Private Eye Reviewer's Comments

PrivateEye.com offers quite a few different quick search options and the service is tremendously easy to use. However, please note that this site seems amazingly similar to People Finder. We could not find any differences other than the look of the home page, for example on their help page, it even reads "People Finder Membership." Nevertheless, we cannot prove that they are hosted by the same organization. The reviews for People Finder and Private Eye are about the same, due to their similarities. Their overall scores tie with Backgroundchecks.com

Ease of Use:  

Private Eye provides an easy to navigate service site, simply click on the menu item that you want to use and then follow the instructions. When the search is complete, it will offer a list of reports that you can purchase.

Searches Available:  

They offer a 30-day membership for $39.95 or a 24-hr membership for $14.95. You can also purchase investigator assisted reports. One good feature available is a sample report so you can get an idea of what a report will look like should you choose to purchase one.

Private Eye services include:

• Comprehensive Background Reports ($39.95) - Comprehensive background reports are generated by searching through 10 billion public records from many sources. The resulting reports may include the following information: age, current address, up to 20 year address history, phone numbers, bankruptcies, tax liens, judgments, property ownership, relatives, roommates, aliases, maiden names, neighbors, marriages, divorces, DEA registrants, and website ownership. You can add a national criminal check to this report for $10.
• People Finder Report ($9.95/ea) - Searches through information from the following databases: People, Real Property, Death, Divorce and Marriage.

Searches Available:

• People/Background ($9.95/ea) - Explores 10 databases, including some proprietary databases, with access to 2,268,819,679 records. Results may offer information regarding real property records, voters' registration, current and historical phone records, magazine subscriptions, change of address or drivers license data.
• Criminal ($19.95 State, $44.95 National) - Offers criminal background information from the Department of Corrections (DOC), the Administration Office of the Courts (AOC), and the Department of Public Safety (DPS). This report may include misdemeanors, felonies, arrest warrants, sexual offenses, physical description, age and gender. Unfortunately, you cannot see if any reports are available without paying first.
• Bankruptcies & Liens ($9.95/ea) - This report includes: Bankruptcy filings, federal and state tax liens, and civil judgments for businesses and individuals by name or address. Results may include name, address, liability amount, status and more. We question how up to date this search is, because we typed in the names of several people that have filed for bankruptcy protection within the last 5 years and got a "No Matches Found" message for these people.
• Property ($9.95/ea) - You can search real property records in 42 states to get information such as ownership, site address, owner's address, phone number, value, date last sold, and the assessor's parcel number. Again, we question the accuracy of some of these databases, we conducted searches using known property owners names and came up with no matches.
• Marriage ($ 9.95/ea) - Here you can search marriage records for California (1960-1985), Colorado (1975-2000), Florida (1970-1999), Kentucky (1973-1999), Maine (1892-1996), Nevada (1968-2000), Texas (1968-1998) and Utah (1800-1999). These reports may include bride and groom's name, bride and groom's age at time of marriage, county/state and filling number.
• Death ($ 9.95/ea) - Searches the Social Security Administration Death Master File for records of deceased people who possessed social security numbers and whose death has been reported to the Social Security Administration. Results may include name, date of birth, date of death, and last place of residence. However, this search does not include a death certificate.
• Divorce ($ 9.95/ea) - Searches divorce records for Colorado (1975-2000), Florida (1970-1999), Nevada (1968-2000) and Texas (1968-1998). Information contained in this report may include petitioner, respondent, file number, divorce date and county/state.
• Public Fillings ($9.95/ea)
• Unclaimed Property Records ($9.95/ea)

Report Information:  

The reports seem to contain the basic information we were looking for, however we question the accuracy of the reports. We entered two names of people that filed for bankruptcy, one filed in 2000 and the other 2003, and Private Eye did not report this information. One staff member has owned a home for over 15 years and this information did not show up on the reports. We wonder how valid and up to date the searches are or whether they can access information from all areas of the country.

Help/Support:  

Private Eye offers a FAQs page; if you still need help, you can email them directly with your questions.

Summary:  

As noted before this site and People Finder appear to be the same and offer the same services. Their searches are quick and easy to conduct, however we did come up with inaccurate results on several inquires.