People Search

People Search
Find Or Background A Person
Find Or Background A Business

Complaints, Violations & Sanctions (Consumer-SOS)
Safety records, government sanctions and other wrongdoing for private and public companies. (Hint: Here's where you can report them for bad conduct.)

Get Names of Business Officers, Directors, Parent Companies, Subsidiaries (Consumer-SOS)
Find who is connected to a company both US and abroad. Can search by individual name, or by business name to find officers and directors.

Background the People Behind the Business or Use Their Name To Find Their Company (Consumer-SOS)
Learn more about the individual officers, directors, and employees, their age, mugshots, relatives, bankruptcies, voter records, taxes, property, the companies they own and more.

Tracking US Federal Grant and Sub-Award Recipients (Consumer-SOS)
Has the company received money from the US Government? Learn how much, from which agency and what it's for. (Hint, if they're irresponsible, you now know where to whistleblow.)

Locating Assets (Consumer-SOS)
Find their boats, planes, patents, salaries, side ventures, trademarks, etc.

Other Business Intelligence

Find Their Parent, Subsidiary, Suppliers, MFG, and Distributors (Consumer-SOS)
Search by business name for who's connected to what. (A good jump start to your investigation.)

Worldwide Company Searches (Consumer-SOS)
Open Corporates, Panama Papers, Offshore Leaks, Aleph, etc.

USA Company Searches (Consumer-SOS)
Secretary of states, one stop searches, and much more.

Who Do They Contract With? (Consumer-SOS)
Search for contracts using various free databases.

Dirt Diggers Guide To Strategic Corporate Research (Worldwide)
Comprehensive links to company complaints, and exploring a company's relatiionships including their shareholders, subsidiaries, outside directors, creditors, suppliers, customers and franchises.

Little SIS
Use to find the movers and shakers along with their political and financial connections USA or foreign). See their board members and president, though info may be outdated. Sometime lists who they donated to and how much, may have photos and lists services and transactions with customers, subsidiaries and parent companies, official filings, and sales to the military.

Who Do They Contract With? (Search within lawinsider.com)

"Arris" "warranty" site:lawinsider.com
Shows any contract with Arris and the word "warranty." In Google Search Box replace company name with the one you're looking for.

"Spirit Aerospace" "Bombardier" site:lawinsider.com
Pulls up contracts between these two companies. Replace with the company names you're looking for.

Tracking US Federal Grant and Sub-Award Recipients (Consumer-SOS)
Has the company received money from the US government? Learn how much, from which agency and what it's for. (Hint, if they're irresponsible, you now know where to whistleblow.)

Complaints, Violations & Sanctions

BBB Complaint Database (USA, CAN, MEX)
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.

Ripoff Report (USA)
Top right can file a complain or mid right search by company or individual for complaints. Or search by topic See Ripoff Report Complaints against GA Debt Collectors.

Company Violation Tracker (Records not complete but still good)
Just type in a company name and hit search (do not select any filters in your first search). Violation Tracker provides access to data on a wide range of cases from all federal regulatory agencies, cases referred by those agencies to the Justice Department and cases initiated by DOJ. It also has extensive coverage of state regulatory agencies. Violation Tracker UK provides similar data for the United Kingdom. Can click on YEAR to sort by most recent. See also their UK version!

Safety Records on Commercial Interstate Carriers (Movers & Truckers)
Search the Department of Transportation's SAFER database by company name or by DOT Number and Motor Carrier number to get the truck's owner, insurance info, and safety history including crashes. See top tight of screen for SMS results once you've clicked on the name of the carrier.

Companies or People Involved in Patent Litigation (RPX Database)
Type in their last name or their company to learn their state of incorporation, their company and address information. Often can learn more by clicking on a copy of the legal complaint, which tells address and owner information.

US Company Violations (Links to Federal Databases)
EPA, FDA debarment, FINRA, OSHA, SEC, Dept of Treas. enforcement...

Dirt Diggers Guide To Strategic Corporate Research
Comprehensive links to company complaints, and exploring a company's relatiionships including their shareholders, subsidiaries, outside directors, creditors, suppliers, customers and franchises.

Lookup Parent, Subsidiaries, Distributors, Suppliers, and MFGs

Corporate Subsidiaries-(Scrapes Public US SEC Filings)
Mostly US Public Companies-combine with Thomas.Net which can list subs along with products. Database scrapes the subsidiary relationship information from Exhibit 21 of the 10-K SEC filings. Not very many foreign companies appear in the SEC data, but the foreign subsidiaries of U.S. corporations are included. Some companies specify in their filings which of their subsidiaries own each other, but not all do. Sometimes a more thorough examination of the 10-K is required.

Find A Company's Suppliers & Manufacturers (Import Yeti)
Helps you know who to subpoena when looking for assets.

Find Company, or Their Suppliers and Distributors (Thomas.Net-USA & Canada)
To find by product, or company select ALL in the dropbox. If too much, then select by product or company.

Hidden Relationships Between Websites (Consumer-SOS)
Learn who owns or manages various websites based on their Google Ad ID, backlinks to a common source, shared email addresses, common coding, etc.

Worldwide Company Searches (Consumer-SOS)
Open Corporates, Panama Papers, Offshore Leaks, Aleph, etc.

USA Company Searches (Consumer-SOS)
Secretary of states, one stop searches, and much more.

Locating Assets (Consumer-SOS)
Find out what they own.

Hidden Relationships Between Websites
Learn who owns or manages various websites based on their Google Ad ID, backlinks to the same websites, shared contact info, shared hosting service or same coding, etc.

Reverse Searches on Websites & Contact Info To Determine Ownership (Consumer-SOS)
See how to find their other websites even when the owner's website info is privacy blocked. (Scroll through all the yellow highlights!)

Domains That Share the Same Unique Google Analytics ID
Discover relations like ownership between domain names, even when the owners are hidden.

Find What Websites Are Built With (Builtwith.com)
Find what programs the website is built with to see if it's related to another site. For example, the same old version of Word Press.

Back To Backgrounding a Business

For More On Business Records,

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

Back To Backgrounding a Business

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

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

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
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. To find officers when you don't know the place of incorporation, see Officer & CEO Lookup. Leave the state box blank.
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.

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. Suing Publicly Trades Companies (US Only)
To find state of incorporation, principal place of business and the names and addresses and salaries of public officers, enter the company name in their search box up top.

4. 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.

5. 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 charges per each qurter are less than $30).

6. 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. When Filing a Legal Complaint against a company, Choose the entity address over the address of registered agent (if different).

7. Find out Who Owns The Website if You Can�t The Find Name Incorporated Anywhere (Good For Porn Companies that have a different corp. name from what's on their website (see http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp ). To find domain info concealed by private hosting services, Google the name of the website and the term �whosis�. Example: www.xxx.com whosis This may show the information that was published before they decided to hide it.

8. Find out who owns trademark (TM, �) and search the Secretary of State for that company.

9. 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).

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.