In the earliest days of my internet experience, I remember being able to do a web search for a phone number and sometimes actually find something useful. That said, this niche has long been dominated by some of the fakest, most scammy, bullshit sites on the web. From calling themselves “free” when they are not, to the fake “searching”, “sifting through results”, “correlating records” wait screens that are much like the deceptive, manipulative, and nontransparent airline industry, to the mentally manipulative exclamation point in the red warning triangle to tease you that there might be criminal records.
Why is this area of the web so scammy?
Who made it like this?
Has anyone tried to fix it?
Is there a any site out there that can actually do a reverse lookup and isn’t a cesspool of popups, pay gates, and fake loading screens?
I know they are paywalled but they give so much information.
I had a contractor that took my money and ran. I used one of those reverse lookup sites with just his name and phone number and I got his address as well as his relatives.
He did not like the fact I had a deputy serve him his court appearance or the time when I called his mother to confirm his data before the court date.
Long story short, I won the case. He claimed no assets so I will never get paid back.
Won’t help now but only deal with contractors that have a contractor license. That license number means they paid insurance into a fund so if they take the money and run, you can recover your money from the state insurance fund even if they personally don’t have any money.
It took like 3 years for the process to work through but I got back all my money from a contractor that took a payment and disappeared.
I’m not sure location but, if it’s the US my parents had something similar with the no assets thing. Someone stole their car, took it for a joy ride and burned it up the road, they were charged and given a verdict of guilty and had to pay it back, but they claimed no assets. After a few years of no payments whatsoever my mom started complaining, eventually she complained enough they started the legal process of garnishing wages. If he has a job or an income source, they can garnish that either via tax time or via the wages. Being said, the garnish system is super lax for living costs, if they are making bare min wage, you probally won’t get money out of it