Learn The Truth About Your Blind Date Before You Meet

It’s not always easy to tell the truth, certainly not when we’re trying to impress someone. With literally millions of Americans finding love online, it’s no wonder many of us are tempted to make ourselves look more appealing on an online dating site, even if that means fabricating a few lies. A study performed by cybersecurity company, Kaspersky, indicated that over half the people using online dating either exaggerate or “embellish reality”, with the majority lying about their marital status. Strangely, a lot of people lie “just for fun” while around 34% of the female respondents admitting to lying because they’re scared of being targeted by conmen.

Even if you’re lying to protect yourself, if you consider how many falsehoods are floating around in cyberspace, it is worth investing some time and effort into learning the truth about your blind date, before you meet, with a dating background check.

1. Use a Background Check Service

The best background check services, like BeenVerified and TruthFinder, produce accurate reports within minutes, unearthing detailed information about an individual’s life. A standard report will reveal where they’ve lived, possibly even who they’ve lived with, where they worked, their previous employment history, and where they went to school.

These services offer a fast and effective way of getting to grips with the person behind the profile before you commit to meeting up. You can find out whether that person has any prior criminal convictions to their name, or even if they appear on the sex offenders’ register.

While some of this information is available from other sources, finding those sources and gathering all the data you’d receive in a BeenVerified report, for example, could take you months and cost you a lot more than a simple monthly subscription with the company that we believe offers the best background check for dating.

You don’t even need to know a person’s full name to get intriguing insights into their past – with BeenVerified, you can simply enter their email address and still get the same range of results. Although TruthFinder doesn’t offer this as one of its search criteria, if you’ve been chatting to your blind date on the phone, you could use its reverse phone lookup option.

Once that’s complete, you’ll have the person’s name so will be able to upgrade to a comprehensive background check and find out more than Google could ever tell you. TruthFinder’s premium report is so in-depth it’ll tell you how many fishing licenses the person has and who he or she has business affiliations with.

BeenVerified and TruthFinder are two of the most popular and reliable dating background check services around and while a one-month subscription will set you back over $20, if it saves you from a potential predator, it’s money well spent.

2. Explore with a Search Engine

Search engines are surprisingly powerful tools, especially when it comes to accessing public information. It won’t get you into court records, but it will mean you can track down some information and use it to cross-reference the things you’ve been told.

If, for example, you searched for me, Nicky Hoseck, the top search results would probably indicate that I’m a writer for Secure Thoughts. Already you know I’ve told the truth about one thing which will give you greater confidence that I’ve been telling the truth about other aspects of my life as well.

Although you might not strike gold, you could be one of the lucky ones… or unlucky ones depending on your perspective. Back in 2004, a New York woman wisely decided to give her first date a miss after running a Google search on him. Her search results indicated that the FBI was a more suitable match for the man who was wanted for allegedly stealing $100,000.

She’s not the only one either, another guy decided to meet his blind date despite an internet search revealing that her family had ties to the Mafia. He made sure he was on his best behavior, though, especially after she threatened him with the daunting words: “If you screw me over, I know people”.’

While you’re not going to get the same level of detail or range of content as you would from a BeenVerified background dating check, you may glean enough from a search engine to motivate you to cancel the date… or get your hair done!

3. Get Busy on Social Media

It’s amazing what people will share on sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, so if you’ve got a name, these can be great resources for finding out about a bit more about your blind date before meeting them. Facebook is the best place to start and tends to have more in-depth profiles, giving you a clearer picture of your blind date’s interests and opinions.

A few red flags to look out for include racist or sexist comments or any indication that your blind date has a different set of moral values to you. Similarly, if your blind date is constantly liking pictures of scantily clad women, chances are, he’s going to have a bit of a roaming eye. On the other hand, if your date seems to spend more time messaging his ex on social media rather than living his life, a relationship with him is liable to be unsuccessful.

While getting an overall impression of your blind date from social media sites can be advantageous, it’s also important to remember that not everyone wants to share their lives online. Others, of course, may keep their profiles private, making it more difficult to access the information you’re after.

Of course, a background dating check from BeenVerified will tell you all this and more, including if your blind date has profiles on other dating sites you weren’t aware of so, while browsing social media platforms alone can give you some insights, it won’t give you the bigger picture available via a background dating check.

4. Crack into Criminal Records

Criminal records are in the public domain which means anyone can access them. The only problem is, you need to know where to look. Firstly, you need to know where your blind date has lived so you can request access to the right state records. Another stumbling block to the process is that most states store the majority of their information in a database, rather than online, meaning that you might have to go there in person to get the information you’re looking for.

If you’re going to go it alone, make sure you’ve got plenty of spare time and a little spare cash available to complete the process. Obviously, a much easier alternative is to get an online background check service to do the legwork for you, and TruthFinder can turn up results from a criminal background check in the time it takes you to pour a cup of coffee, whereas doing it yourself will be the equivalent of growing and grinding your own beans.

You can access criminal records online via the National Center for State Court’s website but even that has its limitations. As is noted on the site itself, “Online court records are not the official records of the court and… maybe subject to error or omission”. Furthermore, the information is organized by county so if you searched for your blind date in Anne Arundel County, Maryland but he committed a crime in St Mary’s county, you’d get completely the wrong impression about him as there would be no evidence of criminal history.

So, digging around in court records by yourself is an option, but it’s considerably more time-consuming and less reliable than getting BeenVerified to run the best background check for dating on your behalf.

5. Hire a Private Investigator

This is a pretty radical and expensive step to take but is an option, especially if you’re concerned that your online date might be after something other than a relationship. Catfishing is a common crime on online dating sites and can be used to scam you out of money or sensitive information. The FBI has certainly seen enough crime on online dating sites to issue warnings about the potential dangers. The latest warning came on Valentine’s Day this year

Given that you could end up losing money, your identity, and your credit rating, a private investigator isn’t such a bad idea and there are some around that specialize in this type of work, offering relationship coaching as well as online dating investigations. Having said that, if you’re suspicious enough to consider hiring a private investigator, it’s unlikely the relationship has much chance of developing into something more serious. After all, if the trust factor isn’t there at the beginning, it’s going to take a lot of work to find it further along in the relationship.

Conclusion

Even if you’ve been emailing your online date for several months, there’s a limit to how well you can get to know someone through messaging alone. Any cautious online dater knows not to reveal too much about themselves, where they work, or which gym they go to. Unfortunately, it also means there’s a limit to how much information you can expect your potential date to reveal which is why many people perform a dating background check to find out more.

Alex Vasquez is the founder of the dating website, Urban Dater, says, “Even if you’re really smart about online dating and doing all the right things… there are still bad people with worse intentions out there and they’re going to try and take advantage”. This is why doing a bit of research before meeting up for the first time can be so useful.

A dating background check is one of the best methods of finding out the truth although there are other ways to pull a Sherlock Holmes on your potential love interest. If you’re tempted to run a free background check, think again, as there’s a limit to how much accurate information this will reveal. Using BeenVerified or TruthFinder will give you a lot more information and a higher level of accuracy to boot.

We’re not saying you should become a cyberstalker and creep around after your online date hoping to catch him out, but, then again, knowledge is power and knowing someone isn’t who you thought they were is good enough reason to cancel that first date, or at least postpone it.

Keep yourself safe, avoid potentially uncomfortable or dangerous first dates by using a dating background check to learn the truth about your blind date before you meet.