USPRS.com (U.S. Public Records)

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Intelius Blog is Journalism First, Marketing Second

http://www.peoplesearches.com/news/
Easton at BusinessBlogWire writes a review of the Intelius corporate blog today. Like Easton, I have some quibbles with style (the posts are awfully long). But it's a great example of the kind of "journamarketing" you could be doing.

Intelius helps people get access to public information through personal background checks and other services. They deal with a lot of complicated issues, and the people who work there become experts in that space. So they're using their blog to explain some of those complicated issues. It's really nothing more than journalism. There's no overt sales pitch for Intelius. For example, the blog has entries about what kinds of mistakes you might find in public records -- and whether it's a good idea to publicize the names of people who've received concealed-weapons permits.

You might think this is a silly thing for them to spend time on. But when people want to dig into public records, I'll bet they almost always go online first. So building a repository of information, dedicated to helping people track down public information, will pay off in the long run with more referral traffic and a better online reputation among people who might use Intelius' services.

Information about Intelius, Founded by Naveen Jain

Founded by Naveen Jain, Intelius well known in the information commerce industry helps clients make intelligent decisions about assets, people, and businesses. Intelius applies advanced heuristics to public and publicly-available information, delivering it on-demand and online to consumers and businesses to facilitate a more informed decision-making process in business and life.

Intelius ranks among the top 100 most trafficked Websites, with an average of one million unique visitors daily. The many products and offerings of the company include a set of comprehensive and customizable pre-employment screening services, a consumer-facing people search service, list management, and an award-winning identity theft detection, prevention and insurance service.

Intelius’ background checks have helped consumers make better decisions about the people, businesses and assets in their world, from potential dates to new neighbors.

People search by Intelius, has reconnected thousands of people with friends or relatives with whom they’ve lost touch. In the HR world, Intelius’ employment screening services enable companies to analyze candidates’ professional backgrounds, from drug testing and fingerprinting to criminal records, professional licenses and education verification, plus a best of breed SSN verification service.

These services have helped create leads and confirm data for millions of customers, in addition to giving them peace of mind and the ability to make better decisions by making use of valuable public information. The Intelius executive team consists of IT and Internet professionals, technologists, business providers, and security specialists, and is led by Chairman Bill Owens and CEO Naveen Jain.

Intelius makes security available at multiple levels, including the personal, technological, and operational levels. Intelius also protects customers’ personal names, credit card numbers, and social security numbers. Intelius’ Verisign certificate signals safe and secure web transactions.

Reference: Intelius.com
http://www.peoplesearches.com/news/

Sunday, August 17, 2008

UK People Search News: ‘Pipl’ – the people search engine is here!

Thursday, May 8, 2008

US Public Records References - EzineArticles From the Legal: Category

(USPRS.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (Backgrounder.com)

US Public Records Search - How to Search US Public Records

US Public Records search can be carried out at various resources.

Generally, you can find such records in the government archives, courts, places of worship like churches, and other public community centers.

Most services are not free though.

You may wish to note that there are specific rules and regulations governing the way the information obtained can be used when you search US public records.

(USPRS.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory.com) and (PeopleSearches.com)
and (USPublicRecords.com)

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

How to Find Missing Persons

First of all, post a free missing person message on our notice board (here). This has the advantage of getting details about your missing person into search engines like Google, Yahoo! And MSN. If anyone else is looking for this missing person, like family and friends, then they may come across your notice and contact you to help.

You should also type their full name and their hometown and or state into each of those 3 search engines and see what results come up. I.e. “John Callmer, Washington” “John Callmer, Hilltown, Washington”.

Another route you should consider is phoning family and friends of the missing person to see if they know where he is, or if they knew of a more up to date last address. This should help you gather information at the very least, such as their Date of birth, SSN, other family members to call.

If none of that works I’d suggest hiring a professional people finder or private investigator. These services will search nationwide public records and specialist databases only they have access to. Often they will be able to search public records for a fraction of the cost if you do it yourself as they buy searches in bulk off of online vendors.

