How To Find Old Friends With An Online Background Check
As our lives move on at a relentless pace and we find ourselves far from the places we grew up in, so many of us lose track of old friends, colleagues, and partners. It’s not intentional but it can be heartbreaking, especially if it’s someone we once shared our deepest, darkest secrets with.
If you feel as though there’s a hole in your heart because you haven’t been in touch with an old friend in years, it’s time to refill that hole by using one of the best background check services to track them down.
Why Use a Background Check to Find Old Friends?
When it comes to how to find old friends, there are few ways to go about it, but a background check offers the most information which means you won’t accidentally invite Erin Barker from Illinois to a reunion only to find you’ve never laid eyes on that particular Erin Barker ever before and that the chubby brunette in front of you certainly isn’t the tall, blonde Erin you knew in school.
Even if you consider yourself a bit of a loner, friends can play an important role in your life, especially in your later years. Let’s face it, none of want to spend our final years not having anyone to turn to for help or just for a quick cup of coffee. Unfortunately, while you might have some luck tracking down old friends using social media sites like Facebook or your old school’s alumni site, these are nowhere near as reliable or accurate as the best background check services.
How to Find Friends with a Background Check Service
Performing a background check online is a simple process but the more information you have available, the more accurate the results. Of course, if you’re looking for an old school friend or someone you once lived next door to, you probably already know their first and last names and have at least one known address for them as well, which will stand you in good stead.
Before using a background check service to find old friends, it’s a good idea to jot down everything you know about them. Start with the most obvious details like their names, age and birthday and then move onto details like mutual friends you might still have, whether or not they’re married, and where you think they might be living.
With this information in front of you, head over to a site like BeenVerified and start searching. Although you’ll only need to enter the person’s name and the state you think they may be living in, having additional information to hand means you can quickly eliminate others that may share the same name.
Once you’ve found the most likely candidate, let the background check do its work – you’ll be amazed at the results!
What a Background Check Can Tell You
While you may just want to find out your old friend’s contact details so you can get in touch and reestablish your relationship with them, a background check will give you much more information than that. In some instances, the results of your background check might make you change your mind. For instance, if the old boyfriend you were so eager to catch up with turns out to have a criminal record, you might want to think twice before rekindling that relationship.
The best background check services will reveal the following information about your old friends:
- Current address
- Social media profiles
- Email address
- Phone numbers
- Criminal history
- Sex offenses
- Educational background
- Employment history
- Previous addresses
- Relatives and family members
Of course, accuracy is essential and it would be disappointing to discover that you’ve written someone off on the basis of an incorrect report. Furthermore, some background check services won’t be able to give you the same depth of information as another, so making sure you’re using a reliable and accurate background check service is crucial to your findings. As this is the case, we’ve put together a few of the best background check services that we recommend you use to locate friends from years past.
The Best Background Checks for Finding Old Friends
Although there are some free background check services available, the most reliable are usually the ones you pay for. Not only is the information more accurate, but it’s also more comprehensive, so you can decide whether to get in touch or leave the relationship well alone. The services listed below are known for their accuracy and also for providing solid customer support and a range of search criteria.
1. BeenVerified
A basic report from BeenVerified will give you more than enough information to enable you to track down an old school bestie or a college roommate you lost track of. You even have the option of installing one of their apps on your mobile device so you can search on the go. Even if your old friend married and changed her name numerous times over the years since you last saw her, BeenVerified will be able to sniff her out.
Fortunately, BeenVerified is a very simple service to use and we say fortunately because there is little in the way of customer support. While you may have become accustomed to live chat services and telephone support desks, you won’t find them here. Still, the online ticket support system works effectively and, to be fair, it’s unlikely you’ll need to use it.
Not only will BeenVerified be able to verify the individuals’ identity, but even a basic report will provide some photographs so you can establish if it’s the right Tom Jones or someone you’ve never met or want to meet.
Even without the correct last name, you’ll be surprised at what BeenVerified can unearth, revealing a lot more than simply your old friend’s latest address. You could discover lots about their lives by checking out their social media profiles or find out what happened to their dreams of becoming an astronaut by scrolling through their employment history. You could even discover if their college fling developed into some more substantial and even if their sexy older brother is still available!
