PeopleSmart reviews

Do not use this company. I used the service while adopting my baby to look into some of the numbers of birthmothers who contacted us after a few scams. The information was never accurate, complete or correct. They continued to bill me for yearly membership with no warning and refused to refund any of the charges when I called to complain.

You have to be really careful when dealing with this website. They sneak in charges for items you did not order and do not want. For example, I wanted a 7-day free trial. They write in their "Terms and Conditions" that they will not charge your credit card until after 7 days. However, my PayPal account was charged $19.95. First, I assumed this was the first month fee and that the charge would be reversed. So, I contacted them. But then it turned out that this was for a "Backgground Report". I had to put up quite a fight with them to get the charge reversed. The funny thing is that I never ordered a background report, and never received a background report. They were just sneaking the charge in with the free trial, so that I wouldn't notice.
It seems they do similar sleezy tricks all over, according to the other reviews I've seen here, and also the complaints on their BBB listing - that the BBB still assigns them an A+ is nuts but in the end, Peoplesmart always seems to comply and refund overcharged fees and that makes the BBB happy.
However, in my point of view Peoplesmart.com has unethical business practices, and even if they might help some people to find a person, I will not work with them again, based on their bad business behavior.

A sleezy operation, but not unique in that regard. There are many businesses that engage in this kind of automatic billing not specifically authorized by the customer. They know exactly what they are doing. They are hoping that users, who probably need them for one search, will sign up for a trial, unaware that they will be billed in perpetuity until the service is cancelled. Thus, by default, they will gain monthly charges from your credit card.

No one should ever deal with this sleazy company. I am going to have them investigated by the Nebraska Attorney General. I hope he puts them out of business.

first try ... correct address but wrong phone number, many years since she had that number

debit my account to check one name.info was not right..didnt give criminal info.got my bank account an they had 4 charges that added up to 70.00. said no hidden cost as others sites do..what a rip off..info u get is not even right.

Total scam. I paid 95 cents for a reverse phone number listing (which by itself was a rip-off) and found they will billing me 20 bucks a month for a service I neither wanted, signed up for, nor used. The 95 cents was a con, the 20 bucks a month a total scam.
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Run, run, run from these people and don't be fooled by their sophisticated website. This is the kind of company that writes off those that complain to the credit card companies and makes its money from those that don't. Half the people won't fight it and they won't battle with MasterCard over 50 or 60 dollars.

Call your credit card company and tell them, even if they won't help they will put them on a watchlist and will block them if they get enough complaints.

By the way, they list BBB on their website, but the BBB has no record of them!

I feel their advertisement is misleading. I wanted criminal records and had to use all credits they gave me for one persons records! The advertisement says it's included so when I tried to get another persons records they wanted me to pay. Not at all what I thought, nor what they claim to offer. I've been taken..........won't recommend this company to anyone.

I have been satisfied with what I wanted out of Peoplesmart, but I wasn't looking for a lot of detailed information. I paid $20 for an unlimited query month and feel like I have gotten what I paid for. A lot of sites charge that for one query although you might get more information, you just need to determine what you are looking for first and plan accordingly.

SCAM SCAM SCAM
False advertising!

TOTAL SCAM!!!!
Deceptive practices - incomplete background checks - rude.
Do NOT do business with them.

This website and company is very tricky! BEWARE!!! My husband went onto this website to do a background search on a contractor that had been performing work for him. Although, he was able to find out some information on the contractor, (hence the one star) he thought he was paying for a one time search. However, there has been a monthly recurring charge to our account. My husband did not sign up for the one month free trial, or any kind of membership. He exclusively did a "People Search", and paid for that one time exclusive service. I tried to call the company. There is a recording stating you have to wait so many minutes to talk to a representative, then after that time is up (about 20 minutes later) there is another recording stating you have to leave a message and a representative will call you back, but then the line disconnects before you can leave any message. I went through this process twice. While I was doing this I was on the website and having the hardest time trying to figure out how to cancel the service. Like I said, they are very tricky! They don't want you to cancel. They trick you into making a purchase, you are unaware you are getting sucked into a membership, and they make it extremely difficult to cancel. Forget about using this website, go somewhere else!

