Let’s Find Out: What is Instant Checkmate & Does this Records Search Really Work?
Whether you want to find a long lost relative or just be sure the date you’re about to meet for dinner doesn’t have a criminal record, an online background check service makes it easy to be in the know.
Remember when we had to depend upon word of mouth to know whether someone had any dark corners lurking in their past? Not any more! There are certain things that you should know about a person before doing business with them, and now they can be found online.
Instant Checkmate is an online public records search service that helps you find things about people like civil judgements, contact information, police records, and more with just a few clicks.
But many wonder before paying for this service, “ Is Instant Checkmate a scam?” or “Does Instant Checkmate work?”
Nobody wants to give up their hard-earned money to get information that can be found by doing a simple Google search. So, just how good is this background check site and is Instant Checkmate legal?
We’ll answer those questions and more in this AdvisoryHQ News Instant Checkmate review. You’ll also find an overview of Instant Checkmate reviews from those who’ve used the service and learn the answer to, “How much does Instant Checkmate cost?”
So, if you’ve ever been thinking of using a background check service, you’ll want to read on to get the full picture of what’s involved.
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What is Instant Checkmate? (About Instant Checkmate)
Instant Checkmate was founded in 2010 and is based in San Diego, CA. The company joins other public records search services, like TruthFinder.
Instant Checkmate reviews multiple public records sources to bring you a comprehensive background on the person you’re searching. Information that you may turn up includes phone numbers, addresses, judgements, census data, social media, and other publicly available data.
Before entering their own or someone else’s name into search bar, many people wonder, “Is Instant Checkmate safe?” While they do have an A+ at the Better Business Bureau, they also have quite a few complaints, so we’re going to delve in deeper into that in this Instant Checkmate review.
Whether you’re doing a phone Instant Checkmate review to find someone’s current contact information or an area criminal background check, all their criminal reports include a map of all registered sex offenders in the specified area where you’re searching.
What is Instant Checkmate Used For and What is It Not Used For?
If you’re searching online or through the Instant Checkmate app, there are a few ground rules. You can use the service for things like looking up lost family or classmates, checking out new boyfriends/girlfriends, or even searching on yourself to see what’s out there.
But, is Instant Checkmate safe for doing a credit check? No. That’s one of the things you should not use it for because it’s not a consumer reporting agency.
Here are a few other things that you shouldn’t use it for:
- Assess Professional Services
- Determine Educational or Scholarship Qualifications
- Employment Screening
- Screening Household Workers
- Tenant Screening
Additional Resources
Want to do a deeper search on someone? In our Instant Checkmate review of their offerings, we found that they have a few additional resources you have access to. These are included in the Instant Checkmate cost for a subscription and are also free to use.
Extra resources you can use include:
- Criminal Records Database
- Inmate Search
- Instant Checkmate Glossary
- People Directory Database
If you’re still wondering, “Is Instant Checkmate safe?” the company states on their website that using their site is “100% safe, secure, and confidential.”.
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How Much Does Instant Checkmate Cost?
Pricing isn’t easy to find when looking through the Instant Checkmate site. They prefer that you first do your search and get to the checkout before revealing the cost. You don’t pay per report; instead, they use a monthly subscription model, similar to other records search sites.
You subscribe for either one, three, or six months and must unsubscribe or your card will continue being charged. We’ll get into the Instant Checkmate opt out shortly.
We did some digging and found Instant Checkmate prices noted in HighYa along with their Instant Checkmate Reviews. We’ve also found the answer to whether or not there is an Instant Checkmate Free Trial.
The company notes that you get what you pay for, so they don’t typically give away reports for free. However, they do offer specials and currently have a “nearly” Instant Checkmate free trial. You can try the service for 5 days for $1.00.
Instant Checkmate Cost:
- $26.86/month for a 1-month subscription
- $44.58 ($14.86/month) for a 3-month subscription
- $59.16 ($9.86/month) for a 6-month subscription
- $1.99 one-time fee for a PDF report
When you’re asking, “How much does Instant Checkmate cost?” you’ll also want to know what you are paying for to ensure that you get the right report for your needs.
Unlimited Access and Premium Data
Previously, users paid an additional fee to access Premium Report information. The company has since made significant changes to their plans, increasing the long-term value of a monthly subscription. All plans now include premium reports and offer unlimited access, meaning that customers can look up as many people as they want and receive premium data reporting at no additional charge.
Premium data can include:
- Aircraft or watercraft owned
- Business associates
- Civil Judgments
- Email addresses
- Foreclosures
- Hunting/fishing permits
- Neighbors
- Professional licenses
- Property owned
- Tax liens
- Voter registration
- Weapons permits
What is Instant Checkmate’s option that’s completely free? You can use DiscoverPublic.com for an easy-to-use guide. While you won’t get access to the Instant Checkmate Dashboard, you can still find a good bit of free data on someone.
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Instant Checkmate Reviews | What are People Saying?
Is Instant Checkmate legal? Is Instant Checkmate a scam? Does Instant Checkmate work as well as they promise?
The short answers to those questions are, “Yes” (it’s legal), “No” (not a scam), and “We’ll find out” as we highlight these Instant Checkmate reviews.
These are from people who’ve shared their experiences using this online people search and the process of opting out online or by phone in Instant Checkmate reviews.
