BeenVerified review

BeenVerified search and background check reports can reveal important basic information, but little more.

BeenVerified review
(Image: © BeenVerified)

Top Ten Reviews Verdict

BeenVerified people search results are generally information-heavy and have some degree of accuracy, but the Premium Data that comes at an extra high cost is a waste of money.

Pros

  • +

    Easy searching

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    Broadly accurate results

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    Free PDF and report monitoring

Cons

  • -

    'Premium data' comes at an extra high cost

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    Relatively expensive

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    Bad customer service

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BeenVerified review

BeenVerified is a people search and consumer background check service that allows subscribers to look up any person residing the in United States. The reports generated can contain all kinds of information, from basic data like phone numbers and addresses, to harder-to-find data such as gun permits, or traffic and criminal records. BeenVerified does not differentiate between 'people search' results and 'background check' results. 

Due to the inherent nature of consumer people search or background check services like BeenVerified, it is important that subscribers take all information they find with a pinch of salt: it is highly likely that some, if not most, of the information you find will be outdated, inaccurate, missing or associated to the wrong individual. 

Due to this, the FCRA law determines that the information found in consumer people search and background check reports cannot be used for official purposes, such as tenant screening or job applicant screening. 

So, is BeenVerified legitimate?

Yes. BeenVerified is a legitimate service that keeps your search history confidential. However, whether or not you are willing to pay for a hit-or-miss service like it is entirely up to you. 

BeenVerified review: Sign up and cost

Signing up for BeenVerified is relatively easy if you choose the more direct way – this means clicking on the upper right button that prompts site visitors to sign up right away. We recommend this way, if you are sure that you want to sign up. BeenVerified's home page is a search bar in which you can test searching for a name. This is a waste of time: we spent several minutes waiting for results to load only to be prompted to pay for the report before actually accessing it. This means that you get virtually no information (other than a full name, age, and alleged current location of residence) despite having waited for results. 

Is BeenVerified free?

No. While you can sign up for BeenVerified without paying, you will not be able to access the contents of reports until you subscribe. 

Customers can choose to pay for a single month for $26.89, or sign up for a 3 month commitment for $52.44 ($17.48 per month), but this is only for limited access. Premium data costs nearly $15 per report. Remember that your subscription will be automatically renewed unless you choose to cancel. 

It is important to note that, depending on your banking services, your transaction may not be accepted as BeenVerified subscription is not recognized as a valid purchase in some instance. 

BeenVerified review: Advantages

Key features

Plans available: 1 month subscription, 3 month subscription
Cost: $26.89 for 1 month, $52.44 for 3 months. Additional costs for Premium data.  
Extras: Premium data: judgments, liens, licenses, permits, business affiliations, and more
Additional services: reverse phone search, email search, address search, social media search, unclaimed money search, dark web search, neighborhood watch, sex offender watch
App: Yes 

Searching

It's easy to perform a people search with BeenVerified, even if you have incomplete information. Input a first name and a last name, and refine your results by state of residence, the first letter of the person's middle name (if known) or age. You can even forgo a first or last name, if you're unsure of the spelling. We searched for a few people, and there were no profile duplicates. However, we would caution against being too specific in your search, as some public record information may not be registered for that person. We would also caution against searching for aliases or nicknames, as the results may be either skewed or non-existent. 

Website and free report PDFs

BeenVerified's report pages are easy to navigate, and information is easy to find within a report. In the event that you want to print out the information for your records, PDF versions of reports are available free of charge . 

Reports and information

BeenVerified's reports are broadly informative and somewhat accurate, although not always updated. In at least two cases, we found that email address were attributed to a person who denied that they ever had those addresses. Despite the hit-or-miss nature of a people search service, BeenVerified manages to also include some interesting, although not always necessary information in its reports such as name etymology. 

We found that it was a huge plus that criminal records were available with a basic subscription. Although information is sparse in this regard, this is still more information than some people search services are willing to provide with a basic subscription. 

Subscription model

BeenVerified uses our preferred payment model, a subscription. In reviewing people search sites and background check services, we preferred subscriptions to single report payments, simply because of the risk that the report that you intend to purchase may not be the one you're looking for. BeenVerified offers unlimited searches for a single monthly price, which means that you can see the information from more than one report. This comes in handy in several cases, such as when you're performing a people search using someone who has a very common name or when you're unsure of the basic details of the person you're searching for. 

Additional services

BeenVerified has a wealth of other search functions that can enable you to cross-reference any information you find in a people search report or a background check report. This means that you can search for a phone number, address, or email address to to to whom that information belongs. You are also encouraged to monitor your own report to keep your reputation intact, as well as find out more about sex offenders in your area. 

