Instant Checkmate Review: Say Goodbye to Catfishing Forever

I searched for a fictional person with a fairly common name to see what lengths Instant Checkmate would go to to narrow down the person I’m searching for. I did this without paying for anything.

Once Instant Checkmate gave me a prompt to pay, I selected the most cost-effective option and paid for unlimited searches.

Upon unlocking the paid account, I searched for 5 different people. I did this by only inputting a limited amount of information such as their full maiden name (knowing that the target has been married for a while), their full name and city address, and their full name and city address (for someone with a fairly common full name).

I then verified all this information using each target’s social media account.

Why Should You Use a Background-Checking Tool?

Background-checking tools are often used by businesses to screen potential employees, or landlords to screen potential tenants. Instant Checkmate actually asks users not to use its software for these purposes. However, there are several reasons why people might still want to use this service.

1. Finding Contact Information

If you’re trying to locate a special person from your past but you don’t have the contact information, Instant Checkmate could help. You only need to type in their name, phone numbers and/or location. From there, you should be able to find this person’s phone numbers, address history, email addresses and details of their family members. An emotional reunion could be just a few clicks away.

2. Verifying Information

Do you suspect someone is being dishonest with you about their past, whether that’s by telling outright lies or lies by omission? Instant Checkmate can help verify someone’s information so that you can be sure they’re being honest about who they are.

3. Spotting Red Flags

Instant Checkmate will alert you if someone has been in trouble with the law or if they have been in severe financial trouble. These are huge red flags that everyone deserves to know, especially if they’re planning on getting into a romantic relationship with that person.

What Is Instant Checkmate? Our Instant Checkmate Review

Instant Checkmate is a public records search service. This website allows you to perform online background checks within minutes. Enter the basic details of a U.S. citizen such as their name, phone number, and location, and Instant Checkmate will create a detailed profile of this person based on the information that exists within public records.

Our Instant Checkmate review will reveal exactly what you can expect from this online service.

What Can Instant Checkmate Do?

Instant Checkmate will find any U.S. citizen and complete a detailed report of their publicly available information.

The report will include:

• Full name
• Date of birth
• Images
• Employment history
• Education
• Social media profiles
• Social security details
• Possible relatives
• Possible relationships
• Phone number
• Location
• Email addresses
• Neighbors
• Criminal record
• Financial records
• Business profiles
• List of licences
• List of assets
• Sexual offenses

To access this information, you just need to create an account and search for your desired person’s name, location and/or phone number.

What Can Instant Checkmate Not Do?

Instant Checkmate can not present information that isn’t available on publicly-available records. It searches a huge amount of records including federal records, state records, county records and many popular websites. However, some reports will be more detailed than others because some people are more careful with their personal data than others.

So for instance, if the person you’re looking for has a social media profile, InstantCheckmate.com will give you a link. However, if their social media profile is set to private, Instant Checkmate can’t give you any information that they haven’t already made public.

How to Sign Up for Instant Checkmate

When you navigate to instantcheckmate.com, you’ll immediately be prompted to search for a U.S. citizen. You can search by first name, last name, city, and state. However, you don’t have to enter all the information if you don’t know it. You’ll occasionally be prompted to select this person’s gender after you click “Search”.

In this example, I searched for the fictional “Alex Bloom” from Columbus, Ohio. If you’ve been on Heart Insider for a while, you’ll notice that this is the fake persona we use when signing up for some of our dating app reviews.

As the search begins, you’ll sometimes be asked further questions to make sure you’re given information about the right person. You can answer “Yes”, “No” or “Don’t Know”.

After a minute or so, you’ll be presented with a list of possible options. The more details you were able to give the algorithm, the more likely you’ll only be presented with the one person you were looking for. The search results will include the person’s name, age, location, and possible relatives, which should help you be sure you got the right person.

Once you click “Open Report”, you’ll be presented with loading screens showcasing all the different variables included in the report. These will be paused to alert you when it finds something juicy about the person you’re searching for. You’re also made to check a few disclaimers due to the “potentially shocking” information that may be revealed. The process is more or less the same when using the Instant Checkmate app on Android.

After creating an account and being given one more warning about potentially graphic content, you’re prompted to pay for an account.

I’ll give all the pricing information, including how to land yourself a $1 trial, later on in the article.

