You are registered on one of the online dating websites and you find somebody you like. You start talking and it seems like everything is going well, but somehow you still have some reserves: maybe something sounds fishy or you just want to be extra careful.

That’s when you might come across websites that are selling background check reports on people you want to find details about.

As useful as this might sound, several of these companies are just taking advantage of people who are desperate to find someone they can really trust. Most of the reports are very poor as all the research is probably done on the Internet.

How to avoid: you could just find as many details as they did if you did the search yourself. Just don’t believe their own testimonials - they are not private detectives.