BeenVerified Review

The first thing that pops to mind when someone mentions doing a background check is probably an old black and white detective movie where the guy wearing a trench coat spends hours in his car taking a bunch of pictures with his giant camera.

Luckily, things are much easier these days. Thanks to companies like BeenVerified, virtually everyone can afford to do a background check on almost anyone without having to sit in front of their home or pay someone to follow them around.

Collecting public information, BeenVerified lets its clients access the data to connect with, search for or discover more about the people they are interested in. With over 10 years in the business and more than 20 million users per month, BeenVerified seems like your go-to company for everything related to background checks. To confirm if all of this is true, keep reading this honest BeenVerified review.

What Is BeenVerified?

BeenVerified is a company that provides services to people looking to find, connect with or check a person who is of interest to them. It started back in 2007 intending to provide an easy and affordable way for its users to access all public data in one place. Today, it has over 100,000 subscribers and more than 20 million visitors per month. Moreover, it is in the top 400 most visited sites in the US and has had 50,000,000+ all-time searches.

At BeenVerified, you get to search a person by name, phone numbers, email addresses or property addresses and your reports consist of names and aliases, relatives and associates, address histories, property reports, phone numbers, criminal records, convictions, and other info.

At the moment, the service offers 2 affordable subscription options, and there are frequent special offers that allow you to save cash. With a subscription plan, you can perform an unlimited number of searches and you never have to pay for any additional reports. Unfortunately, there is no option to get just one report subscription-free.

For those interested in expanding the scope of their search beyond what is provided within the standard services, BeenVerified introduced a comprehensive report upgrade that used to come with an additional fee. Due to recent changes, you can now get extra information on a person of interest at no extra charge.

BeenVerified co-founders Joshua Levy and Ross Cohen realized the importance of making background check services available on multiple devices so now you can download BeenVerified apps for phones, iPads, Apple watches or Android devices free of charge and receive your information on the go.

Unlike many other background check sites, BeenVerified has a live customer support service ready to answer any of the questions you might have any time between 8am-9pm on working days and 12pm-8pm during the weekends.

Is BeenVerified Legit?

Unlike many other background check services, BeenVerified is 100% legit. We tested the service in order to confirm its legitimacy and were pleasantly surprised with the results. Here is what we found out.

For the purpose of our test, we performed 3 searches. One was a failure while the other two were successful.

Our first attempt included Mel Gibson, a famous actor known for having legal issues. We entered his name into the search bar and had a couple of more options to narrow down the search, like stating his state and city of residence and approximate age.

After receiving the results, BeenVerified marked several hits as potential matches. However, based on the information we had by doing a Google search, nothing seemed to overlap. We tried to narrow the search down even more by entering his middle or legal name and past or present location but still ended up with nothing. Since there is no reliable information about Gibson’s social media accounts, email addresses or places of residence, there was nothing more to do.

However, we did not give up. We then decided to search for our colleague. After doing the same as we did for Mel Gibson, we managed to land a couple of possible hits, one of which turned out to be the right one. Unfortunately, not every piece of information seemed to be correct. While his age was not correct, other information was accurate, including employment history, residence history, assets, some of his social network profiles, and a traffic report for a speeding ticket. There was also an option for free bonus data and related reports. Through bonus data, we were able to find out that our colleague owns a fishing permit and that he has business affiliations with several companies. Related reports gave us more information about his wife and other relatives.

Satisfied with the second search, we decided to try another random celebrity again. This time, we searched for the actor Josh Hartnett and hit the jackpot. As far as we can conclude, every piece of information seemed correct, including his full name, date of birth, relatives, social media profiles, and assets. There were also 5 results for digital court data, a couple of misdemeanors for expired registrations, one dismissed status for no proof of insurance, and one guilty verdict for a court offense known as 94/70. Under related reports, we found more information about a property owned by the actor. Attached was the list of known sex offenders living in the area.

We can conclude that BeenVerified is indeed legit – although the information it provides may not always be 100% correct.

What Is BeenVerified Used For?

Like we said at the beginning of this BeenVerified review, the main goal of the company is to help people gain access to public information in an easy and organized manner. You can use BeenVerified for the following:

People Search

With people search, you have access to a large number of data including aliases or other names, marital status, current and former addresses and phone numbers, birthdate, family members or roommates, arrest history, conviction record, business associations, work history, professional or business licenses, property records, tax records, litigation history, driving records, sex offender registration, political party affiliation, and more. People search is ideal for private use in case you want to reconnect with an old friend or a family member, check up on a former lover or find out more about a future one.