How to Use Instant Checkmate

Once you’ve created your account, you’ll be able to access the report of the original person you searched for. However, if you want to download it as a PDF, you’ll have to pay an extra one-off fee of $2.99. The website informs you that it might be worth the cost since it’s possible that some records could become sealed from the public.

The reports are as detailed as advertised. Among other details, it contains:

• Full name: (possible aliases may also be included)
• Date of birth: (sometimes only the month and year are found)
• Images: (usually pulled from social media profiles)
• Jobs: (including dates, usually pulled from their LinkedIn profile)
• Education: (including dates, usually pulled from their LinkedIn profile)
• Social Media Links: (even old-school websites like MySpace, Tagged, Plurk, and Google Plus are searched)
• Social Security Details
• Possible Relatives
• Possible Relationships: (this might not be romantic relationships, often the relationship is listed as “other”)
• Phone Number: (this includes the network provider and the carrier location)
• Location: (in many cases, the full address with a postcode is found)
• Email address: (many potential email addresses are listed)
• Neighbors: (including from previous addresses)
• Criminal Record
• Financial Records: (including potential bankruptcies or other debt issues)
• Business Profiles: (businesses listed in their name)
• Licenses
• Assets
• Sex Offender Register: (the report will show offenders living near their address, we can assume the person themselves will be listed if they are on the register)

A note about the reports

I mentioned above that I did my initial search on Instant Checkmate by inputting a fictional person we created for doing dating app reviews. However, for the actual searches we’re paying for, I searched for real people I know. I did this for two reasons:

1. I wanted to verify that all the information Instant Checkmate gives me is correct. Since I’m connected to these people via social media, I’m able to check if the information I’m able to gather about them is correct. In c

Report for 39FDallas

Naturally, we’re not going to reveal any incriminating information on the people we searched for. So I’ll be giving them aliases. In the case of 39FDallas, I was able to find her full name, a photo, and her address. I was also able to find some of her aliases.

InstantCheckmate.com was also able to give me some details about her workplace. However, I have a feeling that her employment history isn’t very accurate. You might notice that it says that she was employed by two separate companies from May 10, 2022 - May 10, 2022. So I’m pretty sure there’s an error there somewhere.

As for financial information, I was able to pull up a record of 39FDallas filing for bankruptcy twice. It even includes the name of the judge, the case numbers, when the bankruptcies were filed, the attorneys, and the trustees. But this isn’t the type of thing you’d post on social media or mention to your friends (I met her after these bankruptcies were filed).

Good thing I was able to verify if this information is accurate through PACER, which is the official online database for court records.

If you’re dating someone who’s showing signs of being a gold digger, and you find records of her filing for bankruptcy, this could be a huge red flag!

Report for 34MSanGabriel

The second person I looked up was also pretty interesting. I’ve known this guy since we were in grade school. We were friends way before Facebook was a thing, and we had been contacts on different social media platforms way back in the early 2000s.

For this search, however, I decided to search only for his first name and a nearby city where I know he might have lived. At first, I was given the profile of someone completely different. This goes to show that Instant Checkmate requires as much specific information as you can provide. So when I verified his Facebook profile, this is the report that popped up.

I can confirm that some of the details provided by Instant Checkmate were correct. The numbers provided by Instant Checkmate are outdated, though. But I was able to verify that these used to be his numbers because he had an obnoxious email sign-off that I managed to keep in my inbox. This included his numbers and a link to his LiveJournal (which happens to be absent from this report).

As for 34MSanGabriel’s address, InstantCheckmate.com was able to provide the correct street and city address. However, the information stating that he lived there starting on January 1, 2020 is inaccurate since he has lived in the same house since 2018 (as evidenced by the Facebook post below).

Lastly, I need to mention that the reason I picked 34MSanGabriel as someone to search for is that he has a pretty extensive social media presence. This is even before Facebook and Instagram. I know that he had Yahoo Messenger, LiveJournal, MySpace, and more. But since those sites are no longer as popular, they didn’t show up on the Instant Checkmate report. Instead, Instant Checkmate was able to pull up his Facebook, Instagram, and Vimeo profiles.

Report for 30FSanJose

Here’s where I really put Instant Checkmate through its paces. I decided to do a search for an acquaintance of mine (also a friend on social media, so I can verify information). This particular acquaintance, however, has had an extremely limited social media presence since 2012. I know that she now goes by her married name, but I decided to search for her maiden name to see if any records of her marriage would pop up.