First, we’ll look at the overall ratings from multiple Instant Checkmate Reviews on ratings sites to get a big picture of positive vs negative.
Instant Checkmate Reviews | Online Rating Sites
- Better Business Bureau (BBB) – 3.8 out of 5
- ConsumerAffairs – 3.7 out of 5
- HighYa – 3.3 out of 5
- Sitejabber – 1.1 out of 5
When you average those four Instant Checkmate review sites together, you get an overall rating of 3.0 out of 5 for the service.
Next, you’ll find out what individual Instant Checkmate reviewers think about the service and how they’d answer the question, “Does Instant Checkmate work?”. We’ll start with the negative reviews for Instant Checkmate and then move on to the positive ones.
Negative Instant Checkmate Reviews
- In a 1-star Instant Checkmate review at Sitejabber, the reviewer said they were looking up an old friend and did not get any useful information. What they did get was continual spam popups for months afterwards.
- Another reviewer said the information was very vague and did not contain marriage or divorce dates or military information. They thought the data was inaccurate and they could do a better job themselves just by searching online.
- An unhappy user thought they were getting an Instant Checkmate free trial, then after 10 minutes of using the site, got hit with the subscription charge. They thought this was an Instant Checkmate scam.
- In another of the negative experiences, the reviewer said the Instant Checkmate cost wasn’t worth it. They said the information was over a decade old and very incomplete.
Positive Instant Checkmate Reviews
- In an Instant Checkmate review at HighYa that garnered 5 stars, they said they were impressed with the accuracy of the information and that it was worth every penny.
- In another review, the person said that they received all the information they wanted, but some of it was incorrect. They would use the service again and praised the easy Instant Checkmate opt out and cancellation process.
- Accurate information and great customer service were reasons for a 5-star Instant Checkmate review at ConsumerAffairs. They appreciated the introductory offer and said the site was easy to navigate.
- Another of the happy Instant Checkmate reviews said the site had everything they wanted to find. They also found some surprising information about others that had lived or visited them that they didn’t know before.
We saw in our research that for both positive and negative reviews of Instant Checkmate, the company responds, which is a good sign that Instant Checkmate is legal and legitimate. They reply with contact details online or by phone to Instant Checkmate reviews.
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How Does the Instant Checkmate Opt Out Work?
There are two different types of an Instant Checkmate opt out. Some think of it as cancelling the subscription service and others as getting their information out of their database.
We’ll go through both below.
How Do You Cancel an Instant Checkmate Account?
Remember, this records search is a subscription service, so even if you try the $1 (nearly free) Instant Checkmate free trial, you’ve got to physically cancel the subscription. Otherwise, you’ll continue to be charged the Instant Checkmate cost for the monthly service.
You can cancel your membership online in your account settings or call their customer support number at 1-800-222-8985.
Most of the Instant Checkmate reviews that we read through did not note any difficulty with cancelling a subscription. Those that were upset because they didn’t realize it was a monthly subscription when they signed up, noted the last billing being refunded after a call, but not earlier ones.
How Do You Remove Your Information through Instant Checkmate Opt Out?
We did see quite a few negative Instant Checkmate reviews online that were unhappy about their information being in the database and some of it being false information. One person wondered how many jobs he may have missed out on due to a false criminal record showing up on his name.
To remove your information from Instant Checkmate, take the following steps:
- Visit their website and choose the link at the very bottom “Remove My Info”.
- Search for your report and select the report you’d like to have removed.
- Confirm the record to be removed when you receive their confirmation email.
The company warns that even if you choose Instant Checkmate opt out, it only impacts their website. The information will still be in the public records databases that they pull from, so can most likely show up on other records search sites.
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Instant Checkmate Reviews | Instant Checkmate App
There is a handy Instant Checkmate app for Android and Apple mobile devices that allow you to use the service on the go.
Reviewers of the Instant Checkmate app give it pretty high ratings. Some of those wondering, “How much does Instant Checkmate cost?” only find one subscription option in the app, unlike the three on the website.
Others praise the ease of use and one said by just entering the phone in Instant Checkmate review of records, they were able to find a lot of information on a person.
Ratings for the Instant Checkmate App:
- Google Play Store: 4.6 out of 5
- iTunes Store: 4.6 out of 5
AdvisoryHQ’s Instant Checkmate Review Conclusion
What is Instant Checkmate going to do for you? The quality of results vary search to search and are dependent upon the public databases from which they pull their information.
Some people are very happy with the detailed information they find and give the company high marks in their Instant Checkmate reviews, while others say the information is incomplete, outdated, or incorrect.
All search services like this pull from public records, so if you wanted to do the legwork, you could find all the same information for free. But what you get for the Instant Checkmate subscription cost is the ease of having the data from all those databases combined quickly into a single report.
Just remember, if you want information like civil judgements or tax liens, you’ll have to pay extra for their Premium Report.
Is Instant Checkmate a scam? Definitely not. The company is pretty transparent on their website about the service and what it can and can’t do. We also found them to be very responsive to each Instant Checkmate review, both positive and negative.
Since the quality of the data you can get varies greatly according to what’s available in public records, their offer for 5 days for $1 is a real plus! Not all similar services offer you the chance to try for nearly free before committing to a higher price.
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Image sources:
- https://www.instantcheckmate.com/
- https://www.instantcheckmate.com/about/
- https://pixabay.com/en/computer-laptop-technology-office-3368242/
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