Whether you’re looking for someone new, checking out a potential employer or just trying to keep tabs on your friends and family, a background check is an important tool. It allows you to find out information about a person such as their name, address, phone number, criminal history, and more.
The best background check services offer a variety of different types of information, including education verification and credit records. They can also help you to find someone if you suspect they are cheating or abusing drugs and alcohol.
Intelius
Since 2003, Intelius has been a reliable and comprehensive background check provider. Their service allows you to access over 20 billion public records, and they maintain an A+ rating and BBB accreditation.
BeenVerified
Another well-established and highly recommended best background check company, BeenVerified has been providing a wide range of services for over a million subscribers since 2007. Their services include credit checks, vehicle searches, and court records.
First Advantage
As a background check provider, First Advantage has services available for the majority of countries and territories. The service provides identity verification, sex offender registry checks, criminal record checks, employment history, and social media profiles.
They also offer drug testing and fingerprint-based criminal background checks. The company’s basic check costs $25 and includes an identity verification, sex offender registry check, and a national criminal record search.
InfoTracer
Another top-rated background check website, InfoTracer is an online people search that can return results from county, state, and federal sources. It can also return criminal, arrest, and traffic records, but the site warns that this information may be out of date.
Spokeo
While Spokeo is primarily a people search website, it can also provide criminal and court records and can include results from phone number lookups. The site’s process is relatively simple, and its search time was surprisingly short for our tests.
The company offers unlimited searches for paid members and has a special court runner service that crawls through records that aren’t yet digitized. The website also lets you choose if you’d like to receive results in your email, text message, or in your phone.
TruthFinder
TruthFinder is a people search website that’s not FCRA-compliant, but it offers a fast and free way to find out information about a person. It sources data from county, state, and federal records and can return results that may include criminal, arrest, or traffic records.
However, it should be noted that the results may exclude pending cases and sealed and expunged records. Pricing for one or two-month subscriptions to the standard reports is less than $30; a phone number lookup plan costs less than $2.
Universal Background Screening
A leading background check and health screening company, Universal Background Screening has a range of services that are easy to use and designed to work at scale. Their platform is intuitive and can be integrated with popular HR third-party systems. They can also help with e-consent.
The company’s a great choice for employers because it is a global leader in hiring background checks and can eliminate guesswork and confusion during the screening process. Their packages vary in price and search depth, but they all come with a helpful Comments for Context feature that allows applicants to explain any questions they have about the background check.