They also know which databases are best to search and when. They will also phone contacts they develop and communicate effectively with government departments and companies if needed to find your missing person.

Find Missing Person - Tip 1
Try to find out the names of their family and friends from the people you already have in common. This can greatly aid any investigator in finding missing persons.

Find Missing Person - Tip 2
If the missing person is under 18 you're going to have a lot of trouble finding them using databases as they usually won't be on any. Investigators also won't try to find them as it could be illegal. Notable exceptions are runaway kids. For divorce cases you could always try and find the mother/father that's with them.

Find Missing Person - Tip 3
Before you go off knocking on doors and searching through public records yourself you must consider the legal consequences. You could break any number of laws you're no aware of to do with divulging people's personal information, data protection, invasion of privacy, cause people distress if you approach them incorrectly, cause their marriage to break up (if you send them a letter asking for information about your birth mum and the partner gets it and is convinced that his is actually your mother although she really isn't).

Public records and investigative skills are great - if you know how to use them and can follow the laws involved with tact. If in doubt hire a professional!

Find Missing Person - Tip 4
Be cautious when buying these "DIY find missing persons" software programs on the Internet. Most of them are just a collection of links to public record sites or other websites where you have to pay to do the most basic of searches. You can discover these sites yourself using Google, MSN or Yahoo! search engines. They're basically made by Internet marketers who use hype and nice sounding words to convince you to buy them, and most are a waste of time and money.

Find Missing Person - Tip 5
If your missing person has moved home, but you suspect they still stay in the same town it may be worth popping into their "regular bars" every now and again. Even though they've moved home they'll still keep their regular habits, so visit bars and clubs they usually go out to, find them. If you visit their work it'll seem a bit too aggressive, but "bumping" into them at their local bar or gym seems more natural.

Find Missing Person - Tip 6
If you hire a private investigator to find your missing person, and the search is unsuccessfull, ask them to try and find the missing person's parents or siblings. Hopefully you'll be able to get back in contact with your missing person through the family. If you have any details on the family pass them onto your investigator and they'll probably try and find the family for no additional charge (Trace People UK, USA, Canada are one investigation agency that do this). Sometimes information about the family will come up as part of the search for the missing person anyway, but any info you can provide is useful.

Find Missing Person - Tip 7
Be patient. Public records and other databases private investigators have access to are not full proof, at any one time at least 15% of the population won't have their current address listed. That said, if you're patient enough and check every 6 months for 2-3 years you're bound to find them eventually!

Find Missing Person - Tip 8
Avoid all the scammers out there who will want to take advantage of your need to find this missing person. The ebooks and "super special 007 spy people finder" software packages you'll see advertised are little more than links to public record sites. Just save your money and hire a professional. If you make a mistake doing a DIY investigation it could mean a hefty fine and prison time for breaking information laws in your country, “that you probably don't even know exist.”

Reference: findmissingperson.net

(PeopleSearches.com) and (USPublicRecords.com) and (PeopleSearchers.com) and (USPRS.com)

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The Basics of People Searches

PeopleSearches.com

Gone are the days when you have to hire a private investigator in order to find a missing relative or leafing through your rusty and old High school and College yearbooks in order to look for the contact number of a friend that you have not seen for quite some time.

Now, with the advent of technology and the creation of really sophisticated programs and software, searching people has gone beyond the manual. Now everything is electronic.

With just a few clicks, you can already look for the person that you want to find.

If you think that only the famous get to appear in search engines, you are mistaken. If a person has published information in the internet, search engines will be able to find them. There are actually a lot of ways to find someone in the Internet. There are even sites that are devoted to searching for people.

Some even focus on specific locations, professions and fields. What is also good with searching for people now, you do not only search for them in a limited area. You can search all over the world. Some sites even give the control to you, on what locations you can search the person for.

One thing good about searching people in the internet is the fact that all these services are done for free. Remember that before you get encouraged to avail of searches that charge big bucks. If you can, do the search first on your own. Go to websites that offer free services. Try to search for the person that you are looking for. If you have managed to look for him or her, that's good. If not, then you can try the option of paying for professional people searcher to do it.

