the right direction. And don't forget to use your search tricks.

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Search Tricks
.Find Names in The Internet Phone Books, See Step Two.
.In Search Engines, Put first and last name in Quotes i.e. "John Doe".
.Narrow searches by adding new terms.
.Look for city and county local websites.
.Find Specialized Search Engines.
.Comb The Local Newspapers.
.Search for words within a website or document via "Control F".
.See the Search Tool Chart For How To Work Each Search  
 Engine.

To find prior versions of a website that has changed or is gone,
Use the Google Cache feature below your Google return.

OR

Plug the web address into the Way Back Machine by entering the website URL in the search box and hitting "take me back". This works great when you're searching for a person or thing that is no longer listed, but present on earlier versions of the site. Click Here For prior snapshots of www.consumer-sos.com.

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Finding City & County Governments

Using the Major Search Engines
type in Quotes "City of X" or "City of Y"
For counties, type in "County of X" or "County of Y".

If the search engine pulls up more than one state, you can always make your search more specific.

i.e.  "City of Miami, Florida" or
       "County of Suffolk, New York"

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The Control F Function

Use shortcuts to instantly find terms within websites, large documents and attachments.

For PDF (Adobe files), you can search for words by clicking on the Binoculars Icon found at the top of the page.

Use "Control F" to search within Websites emails, Word, Excel or PowerPoint: 

1. You must be on the screen of what you want to search;
   
2. Left click on a blank space at the top of the screen or document (where there are no links);
   
3. While holding down the "Ctrl" button on your keyboard, press the letter "F";
   >>>A Gray Search Box will appear.
   
4. Type in one term (make sure there no spaces before or after such);
   
5. Click "next";
   >>>Your cursor will move to the first point where the term appears.
   
6. Click "next" again and again to search for other instances;
   (In Excel, you must repeat steps 1-6 in each tab you wish to search.)
   
7. For best results, search for words in their simplest form.

Example: A search for "Cat" will also find "Cats" but not vice versa.
But a search for "Company" will not find "Companies" (spelling change).

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Control F Troubleshooting
If your search term wasn’t found,
Did you:

Forget to left click on a blank space up top (where there are no links)?
• Misspell your term?
• Leave blank spaces before or after the term?
• Enter in more than ONE search term?
• Forget to search all tabs in your Excel files?
• Forget to check the cached-Google version of the website (website may have changed)?

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Finding A Business

Background Checks On A Business Or Business Owner (Consumer-SOS)
Background the business and the decision makers behind it (i.e. its officers, agents or owner).

Locate Company Headquarters & Place of Incorporation (Consumer-SOS)
Good if you want to sue them, write the company a letter or just learn more about their officers and agents.

Non Profit Look Up With Just An Org Name or Zip Code-Find The President & Officers, Their Salaries, Addresses And More (Not All Non Profits Listed)
Learn about a non profit's assets, its mission statement, its president, etc., with just the org's zip code or org name or tax ID!
With the The Non Profit 990 Finder, also see the salary and director information that must be disclosed to the IRS. Note: 990s may be missing for small non profits that receive $25,000 or less annually.

Resources On How To Profile Businesses
Whether it's researching their track record or looking for sanctions, this is the place.

Finding Info On Businesses (Hoovers)
Tells you their name, address and phone number, what they do, their financials, and who their competitors are.

BBB National Complaint Database
Find the business by name, phone number or web address and learn who owns it.  To increase the chance of finding the company just enter a part of the company's name.

Commercial Interstate Carriers (Movers & Truckers)
Search the Department of Transportation's SAFER database.  Searchable by firm name, DOT Number and Motor Carrier number. Use this database to get the truck's owner, insurance carrier, and crashes in the last two years.

Companies Sanctioned For Hiring Illegal Aliens (US)
Enter in a company name, Find the address, the # & type of immigration violations, the fines it received and the overall number of employees it has.

The Business Yellow Pages
Find their phone number or address.

Toll-Free # Lookup For Businesses (See If they Have One)
Also can call 1800-555-1212.

