• InstantCheckmate

InstantCheckmate

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Overview

InstantCheckmate has a rating of 1.8 stars from 341 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers complaining about InstantCheckmate most frequently mention credit card, phone number, and email address problems. InstantCheckmate ranks 152nd among Government Records sites.

  • Service
    82
  • Value
    86
  • Shipping
    30
  • Returns
    42
  • Quality
    71

This company responds to reviews on average within 10 days

Positive reviews (last 12 months): 18.2%
Positive
2
Neutral
0
Negative
9
7
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How would you rate InstantCheckmate?
Top Positive Review

“Good customer service”

Sat I.
3/23/24

The customer service team are very professional and helpful, they make sure to clarify any confusion and I get every information I need.

Top Critical Review

“Slow and inaccurate information.”

PAUL M.
9/10/24

It's definitely priced too high. At night it can be very slow. Often times it gives a lot of incorrect information. It's definitely priced too high. At night it can be very slow. Often times it gives a lot of incorrect information. It shows my grandfather's information (he died in 1952) as my information.

Reviews (341)

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Reviews that mention popular keywords

instant checkmate (43) background check (25) customer service (39) email address (13) credit card (27)
Thumbnail of user matthewn32
Massachusetts
1 review
11 helpful votes
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September 13th, 2016

You wait a really long time for them to "gather information". All the meanwhile verify with additional info, mislead you by saying info they found "may be graphic", leading you to believe who you are searching has some kind of criminal record. Then when they scam you into paying a premium for the report (more if you want it in a. Pdf format, before you even get to see the info) when you do get to look at the report, the only information you get is information you can gather from the white pages, their astrological sign, and that's it! But there is more. They elude that there "May Be" even more info, and for another 19.99 you can get the "Premium Report" Funny, I thought that's what I just paid almost 30.00 for to begin with!? Now you want another 20.00 for information that you cannot even tell me is even there? The first report does not even list whether the searched person holds a license! Which of course "May" be in the premium report. Stay away from this site!

Thumbnail of user matthewb1862
Arizona
1 review
0 helpful votes
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October 4th, 2022

I was disappointed with the service, but the lady on the phone sounded like she was very beautiful and forgive me butt only a hotty could have sounded that gorgeous and lively. Keep hiring more hot n sexy ladies peeps, she had a sense of humor and I find that very attractive in a woman.
That's my review, I was only interested in the sexy sounding lady, and I was just satisfied with her service and that sexy laugh of hers ya.
Be safe hot lady, we would have had a fun date, lol no jokes peeps she is probably drop dead gorgeous and probably with an $#*!, forgive my language but I calls it like I hears it.
Call me sexy!

Thumbnail of user nicholask381
Nicholas K. – InstantCheckmate Rep

Hello Matthew,
Thank you for taking the time to leave us your feedback.

Thank you,
Instant Checkmate Support

Thumbnail of user pg29
Kentucky
1 review
17 helpful votes
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June 17th, 2015

Signed up and discontinued service within 1 hour. Very misleading advertising and constant attempts to up sell "premium services" that were advertised to be included in the basic service. This site is a fraud.

Thumbnail of user moiram2
Texas
1 review
13 helpful votes
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December 7th, 2015

I joined instantcheckmate.com and conducted numerous searches for friends, and not 1 search provided me with the correct phone number. A couple of the addresses were accurate, but the phone numbers were either not in service, or incorrect. I would stay away from this site. What a waste of my money.

Thumbnail of user jakej21
Alabama
1 review
23 helpful votes
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September 12th, 2015

This website is a scam. They will allow or sell to other companies or scammers your email addresses. Then, you will get hundreds of scam emails in one day. I am certain that this company is responsible. AVOID!

Thumbnail of user johns1730
Texas
1 review
7 helpful votes
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April 23rd, 2017

This just prompts you out of your money! Was looking for my cousin in Dallas Texas, but they tell me she live in Kansas. No... we grew up there. All of the info report was on google and bing. They just charged me for nothing

Thumbnail of user billk52
Illinois
3 reviews
34 helpful votes
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September 12th, 2015

They took my credit card info and had a great time with it on a Sunday. About a month after I had bought my own report. After threatening to go to the FTC I got about 134.00 back. Then the took out another charge. That fired me up and I submitted a complaint with the
FTC # *******. I highly recommend you all do the same so they find out what a fraud company this is and shut them down.

Thumbnail of user jimd80
Oregon
8 reviews
28 helpful votes
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October 18th, 2015

FRAUD-Per Wikipedia... is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain.

From what I read I could cancel at any time which I did within a few days of service. I did phone and cancel but they deny this. So now my credit card company is backing them?
So now we will try their email, my email and their phone number.

