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Archive for the ‘Public Records’ Category

Check Arrest Warrants Free

September 13th, 2009

If you’ve had a bit of a tangle with the law, and aren’t sure what to do, try checking the web first. A standard that is quickly growing in popularity among the web sites for law enforcement is the inclusion of a simple searchable database of warrants currently out. This lets you quickly see if there’s a warrant out on yourself or not, and from there you can figure out what to do. But this useful feature may not be available, so what next in that case?

Well, if you missed a court date, you’ll get a bench warrant issued on you. It’s important to differentiate these from criminal warrants, which are given out only when law enforcement feels it likely that the person in question is a full blown criminal. Warrants are issued by the government on a federal, state-based, or even country-based level, so you’ll want to deduce what level your potential warrant is likely to be on to find it.

Warrants that are classified as bench are a matter of public record, and as such can be tracked down through the relevant court clerical employee. If you do have a warrant, you should write down the case number involved. By contrast, criminal warrants are often kept private so the criminal in question can’t run off quite so easily.

The clerks can sometimes be picky about how they give out warrant information to. Some of them will require that you show your identification to the police and have an officer acquire the warrant information instead of you getting it directly. Of course, if you do have a warrant out, you could very well be arrested right then and there! So be prepared for the off chance of it, even if you don’t think you’ve broken the law.

There are also background checking services, mostly online, that can be made use of. They require money upfront, however, for the service. If you do go this route, try not to get ripped off. You’ll want the ability to do your searches without a strict limit on their quantity, as well as access to all the places you have reason to look in on. Like any other business, you need to look into what’s offered for the price and compare with the competition. Also, it’s important to remember that these services aren’t the eye of God. They can miss things, and they have no way of finding warrants that aren’t made available to the public in the first place.

If you’re sure you have a warrant, and you understand the implications, you should go straight to the police and try to work through it as quickly as possible. Don’t try to be a fugitive or hide from it, that just makes you look guilty! If you walk right in, possibly with a lawyer to help out, the police and the courts are far less likely to judge you harshly.

And even when it comes to warrants that seem inexplicable or confusing, involving things that you don’t understand, it’s still best to face up to it quickly. The impression you make is important and could sway a crucial opinion in court, which could help a great deal if you’re struggling with a stolen identity or similar issues.

Sufficiently low revenue will make it practical for you to contact the local public defender for help. The legal aid society can also be very useful in the case of things like relatively harmless bench warrants. They should both be glad to help you figure out what to do with minimum impact on your thin wallet.

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Access to free death records provides information, peace of mind

September 3rd, 2009

The Internet is full of sources for vital records, including free death records. The reasons for accessing these records are equally numerous. Death records can provide insight into family history when studying genealogy. They can also be useful for issues of inheritance. In many cases, however, only the most basic information is available to those who have not paid a fee.

Free services will typically provide such information as the decedent’s full name, date of death and birth, and social security number. If more specific information is needed, a paid report may have to be purchased. With this costlier and more exhaustive report, information gatherers can find out such details as time and place of death, as well as the official cause of death. Although the simplest way to obtain this information is typically to pay for it, there are other options available to help you get free death records if you have the time and determination to do the work yourself.

Government agencies in the district in which the decedent passed away will also have detailed information about his or her death. The cost of accessing these records is typically nonexistent or negligible. However, there are a few drawbacks to free death records provided by government agencies. First of all, the person seeking the information must know where the decedent passed away, or they will be unable to contact the correct local agency. Also, information accessed in this way may be more difficult to understand that that which has been prepared by a service.

When considering utilizing an online service to search for free death records, it is important to keep in mind that free services sometimes come with strings attached. The website may offer a free report, but only if the user participates in some other offer that costs money. Alternatively, the free report may be obtained through a “preview” of the site’s services, requiring the user to enter billing information and then remember to cancel the service before the free trial expires.

There are any number of websites, services, and government agencies that provide free death records. But as in most areas of life, convenience often comes at a premium. It is up to the information seeker to decide how much money they are willing to spend versus how much time they are willing to devote to the search. Whatever method one uses, death statistics are out there waiting to be uncovered.

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Background Check Software

March 9th, 2009

I admit it. Constantly digging for information on the Internet can be tedious and time consuming. Even experienced searchers can get bogged down in the repetitive nature of their searches and lose their focus. That’s why many of us use background check software to help “mine for gold” so to speak.

There are many different services and software packages available that allow anyone to perform their own background checks. Many casual users will be hesitant to use these tools and instead opt for the “free” method of searching. But is it really free? I can guarantee that any free background check will take a lot more time and effort than using background check software or services.

What’s your time worth? That’s what it all boils down to isn’t it? If you factor in the time it takes to do all the manual searching necessary for your own background checks that 30 bucks you could have spent on an instant background report suddenly looks cheap!

Granted not everyone is willing to plunk down 30+ dollars to find out basic information about someone but what if the safety of your family or business depended on the timeliness and accuracy of the background check? Thirty bucks doesn’t seem like such a steep price to pay anymore does it?