Better Business Bureaus (Links Throughout The U.S.)
Look up a company by phone number, URL or location to find the name of the owner and the nature of any complaints against it.

Finding US and International Businesses

Information On US & International Companies
Find the company behind the brand name, where they're located, their financial info, their officers, subsidiaries, who they advertise with, what media they use, and more.

Worldwide Business and Residential Telephone Directories

OOPS! I Sent The Package To The Wrong Address!!!!
Step by step on what to do. 

Corporate Consumer Contacts (List Of Addresses & Links To Their Headquarters)
Must scroll down alphabetical list.

www.companiesonline.com

www.Switchboard.com

www.infospace.com

www.theultimates.com


For More On Business Records,

See Public Records (Consumer-SOS)
and Businesses Matters (Consumer-SOS)

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Other Similar Sites

www.bigfoot.com

www.people.yahoo.com

www.whowhere.lycos.com


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Find Someone's Date Of Birth And Where They Live

Find Their Date Of Birth (BirthDatabase.com)
Database of 120 million names and birth dates
along with their city, state and Zip Code.

http://www.zabasearch.com/
Gives you the the month and year of their birth and the various places the person has lived.

Do a Google on their name city and/ or state for even more information.

County Lookup By City (National)
Plug in the city and state to get the county. Then do a records search in that county.

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Reverse Searches

Emails

Use An Email Address To Find A Person's Name Or Phone # Or Use A Street Address To Get An Email Address
Finds about 20 percent of the people and it's often wrong, but even so, it's still the best free link I've seen.
NOTE when several email addresses are listed, they may have both the wrong one and the right one, i.e. both g_firestone@aol.com and g_firestone@yahoo.com.
The way around it is to email all of them (Assuming you want to contact the subject). Or you can also plug each address into Google to see what turns up.

Street Addresses

Find the Full Street Address With Just the House# or Zip Code
Then reverse lookup the full address to find who lives there.

Reverse Address Lookup
Get the name and phone # of who lives at the address.
Click on Neighbor Lookups for the name and phone #s of your neighbors. Note: when your neighbors live in an apartment complex with one address, do several searches by entering different house numbers in the house number box. i.e. search with 100, then again with 200, and then again with 300 etc.

Use A Street Address To Get Emails, Names & Phone #s!
Type in a street address for emails names and phone#s of people who may have lived there.
NOTE when several email addresses are listed, they may have both the wrong one and the right one, i.e. both g_firestone@aol.com and g_firestone@yahoo.com.
The way around it is to email all of them (Assuming you want to contact the subject). Or you can also plug each address into Google to see what turns up.

Find Out Who Lives At That Address
Has reverse address look-up. If your address is an apartment, you may also be able to get the names and telephone numbers of your neighbors. 

OOPS! I Sent My Letter To The Wrong Address!!!! (Consumer-SOS)
Step by step on what to do. 

PO Box Lookup-Finding A Business Or Person Through Their Post Office Box (Consumer-SOS)

The Cole's Directory: Using Street Addresses To Look Up A Phone Number
Sent a package to the wrong address? Well now you can find out who got it. Through a Cole's Directory you can use the street address and a reverse directory to look up the phone number. The Cole's Directory is probably available free at your local library.)

Phone #s

Reverse Phone Number Directory
Get a person's name and address by typing in their phone#.

Google: Find A Person Or Business  (By Phone #)
Type the phone # into their search box (try with and w/o dashes) to get the person's name and address. 

Reverse Phone Lookup
Gives you the address but no names. For the name, Google your address or use a reverse address lookup.

http://www.anywho.com/reversephonelookup
Free.  Look here to find residential or business phone numbers.  Also does reverse lookups where you can get the person's name & address if you have their phone number.

The Best Search Engines/Including Reverse Lookup
One central spot where you can do free searches on a variety of good search engines.  Can Also Search For Photos Of People!!!!!

411.com 

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Reverse Address Lookup/Finding Out Who To Contact When You Sent The Letter To The Wrong Address

1 Use a reverse directory to find out the name of the person or business residing at that address. If you get a contact name click here.  Otherwise see below. 