This is of course if the person that you are looking for want to be found. While it is easy to find people in the internet, it cannot produce results for a person who have literally erased his or her tracks in the internet. As mentioned before, search engines rely on published information in the internet. This can be found in blogs, social networking sites' profiles, memberships in online communities, comments in forums and even questions that the person has posted in the internet. If there are none of these, the search will be more difficult to do.

Still, you have a lot of options to choose from when it comes to searching for people so don’t be discouraged. Here are some of the ways that you can track people down using the internet.

1. General search engines

Try to type the name and the location of the person in search engines like Yahoo and Google. Chances are, they might come up with some results. After all, these two giant sites have really great web listings and millions of sites in their directories. What is also good with these sites is the fact that you can search the entire world for the name of the person.

2. Social Networking sites

Another way to look for a person is through the use of a social networking site. A social networking site allows people to create a network of people under him and search for people within the network of the site. Examples of these sites are Friendster, Myspace, and Multiply. In addition to the name, these sites also allow users to type in keywords that will optimize the search such as the age, location, school, company and even interests.

3. Specific Sites

There are also sites that cater to people who are really serious in looking for people. These sites are primarily created for the purpose of helping people look for people. One example of this is the Pretrieve. Pretrieve is a free public records search engine that allows people to look for contact numbers and addresses.

Another good site is the lostfriends.org, which helps people find their missing relatives or their old classmates. If you want to trace your family genealogy, you should try the familyonline.

There are even websites that help people find various professionals. One such is the doctorfinder, which enables people to look for a doctor among thousands of physicians that are registered. The same goes with the militarysearch.

People Searches Factoid:

Try to type the name and the location of the person in search engines like Yahoo and Google. Chances are, they might come up with some results. After all, these two giant sites have really great web listings and millions of sites in their directories. What is also good with these sites is the fact that you can search the entire world for the name of the person.

Another way to look for a person is through the use of a social networking site. A social networking site allows people to create a network of people under him and search for people within the network of the site. Examples of these sites are Friendster, Myspace, and Multiply. In addition to the name, these sites also allow users to type in keywords that will optimize the search such as the age, location, school, company and even interests.

Reference: PeopleSearches.com

(USPublicRecords.com) and (BackgroundCheckDirectory) and (PeopleSearchers.com) and (USPRS.com)

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Accessing Secret Service Records through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) establishes a presumption that records in the possession of agencies and departments of the Executive Branch of the U.S. Government are accessible to the people.

The FOIA sets standards for determining which records must be disclosed and which records may be withheld. The FOIA also provides administrative and judicial remedies for those denied access to records. Above all, the FOIA requires federal agencies to provide the fullest possible disclosure of information to the public.

While the FOIA supports disclosure of federal agency records, the law recognizes the legitimate need to restrict disclosure of some information. The FOIA does not grant an absolute right to examine government documents; the FOIA establishes the right to request records and to receive a response to the request.

If a record cannot be released, the requestor is entitled to be told the reason for the denial. The requestor also has a right to appeal the denial and, if necessary, to challenge it in court.

There are limitations on FOIA requests. The FOIA provides that a requestor may ask for records rather than information. This means that an agency is only required to look for an existing record or documents in response to a FOIA request.

An agency is neither required to collect information it does not have, nor must an agency do research or analyze data for a requestor. Requestors must ask for existing records. The other limitation is that the law requires that each request must reasonably describe the record being sought.

The request must be specific enough to permit a professional employee of the agency who is familiar with the subject matter to locate the record in a reasonable period of time.

It is to everyone's advantage if requests are as precise and as narrow as possible. The requestor benefits because the request can be processed faster and cheaper. The agency benefits because it can better respond to the request.

The agency also will be able to use its resources to respond to more requests. The FOIA works best when both the requestor and the agency act cooperatively.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT (FOIA)
Reference: secretservice.gov/foia

(SecretServiceLogs.com) and (SecretServiceRecords.com) and (USPRS.com)