This site was barely adequate. The usual bs of sucking is in with promises of information and then asking you for more money when they had only provided us with the information we had already found free, via google. Appalling customer service when we called to complain that they had charged us 3 months in a row, without the 50% discount they had promised for the first month. I will never use these again and strongly recommend that you stay away from them. They will rip you off and then try and charge you even more money for the information you really need.

I love this website it helped me find my dad 23yrs later.. I found an email of his, I emailed him and the next day he emailed me and we starting talking. Now my sister and I are going to see him in four days.. Thank you people smart for helping me

SCAMMERS!! I entered my info when applying for a pt job, filled out everything..hit the "next" button...looped to the beginning again..all my info was gone, repeated the steps, same thing happened, contacted them, concerned w my personal info I entered, now missing..their reply..? Try a different browser. NO. I want an answer to where my personal info went. No reply. I have contacted all credit bureaus to let them know if my credit is compromised, its from peoplesmart or Milestone Management whom I applied with.

I would give 0 (zero!) stars if SiteJabber let me. PeopleSmart scams you by charging a reasonable fee for one look-up and a 7 day "free trial" but they don't tell you about the $19.95 monthly charge in the fine print if you're not lucky enough to get them to acknowledge a cancellation during the 7 day "free trial." I tried to cancel my account during the 7-day free trial, actually suspecting they might try to charge me afterwards (even though I received no notice about the monthly charge), but they didn't honor my cancellation and proceeded to charge me for 3 consecutive months on my PayPal account before I noticed it. I did call to complain, and they reversed two charges -- saying they could only go back 60 days. Anyone who has been scammed should call them up and demand a refund. It's shameless. Even when you try to cancel during the "free trial," they don't let you. Shameless!

These scammers hide a notice that "you will be billed $19.95 a month to keep your service going" (something to that effect). I only found out about this when the charges hit my paypal account the second time (I disputed them with paypal - hopefully they'll reverse them). Finding and cancelling the auto-renewal is about as difficult as curing cancer... it takes a whole lot of digging and clicking through multiple levels of menu to get there. Avoid this service like the plague.

TOTAL SCAM!!! Paid .95 to find an address. Found all PREVIOUS addresses from years gone by but not the CURRENT address. Cancelled my trial membership immediately but when my credit card bill came there was a 39.95 charge from them. I called and talked to a WORTHLESS customer service rep who flatly refused to give me a refund and kept telling me that I did not cancel my membership.So I told the rep to cancel my membership RIGHT THIS INSTANT! He said my membership was cancelled. That was last year...this month there was a 39.95 charge on the same credit card. So i CALLED AGAIN. This time they argued with me saying that I had not cancelled my membership and that I was made fully aware that there would be a re-occurring charge to my card. I told them we would see about that and hung up on the Ahole, called my card company and disputed the charge. They told me they had alot of complaints about this company. STAY VERY FAR AWAY!!!

This site is a complete scam. I should have read the reviews first before paying $7.95 for a bogus report that didn't even have my name on it. I was given divorce records of over 4000 people; none of which were the requested one that they claimed to have. This must be illegal. Stay away from these crooks!!

Total scam company. I paid $.95 for a one-time telephone number lookup and the search didn't even give me a name or any other useful information. They must have hidden a "membership clause" in their terms and agreements online, because I was charged $19.95 a week later. This company is deceptive and they are survive by scamming people $19.95 for the hidden monthly "membership." They should be sued and put out of business!!!!!!

Do not use PEOPLESMART.com. Their site and services were limited. And their .95 intro was useless. I was then charged 19.95 after 7 days without a refund. To add insult to injury, the service representative hung up on me. NOT really "People Smart are they? No one should be subjected to their poor business service practices.

you dont even deserve a one star. You are a ripoff!!!!!! I am repoting to the bbb and the police to have you charged with fraud and scamming.

Wouldn't give them a star if that was an option. Paid the "one-time" fee of .49 cents. I removed my card information quickly afterwords, but somehow still was charged 19.95. Called and spoke to the customer service rep who was very rude and kept telling me I was wrong. Even though I removed my card information they could still charge me. They only gave me a partial credit! Scam at its finest and not to mention rip off! Stay far away

would never use this again i had a choice of one time lookup for .95. I got billed for .95 cents plus another $19.95 for a monthly subscription that i did not want, It was to find out about one number one time only. I would strongly recommend not using people smart!!!!!!!