The people search report is divided into 7 parts:

1. Overview – Basic info like full name, birth month/year, age, current address, contact info, phone numbers, email addresses, and address history, which will help you determine if you have the right match.
2. Known Associates – Another thing that can help you narrow down the search is the list of known relatives.
3. Criminal & Civil – Information about arrests, civil and criminal records, and court proceedings.
4. Bankruptcies – Information regarding filing records, dates, and creditors.
5. Professional – Information about a person’s education and history of employment.
6. Social Media & Website – Social media profiles, blogs, and websites.
7. Premium data – Enables you to find out information about spoken languages, place of birth, judgments or liens, possible hobbies, obtained licenses, and more.

As you can see, this report covers a lot of information that would take you days to sort out by yourself. Basically, BeenVerified does all the heavy lifting for you, making sure you are presented with the most accurate and up-to-date information. However, handling that much data always leaves room for error.

Reverse Phone Lookup

Reverse phone lookup helps with tracking down unknown numbers. You might be able to uncover from where the call originates and the owner’s age, email, and social media profiles. It works with mobile and landlines even if the number is not registered yet. The way reverse phone lookup works is by searching billions of public data for information related to that particular number. If successful, you may be able to find out:

• First, last names or other aliases
• Age
• Current address and address history
• Email addresses
• Social media profiles
• Associated phone numbers
• Possible relatives

There are several reasons why you should do a reverse phone lookup, including checking up on someone you have just met, reconnecting with old friends, looking for possible business opportunities or in case you have noticed an unknown number in your partner’s phone. One other very important reason is to protect yourself from telemarketing scams.

Reverse Email Lookup

Reverse email lookup lets you find out as much as possible about the owner of an unknown email address. You may find out their name, age, photos, phone numbers, and social media profiles, as well as professional and educational history. Reverse email lookup is perfect for locating friends, family, colleagues, new business contacts or romantic interests.

Reverse Address Lookup

There are many reasons to do a reverse address lookup, such as finding out more about the property you are interested in, checking up on your neighbors, finding out the real value of the house you want to buy or going through its sales history.

To do a reverse address lookup, all you need to do is type the address into the search bar and select it from the drop-down menu. The information you might find out in this report includes:

• Current owner’s name and contact info (email addresses, social media profiles, address history, and potential relatives)
• Names and personal data of possible residents
• Property details like square footage, room number, legal description, lot size, and built year
• Home value, sales reports, mortgage data, and property tax assessments
• Information about the neighborhood like census figures about population, demographics and average income, and the location of registered sex offenders nearby

Property Search

You can perform a property search to find out details about the property you are interested in. You can narrow down your search by typing in the state and the city. The information you may discover includes homeowner names and contact information, phone numbers, email addresses, current and previous residents, deed information, property values, and more.

Public Records

Public records are factual information that is available to the general public, including easily available information like phone numbers and information that is not so easily available and requires an open-records request. Even though public records are a part of government records, not all government records are public. Some laws regulate which information can be made public as well as how to store and distribute said information. The government holds public records on people, businesses, and corporate and governmental entities.

Personal or individual public record consists of name, known aliases or other names, marital status, current and former addresses and phone numbers, birth date and age, family members or cohabitants, arrest history, conviction history, association with business, work history, professional or business licenses, property records, tax records, litigation history, driver records, sex offender registration, and even political party affiliation.

Criminal Records

Criminal records contain someone’s criminal history and provide information about convictions, charges that did not result in convictions, and arrests that did not end up as charges. In most cases, these records only hold information about adults while juvenile records are almost always sealed.

In most cases, criminal records are available publicly; however, often enough, you cannot find someone’s entire criminal history. This usually happens because a person’s criminal record is tied to the jurisdiction where they lived. Basically, if they have another record in a different jurisdiction, there is a chance that all those records may not end up complete.

Even though some states keep statewide criminal records on an individual, you may not be able to gain access to their database or you might end up having too many costs. Other states, on the other hand, give easy access to all their records online.

If you want to have someone’s complete criminal history, you have to know all the places they lived in. Considering all of the above, the best and easiest way to uncover someone’s full criminal and civil history is through BeenVerified’s background report.

Arrest Records

Arrest records are publicly available and issued by law enforcement agencies after a person has been placed under arrest. The agency that apprehended and arrested the individual is determined depending on jurisdiction and the nature of the crime and is responsible for reporting the arrest. An arrest has been made only when a person is taken into custody. Depending on the agency, a person’s arrest records may also contain additional information like if the person was questioned, detained, investigated, charged with a crime, indicted or facing trial. If you use BeenVerified for obtaining someone’s criminal records, you can also see their age, address, court records, and other noteworthy details.

Background Checks

BeenVerified uses public records when performing its background checks. By using BeenVerified, you can try to confirm if the person you are checking up is who they claim to be. The information you can uncover includes current address and phone number, prior addresses, email addresses, and any other people or family members with whom that person has shared the address with. Now, you can even find out any known social media profiles and criminal history records. Performing a background check usually takes only a few minutes but may take longer, depending on how detailed you want your background check to be or how present that person is on the web.