Thumbnail of user aprilg8
California
1 review
15 helpful votes
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January 7th, 2015

Terrible service. It lures you in by asking all kinds of information letting you think that you are doing recon on yourself or someone you know by getting a thorough public records report. I tried this using my own name and got absolutely nothing. The information was hopelessly outdated, incomplete and incorrect. I feel absurdly duped. Stay away! Its just a cunning way to get your money.

Thumbnail of user donnac65
New Hampshire
1 review
16 helpful votes
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July 28th, 2015

Could not even get the sex right consistently in the search. Signed up for the 'Premium' to get arrest records and it came back with nothing, even though the party being searched has and extensive criminal history going back decades. Even basic search on others did not even reveal a Face Book page. Complete rip off.

Thumbnail of user alicer22
Texas
1 review
11 helpful votes
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October 20th, 2015

This website can't provide the most obvious information on a person. I found more just googling the persons name and then they want to argue about their disclaimer saying they are not set up to give criminal backgrounds when that is exactly what they advertise!

Thumbnail of user gl1524
Texas
1 review
24 helpful votes
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September 24th, 2015

Same crap as other reviewers. Nine screens telling me how shocked I am going to be with all the information they provide. Out of sheer curiosity, I paid via paypal (so I could cancel without calling) to see just what info they would provide. Surprise, surprise--unfortunately they couldn't find ANY info on the number I submitted! After nine pages of titillation they have NOTHING on the number!

Before admitting there actually was no report, the site gave me a button to get my (non-existent) report in pdf form for an additional $1.99.

Makes me vomit that Nigerian-Prince organization are able to freely operate in this country.

Thumbnail of user alfredon36
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
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June 21st, 2022
Verified purchase

First off, great intro on the website because it looked very promising. Actually signing up for a subscription for their $5/mo membership turned our to be confusing online. Upon being close to giving up because of a 5 hour wait for my membership to go through, mysteriously the fee dropped to $1.99/mo. Finally fighting through the difficult website signup procedure, I tried a search and SURPRISE, upsell to $35/mo. On top of that, when testing it to see if me, myself and I could be searched, I got zero results. Yeah, me who lived in one place 20 years, with mortgage, jobs, emails, phone numbers, USA citizenship, marriage, kids, bla bla bla. Yeah, no result. I cancelled immediately and SURPRISE again, they charged me the full $5 anyway. Complete rip-off. Useless scam website.

Tip for consumers:
Better to use another search investigation site like maybe truthfinder, which i personally found is not perfect but works to a certain extent.

Products used:
nothing of value

Service
Value
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user nicholask381
Nicholas K. – InstantCheckmate Rep

Hello Alfredo,
Thank you for taking the time to leave us with your feedback. If you feel that you've been charged in error, please reach out to our dedicated Customer Care Team at (800) 222-8985. Our team is available from Monday - Friday 7:00am to 7:00pm PST* (10:00am - 10:00pm EST) so we can make things right.

Thank you

Thumbnail of user ad517
Ohio
1 review
0 helpful votes
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July 27th, 2022

You people make me sick. You listed a man who I'd a sex offender at my address who never resided here then tried to lie you couldn't do anything about it. Told me to call the police WHICH we have! You're putting innocent lives in danger! And should be ashamed of yourself!

Tip for consumers:
Don't obviously they're a sleezey company

Products used:
None they put me and my family in danger listing a sex offender at our address who doesn't reside here and won't take it down after they said they would

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user nicholask381
Nicholas K. – InstantCheckmate Rep

Hello A D.,
Thank you for taking the time to leave us with your feedback. Please send us an email detailing the issue at support@instantcheckmate.com and we will further assist you.

Thank you

Thumbnail of user shaynahs
North Carolina
1 review
21 helpful votes
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October 30th, 2015

The original small fee, I saw as to do a complete fee with updates so I would be covered knowing that IF this was a good company, this would be a valuable service. In retrospect, I would of never went down that road but being I did... here is how I handled getting my $$ back. I had paid via PayPal & told them I would put a stop to the claim & contact BBB immediately because they had flat out lied about the services they provide. It took less than 24 hours to have all my money returned to my account. I urge anyone thinking about trying their service to do one thing & one thing only! RUN!

Tip for consumers:
RUN as far away in the other direction as possible! No, don't think twice, just RUN!

Service
Value
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user craigk16
Colorado
1 review
16 helpful votes
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April 30th, 2015

You think you're signing up for the one-month, one-time only service, but there's a tiny asterisk that's associated to the fine print on the left that states that you are going to be charged every month unless you call and cancel. When you see the next month's charge, they tell you that they are charging you for the next month anyway, but will cancel future payments. I did a background check on myself using Instant Checkmate and they didn't come up with all that much and even got some of the phone numbers wrong. You have to wonder how thorough a job they do when they resort to those kinds of tactics. There's other businesses that do background checks, I recommend using them.