Beenverified review

(Image credit: BeenVerified)

BeenVerified review: Disadvantages

Reports and information 

Due to the nature of consumer people search sites and consumer background check sites, it's important to note that some allowance must be made for error. Information is often missing, inaccurate, old, or simply attributed to the wrong individual. That being said, even with some inaccuracies, BeenVerified outperformed most other people search sites like US Search in terms of basic information. For most of our test subjects, addresses, phone numbers, names, and ages were up-to-date to a certain degree. Even a list of associates and relatives proved to be mostly accurate. 

However, we found that when it came down to wealth, work history, and other information related to a background check, the information was not accurate. Wealth data, assets, and work history are the least accurate in our test subjects' reports. 

Cost

We were dismayed by the monthly cost of a BeenVerified subscription. For a service that cannot guarantee satisfaction, and despite the ability to perform unlimited searches, the cost of over $25 is simply too high. Even for customers who are monitoring their own online reputations, there are more official services that perform the same task with more certainty. 

We also cannot recommend this service due to the additional cost of so-called 'Premium Data', which includes UCC filing, DEA licenses, weapons permits, business affiliations, and more. For the test subjects we decided were the most likely to have any of these in the public record, we were disappointed to see each Premium Data purchase yielded nothing. That means that you are likely to spend an additional $15 for no additional data. Though this does not mean that customers will have an identical experience, we think that spending an additional $15 per report is not justified. 

Customer service

Many customer report very poor customer service for BeenVerified, and many report double billing without the option of receiving a refund. While we accounted for customer error in our review, many who attempted to cancel their accounts report that customer service was of little help. 

BeenVerified review: Customer experience and service

Folks performing a people search online by typing in a name into Google aren't necessarily aware that the first results that appear are links to people search sites like BeenVerified. After clicking one of those links, those potential customers are often then led down a funnel where, for nearly ten minutes, they are led to believe that the service is "searching" or "scanning the internet" for their query. 

This is not what is happening. 

In BeenVerified's case, the near-ten minute funnel that claims to be refining results based on your search is actually a marketing ploy and, frankly, a waste of your time. Most people realize that this is happening after they are prompted to click on a link to their report only to be automatically redirected to payment page. Many potential customers have been so outraged by this waste of time that they have left negative reviews for BeenVerified, and somewhat justifiably: this funnel is a trick to persuade site visitors to spend their money on a subscription. This makes for a very divisive customer experience – we sided with the folks who were outraged by the funnel (as opposed to others who bought into it). The funnel is also riddled with inflammatory language, warning that the information that users may find can be graphic or shocking. While this can be true, it is not for the vast majority of cases. We found that our opinion of the service was negatively affected by such a blatant attempt to fool customers. 

If you are a BeenVerified subscriber, you have access to customer service by phone from 6am to 11:30pm. Or, you can send an email to customer support. 

BeenVerified: User reviews

Despite alleged customer service availability, customers seem to be very unsatisfied with customer service. Although BeenVerified is clear that it handles refund requests on a case-to-case basis, customers report reluctance to offer any kind of assistance in cancelling subscriptions or deactivating accounts. Some even report being charged for the service years after they closed their accounts. To date, there have been 272 user complaints made to the Better Business Bureau, earning BeenVerified a B-. We were willing to accept that the number of complaints would be higher for this company given the nature of the business, but user complaints seem to be about billing issues more than anything else. 

Should you choose BeenVerified?

While BeenVerified has a wealth of data that tends to be more accurate than the information provided by other data brokers or people search sites, we found that the blatant attempts to fool customers and sketchy billing practices took away from the experience of using BeenVerified. Ultimately, basic information was more or less accurate (with a few exceptions), but this information can be found in ways that don't require you to pay nearly $25 a month for. Finally, the frankly terrible customer service and the difficulty associated to cancelling your account don't compel us to give BeenVerified a grade above a relatively respectable 3.5 stars. 

Useful information

How to remove your information from BeenVerified

Removing your information from BeenVerified should be relatively straightforward, but the information is hard to find. As a data broker, it hurts the company when people request to opt out of the service, but many are understandably scared that so much information about them is available online, despite the fact this the data can be found elsewhere and is already publicly available. 

If you wish to opt out of BeenVerified, or in order words, remove your information from the service, you can search the site's FAQ page. You will be prompted to search for yourself, then confirm your email address. The process should take about 24 hours, but some users report that their request was never addressed. 

It's important to note that, even if you opt out, there is no guarantee that your information won't reappear on the site at a later time. 

How to cancel a BeenVerified subscription

Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to cancel your BeenVerified subscription - a method surely meant to discourage users from attempting to cancel. Under Customer support, click on BeenVerified's Data & Public Records and find the link named  subscription cancellation. You would have to contact customer support in some way, whether through a form, by email, or by calling customer service. Because the process is not automated, prompt cancellation is not guaranteed, so we recommend attempting to cancel well before the next billing date. In fact, this is a pain point that many users expressed in their individual assessments of BeenVerified.

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