2. Call information in the area code where the address is. For example, if  your letter was sent to "Colorado Springs, Colorado" dial 1719-555-1212.  If your letter went to New York, New York dial 1212-555-1212.

3. Explain to the operator that you need a name and phone number so you can contact the people at this address and have the package returned to you.

4. If they can't find this address, ask them for the phone number of the local post office closest to this address.

5. Ask the local post office if they can tell you the name of the person or business that resides there.  Find out if the address is a valid one.  If it is not, it may be that the shipper is liable and should have had the item returned to you.  If you get a contact name click here.  Otherwise see below.

5A. If you have a friend or associate nearby, have him go to that address and investigate the matter. Or try calling calling the local City Zoning, Property or Tax Commission. These guys usually have a plat or map of all the buildings in the area and who owns them. 

5B. Use The Cole's Directory. Through a Cole's Directory you can use the street address to look up the phone number. The Cole's Directory is probably available free at your local library.

 6. Once you have a name, use the Internet White Pages or Business Yellow Pages to find the phone number.  Or find the phone number by dialing information in that area.

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Missing Persons

The Nation's Missing Children Organization & Center for Missing Adults 
Find information on both children and adults.

Comprehensive links For Missing Kids & Adults (Many States)
To find links in your state, use the edit/find option on the tool bar of your browser. To check for more state links click "find next". 

National Find Family Registry For People with Disabilities
Open to people seeking each other even though just bits of information are available.
May help reunite those who lost touch with family members with disabilities for other reasons too, like divorce, foster care or adoption, personal problems or misfortune.

See Missing Kids (Consumer-SOS)

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Classmates

Find Or Background Old Classmates-Step By Step (Consumer-SOS)
Get in touch with all your old friends, even those who have married and changed
names.

www.classmates.com
Membership is $25 but you can sign up for their free limited access. If your classmates haven't registered, you won't find them.

Alumni Net
Free International site.  Not that useful unless you have the
Password to get into their restricted sections.

www.reunions.com
$25 membership fee.  Uses databases and links to other people search and genealogical sites.  Other fees involved depending on the type of search.

High School & College Alumni Database
Free membership but not many people in this database.
Track down lost friends with this database of 17,000 U.S.
High Schools and 10,000 colleges, featuring a message
center, reunion postings, automated email updates and
more.

See Also By Name, # or Public Records (Consumer-SOS)

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Finding Your School’s Homepage
Two Year
Four Year
Graduate 

Back To Find Or Background Old Classmates-Step By Step

 

Two Year Colleges

U.S. Two-Year Colleges
Includes links to more than 1,000 community colleges, listed by state. Provides links to state boards and agencies, and community college districts and systems.

Maricopa Center for Learning and Instruction
Search for individual community college Web sites, or obtain a full alphabetical listing by country, state, or province. Contains links to 1,131 community colleges, plus 194 related resources.

Canadian Community Colleges
A list by province of Canadian community colleges not affiliated with a university.

Back To Find Or Background Old Classmates-Step By Step


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4 Year Colleges and Universities

US News College Directory 

Peterson’s Guide To Colleges and Universities
Type the school name in their search engine.

Back To Find Or Background Old Classmates-Step By Step


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Graduate Schools

Peterson’s Guide To Graduate Schools
Type the school name in their search engine. 

Back To Find Or Background Old Classmates-Step By Step


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Military

GI Search (All Armed Forces)
Search by first and last name for their age and home town.
You may be able to verify more if you sign up as a free member.

Locate People In The Armed Forces
Some links can help you locate active duty personnel, as well as retirees, reservists, and guardsmen. 

Offline Requests For Military Service Records
Records open to the public include their photo, salary, rank, a transcript of their court-marshal trial and more.

The Marine Guest Book
Eliminate the grunt work of finding a U.S. Marine Corps buddy, platoon, battalion, division even vets of specific
boot camps or battles with this search engine.

Coast Guard People Search (Fredsplace.com)
Search their directory on name, rate or rank, status, or location by selecting the Search selection on the Quick Clicks Menu on the Main Page.

http://dbease.mconetwork.com/dbEase/cgi-bin/search.pl?tableName=Military_Registry
Find old military friends.  May involve a nominal fee.