For those interested in background check software or services, here’s 3 of the most popular:

  1. Instant Background Report
  2. Public Records Pro
  3. Net Detective

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Background Check Companies – Choosing The Best One

March 7th, 2009

Finding background check companies that meet your needs may not be as simple as you might imagine. Whether you’re checking out your latest online boyfriend to find out if they have a criminal background or a potential employee for a job you have available you can’t afford to take chances.

A quick Internet search will turn up a ton listings for background checks. Some are free and others are pay services but which one is the right match for you? Many people will want to take the free route but remember: “you get what you pay for”. Sure there are many perfectly legitimate background check companies that offer free resources to help with background checks but at some point you’re probably going to pay something to get the really juicy information.

Ideally you should find a company that can do both national and state searches. If you’re doing a background check on someone then you probably don’t have enough background information about them to narrow down your search to one particular area. Heck the information you do have could be bogus, who knows? So you definitely should make sure you can do both state and national searches.

Many of the online companies will offer services which will return immediate results. That’s great but what if you can’t find what your looking for using their service? Most of the online background check services will offer a refund if no results are returned. Be sure to read the fine print before ordering a background report. You don’t want to get stuck paying for something that doesn’t produce results.

Finally, try to find background check companies that will let you do more than just one background check. There are plenty of them out there that charge by the month, year, or lifetime. Be sure to take full advantage of the service you choose.

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People Search By Address

March 2nd, 2009

Have you ever known an address but not the people that live there? You never see them out and about but you’re curious to know more about them. If you have small children it may even be in your best interest to find out all you can about your neighbors. You never can be too careful about the people around you. A people search by address may be able to help you find out a little more about them.

I’ve been living in the same house now for about three years. I have a neighbor that lives right beside me but the only time I see them is when they’re coming or going from work or when the man of the house is outside mowing the lawn. If the woman that lives there ever locked herself out of the house and came by to use the phone I wouldn’t even know what she looked like!

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t suspect them of doing anything wrong but it just seems strange that the woman of the house is only seen when pulling in or out of the garage to go somewhere. I admit that I’m not a social butterfly but I do at least leave the house once in a while and/or speak and wave to all the other neighbors around me.

A people search by address may be an option to find out some basic information about people that may be living at a certain address. There are a number of websites that offer this type of service. A couple of the bigger ones are whitepages.com and addresses.com. Each of these websites should return enough information about the people living at certain address to allow you to check for some of the more nefarious actions they may be involved in such as sex offenders or possible criminal activity.

Here are some tips to help you better perform a people search by address.

  • Be sure you spell the address correctly
  • If you don’t know whether it’s a street, road, etc… then just leave that part off
  • A full street address will give the most accurate results but partial addresses are ok too
  • If their telephone number is unlisted there may not be any results returned
  • Brand new addresses may not be in the “system” yet

While not the most complicated of searches, a people search by address can help provide some enlightening information about a person when used with other types of background checks or public record searches.

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Free Public Record Searches

February 22nd, 2009

One of the most asked questions we get from people wanting to do their own background checks is “Where/how do you find websites that offer public records?”. Free public record searches are possible by almost anyone these days. All it takes is a decent Internet connection and the ability to use search engines like Google or Yahoo correctly.

Most people are familiar with the basic techniques when using search engines:

  1. goto said search engine
  2. type in your search phrase
  3. hope that what you’re looking for pops up in the results

Usually the basic method of searching will provide reasonable results when searching for most things but when doing free public record searches it can often be difficult to locate websites that can be helpful. Most are government type websites that aren’t built properly for search engine rankings so they’re buried deep in the results if you can find them at all.

Using the “advanced search” features of the search engines can often help filter out all of the crap and display more helpful results. For instance, did you know that when using Google you can filter the search results to only include websites that end with “.com”(or any other extension for that matter)?

I’ve found that when doing free public record searches this can be the difference between finding the information you’re looking for and just giving up all together. Let’s look at an example using Google.

Suppose you wanted to look for “marriage records” in Tennessee. Most people would goto Google and type in marriage records Tennessee. If you’re lucky you may find what you’re looking for with that but most likely you’ll get a bunch of commercial sites offering the records for a fee.

To help narrow down your search and weed out most of the commercial websites you could append site: -.com to the same search phrase and probably get more accurate results. So instead of searching for:

marriage records Tennessee

search for

marriage license Tennessee site: -.com
or
“marriage license Tennessee” site: -.com

Keep in mind that each and every search will be different. You’ll just have to look at the results returned and decide for yourself what to do. Also, each search engine is going to be different when it comes to their advanced search features. You’ll need to use the appropriate commands for each search engine.

Using these techniques will help you get better results on your free public record searches. To make it even easier I’ve created a program called Public Record Website Locator that does all of this for me so I don’t have to type everything in each time. You can download and use it for free if you want to try it

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