Intelius Review - Is It Accurate & Worthy?

There are a lot of background check services and all of them claim they can find everything about a person—from their contact info to criminal records, warrants, marital, and educational history. But are they really that good?

In this in-depth Intelius review, we at Web Tribunal cover one of the most renowned, experienced, and popular services of this kind. We tested and analyzed its main features, pricing, customer feedback, and more.

Keep reading to find out what it’s capable of and whether it’s the right people finder for you.

What Is Intelius

Intelius is a BBB accredited company that searches through over 20 billion public records to come up with the most accurate and up-to-date information. Whether you’re looking for someone’s criminal record, potential romantic partners, or old friends and relatives you wish to reconnect with, your curiosity will be satisfied. 

Note that Intelius People Search is not FCRA accredited, meaning that you can't use the information for screening tenants, selecting employees, or other similar activities. According to the Intelius website, the service has an Honor Roll status from the Online Trust Alliance. That gives extra credibility to the platform.

Ease of Use

According to most Intelius reviews, the website is quite user-friendly and easy to navigate. We decided to test this ourselves. As soon as we entered Intelius.com, we were pleasantly impressed by its intuitive interface and simple, elegant design.

There are three main ways to find a person with Intelius—searching by name, phone, and address.

The Intelius Home page displays the options readily. Additional features pop up when you click on the "Other searches" button from the navigation bar. We will discuss these Intelius search options in more detail further down in the review.

For now, we will only say that Intelius is one of the easiest and fastest tools that helps you find people online. Should you encounter an issue during your search, customer support is readily accessible—helpful information is at the bottom of the page.

How Does Intelius Work?

Intelius provides several different types of background checks. Considering that, the platform offers simple people searches (which return basic data like contact info, location, relatives, etc.) as well as thorough criminal records, public records, and background reports.

Let’ take a look at the Intelius people search services more closely.

People Search by Name

This is the easiest way to get in touch with a long-lost friend or relative or check out someone’s aliases and education history. Using this people look-up service is simple and straightforward—just fill in the person’s first and last name, followed by the city and state in which they are located.

Then wait for the Intelius search to be completed and enjoy the recently acquired information.

Reverse Phone Lookup

Intelius offers a reverse phone lookup service for those who wish to find details about potentially unknown callers.

If someone is spamming your phone with strange and random calls at inappropriate times, you can now find out exactly who that is. The reverse phone search is fairly straightforward to use, delivering detailed Intelius reports about the shady caller.

People Search by Address

Intelius is also an address finder service. If you’ve just moved to a new neighborhood, you can look up a physical address to find background information about the property, its cost, and previous owners.

These are the three main searches. Next up in our Intelius review, we will take a look at some additional features:

Criminal Record Search

This search will return valuable data about one’s legal history, including arrest records, warrants, misdemeanors, and felony convictions. If you suspect someone you recently encountered wasn’t completely honest with you, you can test your hypothesis using Intelius for investigations.

Background Report

The most detailed and complete service Intelius puts at your disposal is the background search option. In addition to the information, you can get with the people search feature, it gives you extensive data about one’s marital status and divorce history, liens and bankruptcies, birth and death records, as well as court records. The richness of this information is one of the reasons why the Intelius people service is so popular.

Identity Protection

Intelius also places high importance on data security and privacy. With Identity Protect, the website ensures that your search remains anonymous, protects your online identity from potential theft, and keeps your credit card details safe. So if you’re wondering whether Intelius is safe, the answer is a firm “Yes”!

And if you’re still worried about your online security, you can beef it up with one of the best ID theft protection services.

Public Records

Although most of this information can be accessed via a simple people search or background report, Intelius People Finder offers access to public records as a separate service. By using it, you can obtain extensive data about the relationship status and history of the person you are searching for, plus other legal matters related to them.

Intelius also offers People Directory and Phone Directory search, which is basically the online equivalent of White Pages.

What Information Intelius Delivers

In the following section of our Intelius review, we will give you an overview of the information you’ll receive once you’ve carried out your search. The background report can be accessed after purchasing the service, but given its completeness and comprehensive nature, it is worth paying for:

• General information—contact info, age, possible location, aliases, etc.
• Education & employment history
• Relatives & family members
• Relationships
• Social media accounts & related links
• Criminal records & warrants—also offered as an a la carte service, with standalone features
• Financial situation—bankruptcies, liens

Plans & Pricing

When it comes to the cost of Intelius, the platform’s approach is a little different than that of its competitors. 

Even though there’s no such thing as an Intelius free account, the price for a single people search is extremely affordable—$0.95. This is also the cost of a reverse phone lookup.