I canceled my membership in couple days and even received a confirmation just noticed now on my bank account that they have been charging me for months 19.95.

SCAMMERS !!! STAY AWAY FROM THEM !!!

I need to call bank tomorrow to stop their payments

Signed up for a service through them that was $19.95. I got an offer shortly after to get a "pro" service for $29.95. I assumed that I was just switching from the regular to pro plan... NO- they charged me for MONTHS for BOTH fees!!! Just got off the phone with their horrible customer service rep who could do NOTHING!!! Save yourself the trouble and don't even sign up!!!

Within a day of PeopleSmart's "trial period" service, I cancelled my subscription due to the information they provided not being correct. I was later charged the $19.95 fee. I spoke with Paypal and Chase Bank; they stated they get may complaints about PeopleSmart charging customers after their trial period even though the customer timely cancelled their membership. I called customer service and found the agents to be rude and caustic. My bank was able to get the charge reversed due to PeopleSmart's common practice of bilking its customers. Caveat emptor.

I pd the .95 to get an address of an old neighbour of my dads to inform her of his death. A year later I swathe $39.95 charge on my cc. They did refund the charge but I was not happy that they just automatically charge your card yearly without any notice, especially when you don't give them any authorization to do so. I guess paying for one address search they feel that gives them authorization. People be aware of this scam.

Charged monthly fee without my knowledge and would not refund fee charged.

Looking for a nephew we'd lost contact with. Found his name in their system, paid the .95 to get his address and phone (none of which were him!) and was surprised to see a 19.95 charge on my credit card along with the .95 charge. The girl issues a partial credit today, saying it VERY CLEARLY says on the website that the .95 was good for 7 days only and then I had agreed to the monthly payment. BOGUS! If I had a trial membership, why was it asking for an additional fee for other information on my nephew (probably inaccurate as well!). REPORT THIS COMPANY AND ITS SHADY PRACTICES. don't give them a cent of your hard earned money or they will try to take it all.

This company is a total SCAM!!!!!!!!!!! Do not ever use it or they will find a way to charge you a monthly fee for something you have never used!! I received a confirmation email saying my free trial was cancelled and I will not be charged for future fees and this went on for a year before I noticed I was being charged $19.95 a month for something I thought I had cancelled!!! STAY AWAY!!!!!!!!!!! TOTAL SCAM!!!!!!!

***** Be aware, very aware, these guys are scammers....They scammed me from another site I was reviewing for a need to check credit worthiness on a person selling a car. Told me I would have 7-30 day free trial. All I received was phone numbers could have been retrieved from the phone book. They charged me (3) $19.95 for nothing, nothing! They are scammers ......

I wish I'd read these reviews before paying for this scam! They claim they have info but they don't. I am going to report them to the Consumer Protection Bureau, and so should everybody else they scammed.

Definitely SKETCHY at best. Supposedly registered with the BBB, my suggestion is report them.

Right after I registered for a free 7 day account, my card was charged for a vido rental from an address that was obviouly from the same people. After the hassle of cancelling my cc, a charge appeared on my paypal account for a month's fees. Also the service sucks and did nothing that can't be done with a google search. STAY AWAY!

I was looking for marriage records for my parents. I don't know when or where they were married, bu I have all of their vital information. I found my mother on PeopleSmart.com and they listed marriage records as available.

They advertised that they had the information I was looking for and that it'd be $7.95 to access it. So I paid, careful to avoid the "Free trial" scam that so many credit check places use. (Free for a week, $35/year thereafter, unless you cancel withing the week. cancelling is usually difficult).

They sent me the "Report" which was just the public vital information I saw before! The "Marriage Records" were just search results for other people with my mothers name that were NOT my mother! The records they advertised they had were not what I needed or paid for.

Unfortunately, every similar site uses a paywall and prevents you from knowing that you are getting the right information. Use with caution and read the Terms And Conditions!

I am very upset about this website. I signed up for a year of reverse phone lookups, but when I tried to use it, they want 7.95 per number. They don't tell you this up front.