If your old friend no longer lives in the US, you may find tracking them down a little more challenging as BeenVerified, like most US-based background check services, only operates within the US so if your best friend from your college days has fled the coop and headed overseas, your efforts may prove fruitless. In the majority of instances, however, BeenVerified will pinpoint exactly where that person is in terms of their career, love interests, social life, and geographical location, making reigniting that old friendship a breeze.
Sign up with BeenVerified here
2. People Looker
Perfect for those hoping to track down former schoolmates or work colleagues, People Looker will give you sufficient information to find old friends even if you just opt for the standard report. The only thing strangely missing from the basic report is any photographs of the individual, although these are available if you choose to upgrade. A premium report, however, will tell you pretty much everything about a person, from their current relationship status to their inside leg measurement… well, not quite but nearly!
People Looker’s premium reports will give you such a wealth of information, you’ll be able to make a few judgment calls before continuing your search. For example, if you’re a vegan who hates hunting, getting in touch with an ex-boyfriend who has a stack of hunting permits probably isn’t such a good idea. If, on the other hand, you’re on the market for a rich man, discovering his current profession and known associates could inspire you to get in touch (and get a new haircut)!
With competitive longer-term subscriptions available, People Looker is probably the best option for someone engaging in a lengthy search that may involve 10s or even hundreds of people. If you’re just looking for a one-off report, however, BeenVerified is a better option.
As one of the best background check companies, People Looker utilizes a wide range of data sources to present you with the most comprehensive and detailed picture. Trawling through civil judgments, voter registers, sex offender databases, and census data isn’t fun for anyone, which is why People Looker’s service is so valuable. Dredging up information from public records would take you or me weeks, but services like People Looker do it in minutes.
It’s not only official registers and the like that People Looker accesses to help you find old friends – it also rummages through social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to give you some insight into your old friend’s likes and interests. The years of silence will fall by the wayside when you finally get in touch because, thanks to People Looker’s comprehensive report, you’ll feel like you saw them yesterday.
3. TruthFinder
Easier to use than a knife and fork, TruthFinder packs some serious punch into its background checks, dredging up information about everything from a person’s criminal history to their latest hairstyle. With clear and colorful reports, TruthFinder presents all that information in an easy-to-read format so you can get to the juicy parts faster.
TruthFinder gives much the same information as BeenVerified, although, once you’ve got a subscription, you could use the service for much more than just tracking down lost loved ones. TruthFinder offers a Dark Web Scan as well as the usual reverse phone lookups and people searches so you can delve deep into the digital world and make sure your social security number or credit card number aren’t doing the rounds in the deep web.
In addition to Dark Web Scan, TruthFinder gives users an unlimited number of searches so you could literally scroll through your entire sophomore class and reconnect with everyone – maybe even organize your own reunion. Unfortunately, if that is your ultimate goal, you won’t be able to procrastinate too much with TruthFinder as they only offer a maximum of a two-month subscription so, if you’re in it for the long haul, BeenVerified is probably a better option.
One of the great things about services like TruthFinder is that no one ever has to know who you’ve looked up or what you’ve discovered about them. TruthFinder respects its users’ privacy and ensure the information they receive in a report remains as confidential as their log in data. Those who’ve used TruthFinder in the past have been pleasantly surprised by the accuracy of its reports and have, in turn, been able to surprise old friends who’ve moved to a new state, changed their names and, in some instances, even changed their gender!
Sign up with TruthFinder here.
Conclusion
Now you know how to find old friends, the next step is putting that knowledge to work. With so many reliable and accurate background check companies around, there’s no point in delaying. Just imagine, this time tomorrow you could be chatting away with your junior school bestie or having a glass of wine with your college chum.
Not all of us are lucky enough to have close relationships with our fellow family members so having good friends around who’ve known us for years can give you the support network you need as you journey through life. Even the most reclusive among us benefit from having friends, especially as we get older and find the strain of socializing or trying to meet new friends becomes more challenging.
Even if you haven’t seen your old next-door neighbor since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, chances are you’ll still have plenty in common so why not use a background check to find old friends and start a new life?
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