A la Carte Services

• People search and reverse phone lookup—$0.95
• Social media search—$6.95
• Criminal background check—$29.95 nationwide and $14.95 statewide
• Background check—$39.95
• Reverse address lookup—$4.95–$14.95

Plans

Intelius also offers the following subscription plans:

In addition to Intelius’s main packages, the service also offers a 5-day trial that allows you to trace someone without having to subscribe to a monthly membership.

But keep in mind the lack of transparency and straightforwardness in pricing practices is commonly mentioned in Intelius reviews.

For example, if you subscribe to the 5-day trial, your subscription might automatically upgrade to the Intelius premium plan after the initial period ends. 

Several customers reported similar issues. After purchasing a single report for $0.95, their subscription automatically upgraded to the then $29.63 plan without notice.

Support

Opinions about Intelius customer service are somewhat controversial. For instance, a large amount of online feedback points out the almost complete absence of customer support agents. 

This becomes especially evident when calling Intelius’s phone number (888 245-1655.) Some clients reported that the customer support reps didn’t respond to their phone calls at all. In light of this, it’s a good thing that you can opt-out of your subscription online.

However, many of the Intelius reviews we encountered praised the customer support team, emphasizing their availability and promptitude to resolve users’ issues. 

The mixed opinions on this matter prompted us to get in touch with the support crew ourselves. We contacted them during working hours (Monday-Friday, 7:00 am-5:00 pm PST) on the company’s email address ([email protected].) We received an adequate answer in a couple of hours. 

Intelius might not be the absolute best people search engine in terms of customer service, but it is a decent one nonetheless. 

Intelius User Reviews

The Intelius BBB rating is A, but user evaluations on other sites are rather mediocre.

The company has a 2.9 out of five stars on ConsumerAffairs, while on TrustPilot it’s rated 2.1/5. 

Intelius BBB reviews contain over 444 customer complaints. The majority of these revolve around auto-renewals from $0.95 services to Premier Plus membership, inaccurate or outdated information, unclear pricing practices, and lack of transparency. 

One particular Intelius review from Reddit was remarkably harsh and negative: “Their information is inaccurate, they hide hidden fees in the fine print. I recommend using anything else!” Other complaints include the usage of gimmicky tactics (“Behold! We are about to uncover potentially shocking information!”) or report delivery delays.

But apart from the generous plethora of Intelius complaints, there are also quite a few positive reviews. Most customers emphasize the ease of use and extensive information provided by Intelius from multiple sources.

Is Intelius Worth It

Taking everything into account, Intelius is a solid presence among the best background checkers. It provides different search options on multiple parameters and has affordable subscriptions and a la carte services.

What we are not so crazy about are deceptive pricing practices and the occasional inaccurate or outdated information.

But as we were preparing this Intelius review, we saw firsthand how the service helps customers figure out how to do a background check properly, offering excellent ease of use and an intuitive search process.

Intelius Alternatives

To give you a wider perspective on how people finder sites stack up against each other in terms of services and prices, we dedicated this section to Intelius’ toughest competitors:

Intelius vs TruthFinder

Intelius offers a cheaper monthly subscription ($19.95) than TruthFinder and lays out a clearer and comprehensive search structure. But it is also notoriously shady about its pricing practices and has more negative customer reviews.

But TruthFinder’s detailed background reports, extensive guidelines, and other benefits which you can learn about in our TruthFinder review make it a tough competitor.

Intelius vs InstantCheckMate

Between these two, InstantCheckMate can be considered the best people finder in terms of criminal records (most details about arrests, felonies, and misdemeanors.) But Intelius is more well-rounded when it comes to its services. Another advantage of this service is that it offers a cheaper monthly membership and has a single report option.

Intelius vs USSearch

US Search is mostly known for its one-off search option, which is among the easiest and quickest on the market.

But when it comes to comparing people search websites, US Search’s interface is quite old-fashioned and outdated. Meanwhile, Intelius offers a very streamlined and user-friendly platform. Another disadvantage of US Search is that it has overwhelmingly negative online reviews.

Intelius vs PeopleFinders

PeopleFinders has plenty of strong points, starting with its affordable trials—$0.95 for three days and Premium Trial membership at $3.95. That’s even cheaper than the Intelius cost. 

However, PeopleFinders’ reports don’t include employment or education history and all its plans have a $2.95 cancelation fee. That’s not the case with Intelius’ offerings. That’s why it’s definitely the better service for ongoing usage.

Final Verdict

If you want to find a person online, Intelius can come in handy with its affordable monthly plans and multitude of public records from which it extracts information. Intelius People Search is a useful feature that can inform you about a person’s whereabouts and contact info. And the complete background report service offers you one of the most comprehensive descriptions in the business.

All in all, Intelius is not a perfect service, considering its shady pricing policy and mixed Intelius reviews from 2022. But it compensates with a smart background check structure and affordable prices.