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No1Reviews.com >> Background Check Sites >> Civil Records Review |
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Civil Records Review
Membership Costs
Features:
Editor's Verdict: Civilrecords.org provides a good range of background records checks and a few handy people-finding options, mostly at reasonable prices. There are, however, a few aspects of this service that seem needlessly complicated and labor-intensive. This website is particularly useful for criminal record checks of all kinds - court reports, inmate searches, sex offender information and arrest reports. Its other searches are fine too, but criminal checking is definitely its main strength. On the other hand it doesn't provide any credit checks or pre-employment screening options, so it's by no means an all-rounder. Like all decent background checking sites, Civil Records compiles its data from searches of multiple databases and a diverse range of other sources, summarizing the information for you in a highly digestible format. A definite plus here is the ability to see sample reports for various kinds of searches before you sign up. This is a always good sign, both because it helps the customer know what they'll be paying for before they make their choice and because it indicates that the site is proud of the quality of the information they offer. True to form, the reports themselves are impressively detailed and well organized. The one proviso to bear in mind when looking at sample reports is that in actual reports there may sometimes be a few more blank boxes where the information is missing, depending on what data was actually available to be found. What Civil Records lacks is any website bonus features or extra benefits for members. Basically, you pay for the searches and that's it. On the plus side, the service appears to be highly trusted and has a good reputation for transparency, which is a real selling point in an industry where a lot of sites seem content to rip you off. It's important to be aware of the fact that Civil Records is not a service run by or in any way affiliated with the US Government. Not that it claims to be, of course, but it feels very official and you could easily make that assumption if you don't read the small print. Actually it's "powered by" Complete Investigation Services, the same company that runs Records Registry USA and Court Records, two other sites reviewed in this category. The three services are essentially very similar, just accessed through two different portals and with minor differences in some of the searching options on offer. Essentially though, all roads lead to Rome . Of course, there's nothing illegal or dubious about this, it happens all the time on the internet. The online background checking market is actually very incestuous, with most services being provided by a small number of companies operating through a large number of portals. This has the advantage from their perspective that whichever link you click on from the list of results you get when you search on "background checks", there's a good chance it'll be one of theirs. From the customer's point of view this amounts to a choice of branding and the illusion of more genuine choice than they actually have, making the market appear healthier and more diverse than it may be in reality. Civil Records differs from a lot of background-checking sites in that there is no recurring membership scheme as such. There is no repeat subscription that automatically debits your card every month until you cancel - instead, you simply sign up for one year at a time. The pricing structure itself is a little odd. What it amounts to is that you can buy either a one-off search (which is quite expensive) or a one-year unlimited searching pass (which is rather cheap). The website would clearly rather you did the latter and is not subtle about steering you in this direction. For some reason, all the aspects of this service to do with membership and pricing are convoluted, clumsy and occasionally just downright odd. The unlimited search pass, for example, only entitles you to conduct one of the two kinds of search available: the perversely named "unlimited basic search". The other type of search, "direct searching" requires payment, which is subtracted from the account balance established by your membership fee, until this is used up and you have to buy more credit. Basically though, as long as you stick with the cheapest options every time you'll be getting pretty good value for money, otherwise the cost does mount up a bit. Despite the lack of extras and a clumsy membership system, Civil Records offers a decent service for a reasonable price. There are better all-round services around (see our top ten background check site reviews), but if you are mainly interested in criminal record checks this isn't a bad choice.
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Review of Civil Records / CivilRecords.org |
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