Valentine’s Day Background Check: 5 Red Flags To Look For
You’re chatting with someone online, and they seem sane and human. Plus, with Valentine’s Day coming up, you’d like to meet someone special – and this person could be it.
Since first dates are nerve-wracking, not to mention expensive, you want to save yourself the time and money by ensuring that the person you’re meeting ticks all of your boxes.
Luckily, there is an easy solution these days. All you need to do is run a quick and painless background check that a number of companies run these days in no time at all.
They’re an easy way to ensure that you don’t end up on a date with a romantic hacker or a serial liar – or worse. In fact, while conducting one, there are 5 important red flags to be aware of that should make you question whether you want to meet up with a person or not.
In terms of who we recommend running those background checks, we believe you can’t go wrong with BeenVerified or TruthFinder.
5 Red Flags To Look For On a Background Check of Your Valentine
1) A Criminal History
When you run a background check by either Truthfinder or by BeenVerified, they’ll be able to alert you to any criminal past that your potential date may have. It could be that your potential date has actually been upfront about their criminal history with you, in which case you will be able to make an informed decision from the outset about whether you want to go on a date with that person or not.
However, it is highly likely, unfortunately, that before a first date, your intended has probably not been quite so upfront about their past as they could have been. This hiding of the truth could be simply because they don’t believe their criminal history to be important, but more possibly it is because they have done something in the past of which they are ashamed.
Your background check will tell you what that criminal record consisted of, so if your date has simply been arrested for being drunk and disorderly years ago when they were at college, you may just shrug your shoulders and turn up on Valentine’s Day anyway.
However, it is a huge red flag if their list of misdemeanors is not only incredibly long, but it is also full of crimes that show another side to their character. For your own safety, it is good to know what these crimes are so that you do not go on a date with someone who is dangerous and who you would otherwise stay away from.
2) Several Different Addresses
This may not be a dealbreaker for everyone, but when going on a date with someone, very often we like to know that that date may go somewhere. Or at least have the possibility of going somewhere.
A background check is a good way of being able to see whether the person you are going to meet up with on Valentine’s date is going to stick around for awhile, or whether they like to move a lot.
You may actually be looking for a fling or just someone to have company with on the most romantic day of the year, in which case you won’t care if they move from town to town or city to city.
However, a background check is a quick method of at least being able to make an informed decision on whether to date someone depending on their nomadic past. Some of us tend to move around a lot in our early 20s while we are searching to find our feet professionally and personally, so it could well be that while your date has moved around in the past, they may not necessarily do so in the future.
Either way, it’s good to know this about a person before you meet them on a blind date. If anything, to see whether they have been honest about their past or not if you have met them online.
3) They have many different names
This is a big red flag that without the use of a background check company, you may not be able to uncover. However, if your potential date has had lots of different names and aliases in the past, it could really highlight an issue with their history or their character that may put you off meeting up with them.
There are so many reasons that people may have lots of different aliases – and to be fair, not all of them will be underhand or illegal. You may want to simply ask your potential date about meeting up to ensure that you are not wasting an opportunity with someone that you have been getting on well with online.
However, it can also highlight someone with a criminal past or someone that is trying to hide something that they don’t want others to know about.
When meeting up with someone from the internet, you can never be too careful about the amount of accurate information you know about them. Knowing their real name is a surefire way of being able to check that information.
4) Their speeding history
This may not matter to everyone, but a background check can show up a person’s attitude towards the highway code by highlighting any or all speeding tickets and traffic violations that they have committed in the past.
While having such black marks on a person’s record is obviously a far cry from crimes that put a person in jail for life, those violations can still be a good thing to be aware of.
The reason being is that with traffic violations come fines, and you may not want to start a relationship with someone who is constantly throwing money down the drain by having to settle expensive speeding or parking tickets.
5) They have been declared bankrupt
When it comes to romance, money is obviously not everything, but it can be a big red flag to a person as to whether a potential date has been declared bankrupt in the past. While it may not necessarily mean immediate reason for canceling a Valentine’s day date, it may well be something that you at least want to be aware of.
There are many reasons that a person may have to be forced into filing for bankruptcy – they’re not all for reasons that may make you want to cancel any plans. Bankruptcy can happen to people for issues beyond their control sometimes, but it’s still good to know before embarking on a romantic date with a person.
Which Background Check Company Should I Use On My Valentine’s Date?
There are lots of different background companies out there, but we definitely would advise using either BeenVerified or TruthFinder when running a background check on a Valentine’s Day date.
Here’s why:
Founded in 2007, BeenVerified will sift through multiple databases to give you as much information as possible about your intended date. We like that the company is honest and transparent when it comes to explaining the way that it does things, especially in its privacy policy. The service itself is very easy to use and one thing that sets it apart from the rest is that it is available for iOS and Android devices.
Plus, a massive bonus is that you can choose to try the service once, free of charge and then decide whether or not to become a full member.
If you’re looking to dig a little deeper into a new flame, TruthFinder is certain to be able to string together all the information that you need. We found the site well designed and intuitive to use. Most importantly, there was plenty of information found once the search was conducted, and all very neatly formatted. Ultimately, TruthFinder is perfect for running a search on a Valentine’s day date as it offers a great five-day trial to take advantage of, for only $1!
The Bottom Line
In a day and age where online dating is prevalent and people are making more and more connections on the internet, it makes sense to run a background check to ensure that people are who they say they are over a computer connection.
To many, it may seem like an anxiety-ridden decision to use a company like BeenVerified or TruthFinder, but in reality, the horror stories that have materialized from people going on blind dates with online scammers are quite shocking at times.
Plus Valentine’s Day is a time of year when such online scammers and fraudsters are at the most potent and take advantage of vulnerable people.
Article comments