How To Verify Or Locate A Veteran (Has Links Too)

The Armed Services-Each Division's Home Page


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Fee Based Sites

www.ussearch.com
Fees range from $10 to more than $500.  Uses thousands of databases to find and check up on people.

www.reunions.com
$25 membership fee.  Uses databases and links to other people search and genealogical sites.  Other fees involved depending on the type of search.

www.peoplesearch.com
Free people searches for phone numbers and e-mail addresses.  Other searches are $10 and up depending on the complexity.

www.net-detective.net
Download software for $25, which explains how to find people and dig up information on them, even FBI files, for additional money.  See Also Private Detective

www.knowx.com
Offers information on death records, background checks, telephone numbers, and real property records for searches conducted before 11 a.m. or after 6 p.m.

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Genealogies, Birth Parents  & Ancestors

How To Search Your Own Genealogy (Mega site)

Genealogy Search Engine (Find Your Ancestors)

Searching Your Genealogy (Mormon Church Website)

National Find Family Registry For People with Disabilities
Open to people seeking each other even though just bits of information are available.
May help reunite those who lost touch with family members with disabilities for other reasons too, like divorce, foster care or adoption, personal problems or misfortune.

Immigration Records From Ellis Island
Between 1892 and 1924, over 22 million passengers and members of ships' crews came through Ellis Island and the Port Of New York. Now you can research passenger records from the ships that brought the immigrants-even see the original manifests with passengers' names.

Finding Your Birth Parents (Search Registries)

Birthparents-I Have A Name-Now What?
Step By Step What To Do.

Searching For Birth Relatives-A Factsheet For Families

Adoption And Finding Your Birth Parents (All 50 States & DC)

Find Who's Buried And Where
Punch in the persons last name the word "and" and their first name for a list of cemeteries where they might be buried.

Click Here For More On Tracing Your Genealogy 

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Obtaining Vital Records

Where To Write For Vital Records (50 States & DC)
For birth, death and marriage certificates, divorce papers and more.

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Finding Women

Married and divorced women are harder to find if their name has changed. 

To Background or Locate Such a Person: 


Look for her in her high school or college alumni section.  (See Classmates). If she's listed, they may also have her current email address or phone #. Then contact her directly or do a Reverse Lookup on the phone number/email address to see what name pops up. Also sign up for the free registration for classmates.com. It's the most extensive alumni directory out there.

If you know where she went to school or college click "schools" or "colleges" and then "browse schools" or "browse Colleges". If she's now married or divorced, when you click on her name, a different or hyphenated name appears up top. Type her name in the age search engines to track where she's lived or may live. Then search the phone books, Google and court records of what ever states you find.
 
• Age search engines are useful in themselves to find your subject's new surname. Even if the person has since married or divorced, these may list the person's former surname and age, along with possible relatives and even their new surname.
  
  For example: If your target is age 50, ignore all names with different ages. When you find your subject, look under the columns marked "name/AKA" and also under "Possible Relatives." You may find someone with the same first name and a different last name, who just happens to be the same age and with same relatives as the person you're searching for. That's her. Armed with her new last name, be sure to search the phone books, Google and court records of what ever states she may live in.
  
  Try looking up one of her male relatives (brother, father etc,) to see if under "relatives", it lists her first name along with her new last name.
  
  See Also Googling Women To Find Their New Surname (Consumer-SOS)
  
  
• Talk directly to relatives with her old surname and ask them point blank how to reach her. To find her relatives, see Finding People On The Internet.
  
  See also Genealogies. With genealogy sites, you can search for her by her maiden name and see who's related to her.
  
  
• Scan the obituaries to see if any of her family members have died.  Obituaries will often have a list of the surviving family members and where they live. i.e. dead person "survived by her sister Jan Doe from Ohio."  Make sure to search for her only by her maiden name and exclude her first name altogether.   "See Death Records and the Local Newspapers where she used to live.

See Finding People By First Name Only (Consumer-SOS)

See More on Finding By Maiden Name

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Googling Women To Find Their New Surname

Marriages are often publicly announced through newspapers, 
gift registries, alumni news, blogs, wedding announcements, etc.

