That’s all, really. In searching a couple sites, I noticed that my cel # yields a “report” that I can retrieve for (a) a one-time fee, or (b) through a membership that allows me unlimited searches for one year.
Has anyone tried this kind of thing? How much info could you actually find (on yourself or someone else)? Are these reputable companies, or scams, or it depends (some good/some bad)? Is there any way to safeguard your info, or does simply having a cel phone provider automatically get you on some list (note that I don’t have a cel phone contract, but a pay-as-you-go arrangement since I don’t use my cel very often).
I’ve used this service. If the phone number you enter is not published in a directory or readily available through 411, you just aren’t going to get it. Especially cell phones.
Yes, rather recently. It works sometimes, for better or for worse. I used a service called Intelius in the course of my work, trying to get background information on a client of ours. I was curious as well about how well the reverse on a cell phone would work. But it successfully provided me with the client’s name and address.
The part that scared me more than that was that the service also had a reverse email lookup. I put in one of my own email addresses and it turned up a fake physical address that I sometimes use when I’m forced to give out my email address to a site I fear might spam me. But still, it really got me wondering how the hell anyone would have gotten that in the first place. When I worked as a PI, we would have killed for that kind of access.
I did some research on Intelius before using them, and although their methods are not without controversy, they are “reputable” as these things go. I don’t deal with many of these services anymore; I’m sure there are bad apples out there. But you have to understand that most of these services are simply pulling together information that is publicly available anyway, just from different sources. They’re doing the legwork for you. You could, on your own, go down to your county’s registrar’s office and find out certain birth and marriage info and real property ownership records, then go to the courthouse and search for criminal and civil cases, then go to your state’s website and look up professional licensing info, etc. Most of it would even be free. But having it all put together for you in one place is why they can charge what they do (in addition to, with some services, the ability to link together pieces of information to provide a clearer picture of your target).
I have read in the past (no cites, sorry) that some services (I think Intelius and Zabasearch are among them) allow you to have some or all of your information removed, but at a cost. But since, again, most of the information we’re talking about is a matter of public record, I don’t know that there’s any blanket request you can make to keep your info from appearing on any of these information services. I’m not sure how this applies to cell phone records (and email addresses) since I don’t know how that information is acquired to begin with.