Background Checks Beyond the Internet: What a Real PI Finds
The $19.99 online background report is built from out-of-date scraped data and is wrong far more often than people realize. Here is what a real investigation looks like — and when you need one.
Why online reports get it wrong
The major consumer background-check sites — the ones that advertise $19.99 reports with a free trial — are aggregators. They scrape public data sources, deduplicate imperfectly, and present a unified report. Three structural problems are baked into that model.
First, the data is stale. Records pulled in a 2024 scrape and re-sold in 2026 miss two years of events. A clean report from one of these sites does not mean a clean record — it means a stale record.
Second, the matching is unreliable. Common names get over-matched (a clean person gets attributed someone else's record) or under-matched (the person you are searching is missing their own felony because the aggregator could not tie the records together). We see both errors in close to half of the consumer reports clients show us.
Third, civil litigation, regulatory actions, professional discipline, and out-of-state criminal history are spotty in aggregator data. The serious stuff — the lawsuit, the SEC matter, the prior bankruptcy, the out-of-state misdemeanor — is exactly what is most often missed.
What a real background investigation pulls
When we run a full professional background investigation, the work includes: county-level criminal records check in every county where the subject has lived (county records are the source of truth — statewide and federal aggregations are derivative); civil litigation history in every relevant jurisdiction; federal district court PACER search for federal civil and criminal matters; bankruptcy filings; UCC filings; corporate and LLC officer/director affiliations; real-property ownership including transfers; professional license verification and disciplinary history; sex-offender registry; OFAC and sanctions screening; education and employment verification through direct outreach where authorized; address history and motor-vehicle records (Florida) lawfully under DPPA permissible purposes; and social-media analysis with screenshot preservation.
On a complete investigation that runs 8 to 20 investigator hours and produces a written report with documentary attachments. The price runs $1,200 to $2,500 for personal-scale work and substantially more for executive or corporate due diligence.
When to use a professional investigation
There are scenarios where a $19.99 aggregator report is fine — vetting a casual dating-app match, a low-risk casual hire. There are scenarios where it is dangerous.
Marriage. People merge finances, real estate, and parental decisions on these facts. We have run pre-marital backgrounds that turned up undisclosed prior marriages, hidden child-support arrears, fraud judgments, and active criminal cases that the partner had never mentioned.
Business partnerships, investments, and executive hires. Anything that puts your money or your company's reputation in the other person's hands needs better than scraped data. Our corporate due-diligence work has stopped deals that would have closed on bad information.
Custody and family-law proceedings. The other parent's new partner is moving into a home with your children — what is their actual history? An aggregator report is not the answer to that question.
Tenant screening for high-value rentals. Beyond credit, who is this person and have they been evicted or sued by prior landlords?
What we deliver
The deliverable is a written report — typically 8 to 30 pages — that walks through findings by category, attaches the supporting documents, and ends with a summary of issues for client attention. We are explicit about what we did and did not find, and where data gaps exist.
Where appropriate the report can be packaged as a sworn affidavit suitable for use in litigation. Our investigators have testified to background findings in Florida courts and federal district court.
The legal floor
Background investigations conducted for employment, credit, insurance, or tenant-screening purposes are subject to the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), which requires consumer disclosure, written authorization, and adverse-action procedures. We run those engagements as FCRA-compliant Consumer Reporting Agency work.
Personal-use investigations — pre-marital, pre-partnership, pre-investment — are not FCRA-regulated but are still subject to the Driver's Privacy Protection Act, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, and Florida-specific privacy statutes. We operate inside those limits as a matter of license condition and reputation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will the subject know I ran a background check on them?
For personal-use investigations, no — the work is done from public records and does not generate notice. For FCRA-regulated employment or tenant screening, federal law requires written disclosure to the subject before the report is obtained.
Can you check someone's credit score?
Not without their written authorization and an FCRA permissible purpose. We can pull credit-header data (address history, prior names) and run financial-condition analysis from public records, but the FICO score itself requires consent.
How long does a professional background take?
Personal-use background: 5–10 business days. Executive or corporate due diligence: 2–4 weeks depending on scope and number of jurisdictions.
Need an investigator on your case?
Call Jeff Giordano directly, 24/7. Florida-licensed, decades of courtroom-tested investigative experience.