To find your subject's new surname, simply click Here (Google).

Your Google search box should display:

"Jane Doe" marriage

While in the Google search box, replace the name in quotes with the name of your subject.

To be thorough, search again and again while using the various synonyms for marriage.

Examples:

marriages 
marrying
married
matrimony
wedding
weddings
wedded
betrothed

Still too Many Hits? Then narrow it down by adding
their last known city or state.  

Examples:

"Jane Doe" marriage Georgia

or 

"Jane Doe" marriages Atlanta Georgia

See Finding People By First Name Only

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Finding People By Their First name
This works best when the first name is rare or has a rare spelling. To eliminate false leads you must still know something distinctive about the person such as their age, hobbies, profession, city, state, etc. See Listing What You Know About The Person 

Steps


1. Find a state or national database that allows you to search by first name only. Then enter their first name, and if known, also their state. Intellius is good because it will return a last name and the subject's age. It may also group the subject with others who have lived in the same household such as their spouses, children or parents. To search Peopledata.com (ages may be wrong) type in the first name, press a space and then enter the letter "a" For example: menda a or minelva a.
   
   If you get too many hits, enter the first name in a major search engine such as  Google or Yahoo. Put in extra terms to narrow it down.  For example: for that bilingual former classmate of yours enter: Minelva Spanish Georgia.  For the musician you met at the bookstore try: Mehgan ukulele Texas.  Add or remove terms to reduce or increase hits. Extra terms could include a city, their occupation, the name of a child, or another hobby. See Listing What You Know About The Person 
    

2. For Intellius results, weed out subjects clearly older or younger than your target. If you find your subject by age, look them up in the phone book or background them as you would anyone else.
    
3. If your subject's age is not listed and their are several names without an age beside them, run their first and last names though other age search engines. It may be you'll get their age that way.  If successful see step 1.A.
    
4. Note: Don't forget to do the same with any household members as well.
   Knowing the ages of other household members will help you decide if these are children, spouses, parents or false leads. Again, you're looking for any clue to single out your target.
    
5. No Luck?  Then enter their first name in the local newspapers where you believe the subject lives or once lived. Don't forget to narrow your hits with other search terms. See Step 1.A.
    
6. Still no Luck? See Finding Women Who Have Married Or Divorced
    

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Checking Out A Business
The Danger Signs To Look Out For  (An Overview)
How To Background A Business Or Business Owner

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Overview (What To Look for)
The sources below can help you identify scam operations from legitimate businesses.  But even legitimate firms are not always trustworthy.  Indeed, some legitimate companies have terrible track records.  

Before doing business with a firm, find out if others have been treated unfairly or have filed complaints against it.  Note that big firms are apt to receive more complaints than small firms, especially if they've been in business a long time or deal with a huge volume of customers.  

If a company has received several complaints, look into their nature as well as their number.  Then ask whether such is unusual given the organization's size and years in the business.

For small businesses, be sure to do a background check on the business owner.  A new business could be crooked but not yet have any complaints against it.

Be on the lookout for disreputable owners and agents.  Red flags include people who have prison records, bad business dealings and lots of lawsuits.   Also be careful of those with expired professional certifications or those who've been disbarred or disciplined by their licensing boards. For More see Red Flags


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 How To Background A Business Or Business Owner

Enter their business name or website address in the Better Business Bureau Complaint Database.


• If nothing is found, do a Google Search with the name of the business in quotation marks.  Narrow your hits by adding extra words like FRAUD OR COMPLAINTS or add the state where the business is located. To confirm their business name or address, try a reverse lookup via the Google search box. Just punch in their phone number and omit all points, dashes or parenthesis. See also PO Box Lookup-Finding A Business Or Person Through Their Post Office Box (Consumer-SOS)
   
Be on the lookout for bogus businesses that claim to be corporations when they're  not. For firms ending in INC, LLC, LLP or CORP, check the Secretary Of State where the business is located.  All corporations (but not partnerships) must register with their secretary of state. Be sure to write down the names of the officers or agents as you may later be doing a background check on them.
 
