How Does A PI Perform A SSN Search?
Private investigators, lawyers and other legal professionals are often granted access to use special public record search databases that make running an SSN Lookup very simple.
A private investigator search usually requires professional licensing and some strict compliance requirements to ensure the information is handled and distributed appropriately. The cost to access these people search databases to look up a social security number is often extremely expensive with a monthly subscription required. This lets professionals check private information such as a social security account, family members, an email address, social security benefits, retirement benefits, phone number, criminal record, credit card information and other details only available to law enforcement authorities. The entire process must also abide by the credit reporting act.
Hire a Private Investigator?
Hiring a private detective may give you access to some sensitive information. However, most of the information they get is available from public records. This means that anyone with enough “starter information” can also access them. The starter information can be the person’s name, SSN, birth parent name, and state of residence. Aside from the prohibitive cost of hiring a private investigator to locate someone, many people struggle with finding a good PI in the first place. They don’t exactly advertise on billboards!
Fortunately, there is another direction you can take:
Use a People Finder Website like USA Trace
People finder companies compile billions of public records and link those records to credit reporting agencies (TransUnion, Experian, etc.), so you can access a vast amount of information whether you’re running a social security lookup or just a search based on a last known address. (You can even try a free people search below to see what’s available – check out the search box below).
The cost of “truthfinder” or people finder websites varies widely as does the quality of the information. However the cost will be a fraction of the cost of using a private investigator to find someone by social security number, for example.
Try a social security lookup now:
Through our partnership with PeopleFinders.com, you'll receive Industry-Leading data by combining over 43 Billion Verified Public Records giving you the most comprehensive Background, Criminal, People, Marriage and Divorce Checks available Online. We receive income from our partnerships.
If you have a social security number, but you’re not sure if it’s the correct one, you can try our free, instant Social Security Number Verification Tool to at least ensure it’s valid.
So you don’t have to be a PI to run your own social security number lookup provided you’re just trying to locate someone or even want to run a full public record background check. As you can see from our SSN search above, there are public records databases open to the public that provide results that are similarly powerful to the ones used by private investigators.
In fact, many PIs use them instead of the wholesale data companies because they are so fast and easy to use. For a fraction of the cost of what you’d pay a private investigator – and with a money-back guarantee – you can start your own social security number lookup right now.
Bottom Line: PIs can perform a SSN lookup with a specialized public records search company, but you can perform your own with USATrace.
Related Posts
1. Can I perform a social security number lookup on someone who has died?
2. How can I perform a social security number lookup?
3. How to Run an SSN Trace