Thumbnail of user mms6
Florida
1 review
8 helpful votes
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May 19th, 2017

In my opinion, they suck you into their program and encourage unwitting people into divulging personal information about the person we are seeking, and after helping them add a lot of free information in their data base, they compel us unwitting pawns the privilege of paying for their update to continue our search.

Thumbnail of user anthonyc661
Washington
1 review
4 helpful votes
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March 10th, 2020

This is a horrible site. Little to no information that is useful. Outdated old phone numbers that haven't been used in years, addresses associated that I've never lived, Using an 'AKA' that is not me. How do they stay in business.

Thumbnail of user nicholask381
Nicholas K. – InstantCheckmate Rep

Hello Anthony,
We are constantly working on and updating our records and we appreciate you taking the time to give us constructive feedback. We apologize you were unhappy with some of the information in our reports. Since we rely on third-party data sources, we can only display the information that we were provided, which could potentially include incomplete or inaccurate data. We hope to continue to improve our services to make them better for you and future customers.

Thank you

Thumbnail of user brucem75
California
1 review
21 helpful votes
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October 22nd, 2015

Charges to open an account/any relevant information charges extra all under the guise you are already paying for the reports you then have to pay for! Customer service refunded my money and cancelled my account though when I complained. Basic info didn't even have my current address/I've been licensed current address 10 years and have had police contact (although they did show a traffic tkt that was dropped as a "criminal traffic violation.").

Thumbnail of user williamb158
Florida
1 review
19 helpful votes
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November 21st, 2015

First off check mate offered a trial for a month. I signed on and found that it was wrong on all info. So i called and cancelled. Well all bills are paid by my office staff and are not always run by me... I was billed 2 yrs for a service I used and cancelled after a week. I was told sorry we will give you only $11.00 credit stay away from them...

Thumbnail of user sherip4
California
1 review
17 helpful votes
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August 2nd, 2015

I ran checks on three people I knew had criminal backgrounds and nothing showed up. The info that did populate was very basic and I could have found it online with minimal searching on my own. Some of the info wasn't even accurate. I cancelled the membership and my login no longer worked - said account inactive. Yet I still got charged the next month. Won't issue me a refund.

Thumbnail of user meghang84
Florida
1 review
0 helpful votes
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October 27th, 2022

The worst possible customer service action a company can take is to make a potential customer sit through 40 minutes of "analysis" and then reveal the overpriced service. I can't believe I fell for this bull$#*! and only hope someone else reads this before going through the same daunting process.

Service
Value
Shipping
Returns
Quality
Thumbnail of user nicholask381
Nicholas K. – InstantCheckmate Rep

Hello Meghan,
Although we are sad to see you were unhappy with your experience, we appreciate you taking the time to offer us feedback. While we wish we could provide all of the information to our customers for free, we do pay to access our data sources and it costs money to maintain our website. Please reach out to us at (800) 222-8985, or email us at support@instantcheckmate.com, if there's anything we can do to improve your experience.

Thank you

Thumbnail of user sorceroro
Texas
1 review
26 helpful votes
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November 17th, 2015

This website really stinks. Don't even spend a second on it. I saw the sitejabber reviews while I was going through it, and quickly caught on and didn't go on to the payment page. Thank you for saving me, everyone who posted reviews here.

Thumbnail of user johns11235
Kentucky
1 review
0 helpful votes
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June 7th, 2022

I only needed basic information on a few people. So I was happy with the results. But the main person I checked on has never lived anywhere else than Kentucky. The report I got from you said he also lived in Alaska and Pennsylvania.

Thumbnail of user nicholask381
Nicholas K. – InstantCheckmate Rep

Hello John,
Thank you for taking the time to leave us with your feedback. We are delighted to see that you enjoyed your experience with us (other than a few errors, which we apologize for), and we look forward to assisting you again in the future!

Thank you,
Instant Checkmate Support

Thumbnail of user cynthiad19
Washington
2 reviews
22 helpful votes
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December 14th, 2015

For the heck of it, I tried 2 people, myself and my Sister. For myself, it had none of my children/stepchildren, old address and old phone #, and possible relatives were mostly right, but the ones that were right were only in-laws and it didn't seem to know which one was my husband. It just did a google on me and I could easily find out more information about myself. Next, I tried my Sister, it missed her husband completely, he was not even listed and they have been married since 2007, it thought her ex-husband (who is deceased) was still her husband and had no idea he was deceased. It kept asking questions about both of us as I was doing it, I ended mine early and I ended hers early (once I saw the supposed relatives page). They have to be kidding me with this garbage... I could do a much better job on my own... this is SUCH a scam... they will never get a penny of my money.

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Thumbnail of user nicholask381
Nicholas K.
Typically responds within 10 days

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