• For Charities and Non Profits, check out the IRS Charity Database, Guidestar and Charities (Consumer-SOS)
   
Look up who owns the website or business and then do a background search in Google and in Court/Prison records. For common names, enter the name in quotes and narrow your Google hits by adding the state where they live. To further refine your search, add the words FRAUD or Complaint or SUIT.


• Check their website for trademark or copyright symbols (™ sm ®©) and see who owns them. Scamsters don't register their intellectual property. So be careful of firms that use these symbols but have not registered them.
  
  
• Is the person a professional with a license or certification? See if they've been disciplined for bad conduct or have an expired license. You may find they don't even have a license!!!!! Does the business offer goods or services that must be licensed through the state licensing boards? To find out, make a list of their main products and services as well as the state(s) where they do business. (Their locations can be found via Google, the BBB or their own website)  Then check the the appropriate state licensing boards for complaints lodged against their business or their key employees. All states are different. You will have to scroll down the list of boards just to see if your area is even regulated. For example, in the case of lawyers or law firms, complaints can be found at every State Bar.  But in the case of home repair contractors or hearing aid dealers, such may be regulated in one state but not in another.
  
  
• Look up Their name in the Internet White Pages or do a reverse lookup on their residential address. Then give the person a call.  You're less likely to be cheated when it's obvious you know their whereabouts.
  
  
• Find out what is said about the person in the local newspapers.  Many newspapers have search boxes where you can search stories and see if the person is mentioned in them.  Recommend you search by last name only. If you get too many hits, add their first name also.
  
  
• Check The Other Ways To Background People.

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Find Where The Company is Headquartered or Incorporated
Each step is progressive with the easiest and most efficient steps first.

To Find Where The Company is Headquartered or Incorporated,

Look On:

1. The Product Box, Disc, or Manual for companies and their subsidiaries (may be several companies).

2. The Company Website (good for subsidiaries and may show which one sells what product).

3. Google or Google Scholar may also reveal the company headquarters or place of incorporation. For Example: to search for a lawsuit against the computer
    company Nintendo, put in the search box,
    v. Nintendo headquarters, then use step #5 to confirm place of incorporation and principal place of business.

4. PACER,Party Name Search (Look for recent law suits-Complaint will list where each company is headquartered and the place of incorporation)
     Sign in, enter in a company name, click "Search" and sort by "Date Filed" Column to get the most recent cases. Then click on a recent case, click on
     "Docket Report" and then "Run Docket Report."
     Scroll down to the various entries and select the one that says COMPLAINT (Usually will be the first or second item). (Note PACER won't bill you if your
     total annual charges are less than $10).
    
5. The Local Secretary of State (by now you’ll know which state or states to search in and can confirm where incorporated and headquartered)
    Often agents and officers will be listed along with their titles.

6. Google search Defendant’s name with the term 10K or "annual report". Click on “advance search” and limit to within a year, for the most recent data.
    (Various docs may list where company headquartered or incorporated).

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Other Red Flags

a. Individuals or organizations that have received an unusual number of complaints against them. (Contact your local BBB and the BBB where the company is located).

b. Small companies that have been sued often for breach of contract, misrepresentation or fraud. (Call the state and superior courts in the surrounding counties).

c. Firms or individuals that have been disciplined by their state licensing boards or the government. (Contact applicable licensing agencies and your Secretary Of State ).

d. Firms ending in "Co.", Inc. or "Corp." that haven't registered or qualified with the Secretary Of State and Business Licensing/Tax Division.  

e. Firms that are unlicensed or seriously late in paying incorporation fees, business license dues or other fees required by law. (Ask this information from each of the agencies above).

f. Firm Owners with a bad reputation. Look for lawsuits, prison records, and complaints against them by their licensing boards.

g. Businesses/Business Owners with a PO Box for an address or list a physical address that is really just a disguised a PO box or mail drop. Most people have street addresses.  Scamsters often won't.

h. The only # You're Given Turns Out To Be A Cell Phone.

i. Any other claim that is shown to be false or unsubstantiated. 

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