Unclaimed Money Search

With BeenVerified, you can run a free search and find out if some of the 40 billion dollars of unclaimed money held by the government belong to you or someone you know.

Neighborhood Watch Search

BeenVerified allows you to search for sex offenders in your neighborhood. Just enter an address and get a list of known sex offenders in a 5-mile radius from the address you typed in.

Dark Web Scan

You can search your email address for information of your presence on the dark web. The dark web is a special place on the Internet connected with criminal activity. In case your email address does pop up on the dark web, your identity is likely to be stolen and used for illegal activities.

Limitations

It is important to note that BeenVerified is not a Consumer Reporting Agency or CRA, which means there are certain restrictions on how you can use the obtained information. You cannot use any data provided by BeenVerified for:

• Employment screening
• Hiring household workers
• Tenant screening
• Educational qualification
• Credit or insurance
• Business transactions initiated by an individual customer

How Accurate Is BeenVerified?

As we mentioned earlier in this BeenVerified review, the information found in the reports is not always completely correct. However, there are ways to increase your chances of success.

If you do not get an exact match by name, you can try out other options like phone search, property search, email search or social media search. One of these options will produce results that will allow you to continue searching.

Thanks to the related reports feature, you can compare data from the original report with the data related to your subject’s family members, associates or owned properties to make sure you found the right person.

Is BeenVerified Safe?

BeenVerified values your privacy and will not notify your search subjects about the nature of your search.

The company collects the following information:

• Information that you submit to BeenVerified – Email address, full name, company name, date of birth, password, mailing address, credit card information, and information related to a search subject like name, age or address.
• Information that is obtained automatically about your use of BeenVerified – Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. BeenVerified also uses cookies to collect all non-personally-identifiable data of your use of the site. If you download the BeenVerified Background Check App, BeenVerified may also save your mobile phone’s unique identification number, but it will not keep track of your geolocation.
• Information about the subject of your search.

After submitting a request through BeenVerified, the site will collect your email address to provide you with its services, but the company will not under any circumstances sell your email unless they have your consent.

BeenVerified might share your information with third parties and affiliates who provide services like verifying your credit card account, sending out emails, processing data, and advertising products. Your credit card information will not be shared with any third parties without your consent.

BeenVerified will share your information with trusted third-party companies to confirm information relevant to certain search subjects. The said third-party companies are obliged not to disclose your personal information with anyone. They cannot store, save or share this information and may only use it to perform the required services. BeenVerified will never share your credit card number, financial account number, social security number, driver’s license number or credit score.

BeenVerified will disclose your information for any legal purposes and if requested by law. Your information will also be disclosed to protect the rights of BeenVerified as well as its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, joint ventures or third-party service providers.

You can request to change, update or delete any information submitted by you at any time. You can also request for BeenVerified to delete all and any information collected from your use of its site, but the company can save some of your info to act under its legal obligations.

Keep in mind that BeenVerified contains links leading to other websites and it does not take responsibility for the way those other sites handle the data they collect.

BeenVerified is very rigorous when it comes to children’s privacy. No person under the age of 18 is allowed to use this site and BeenVerified would never knowingly acquire or store any private information from an underage person.

How Much Does BeenVerified Cost?

BeenVerified offers two subscription plans. The 1-month membership costs $26.89 whereas the 3-month membership costs $17.48 per month, which amounts to $52.44 total. Both types of membership come with the following:

• UNLIMITED Background reports
• UNLIMITED Contact information
• UNLIMITED Phone lookups
• UNLIMITED Email lookups
• UNLIMITED Address lookups
• UNLIMITED Criminal records
• FASTER Searching in seconds
• FOUR Ways to search & discover

After your membership expires, you cannot review your generated reports.

As a BeenVerified member, you get the bonus Monitoring feature that sends you a notification anytime there has been an update or change in your reports. You can set up monitoring for 10 reports at once. An email will be sent to you every 30 days informing you of any changes to your 10 selected reports.

In case you are not satisfied with the services, you can ask for a full refund. Each case will be reviewed separately for a chance to offer you the best solution for your problem. If you still insist on getting a refund, it may take up to 10 days to get your money back depending on the bank. If BeenVerified receives a request for a refund from your bank, it reserves the right to freeze your account until the issue gets resolved. If you made a purchase through iTunes, you must ask Apple for a refund.

The available methods of payment include US-issued Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express cards as well as PayPal. In case you do not own a credit card or a PayPal account, you can pay through the iPhone app and get billed to your iTunes or Google Play account.

BeenVerified Pros & Cons