Sadly, this is the point in my Instant Checkmate review that I realized how limited its scope can be. To verify that it was her, I was asked to confirm that she was related to two people, whom I knew to be her sister and her mom. After doing that, her report was relatively blank.

Instant Checkmate was able to provide her old number, her city address, and some old social media accounts. But other than that, I saw no other details that I knew to be facts such as her marriage, the name of her spouse, or the name of her child. Her birthdate was also limited to just the month and year.

Can you save Instant Checkmate reports?

Yes. Each search you complete will be saved for future viewing. You’ll be granted an unlimited number of searches in your dashboard as long as you’re a member.

Instant Checkmate Review: Our Verdict

I searched for two more friends, and their reports were interesting but lacking. But then again, this seems like more than enough information if you’re just trying to verify someone’s real name and city address.

In the case of 39FDallas, I was able to see that she filed for bankruptcy, which can be important if you’re looking to share a household with someone. I was also able to find active and inactive social media accounts, which are helpful if you want to have a look at their online presence. There are also records of their known relatives who are either residents or citizens of the US.

However, if you want to find out if someone is married, this can be tricky. Out of the 5 people I searched for, only one showed any record of being married. In reality, 3 of them were married.

So does Instant Checkmate work? Yes. Would I recommend Instant Checkmate to someone who just wants to know that they’re not being catfished? Absolutely! You can use the 5-day trial to search for as many people as you want, and you will get quite a bit of information on them.

But would I recommend Instant Checkmate to someone who wants more in-depth information on someone? It depends. Chances are, if the person you’re looking for doesn’t want to be found, Instant Checkmate might only give you an approximation of where they once lived and where they worked. On the other hand, if the person you're looking for has an abundance of public records and a bigger online presence, you can get lots of information from Instant Checkmate.

Pros and Cons of Instant Checkmate

Pros:

• An affordable monthly subscription, plus you’ll be offered a $1 trial.
• Search for U.S. citizens using just their name, phone number and/or location.
• During our Instant Checkmate review, the website found every person we searched for, no matter how private they were.
• You can expect detailed profiles completed with great speed.
• The searches for possible relatives, previous addresses, and social media profiles were particularly detailed.

Cons:

• There is no Instant Checkmate free trial
• You have to pay extra to download reports as PDFs, as well as phone number and email address searches.
• Often, you’ll be given several “possible” phone numbers or email addresses. It’s likely that many of these are incorrect or at least out-of-date.
• Most of our searches couldn’t find any information with regards to criminal records, social security records, assets, licenses, or business profiles. However, not everyone has notable information to find in these categories.

How Much Is Instant Checkmate?

Interested in discovering the Instant Checkmate cost? Instant Checkmate offers monthly or quarterly subscriptions. A rolling monthly subscription will cost you $35.12 a month. A quarterly subscription costs $84.28, which is $28.09 per month.

If you try to navigate away from the sign-up page, you’ll also be offered a 5-day trial for $1. Once the trial period expires, you’ll be automatically charged $35.12 and moved onto a rolling monthly subscription. If you cancel before the trial period ends, you won’t be charged anything more.

Instant Checkmate will charge you for some extra services.

• Downloading reports as PDFs: a one-off fee of $2.99.
• Email reports: An additional $7.99/month.
• Phone reports: An additional $5.99/month.

The email reports and phone reports promise you extra information based on more detailed searches of email addresses and phone numbers. However, much of this information is likely to be found without you having to pay extra.

How to Opt Out of Instant Checkmate

Let’s say you’re someone who wants to keep your information as private as possible. Is there a way to ensure that your information doesn’t show up on Instant Checkmate?

There is no Instant Checkmate opt-out service. There is some data that you have to give to the government and the websites you use. This data is freely available to anyone who chooses to search for it. Back in the day, you’d have to make a written request for this information. Now anyone can find it quickly and easily on InstantCheckmate.com.

So, an Instant Checkmate opt-out is out of the question. The closest thing you can do to an Instant Checkmate opt-out is to be more careful as far as where your information is shared.

How to Cancel Instant Checkmate Subscription

Click “Account” in the main dashboard, then navigate to “Membership Settings”. You’ll see a Cancel Subscription button on the next screen. Click that and you’ll be asked to choose a reason why you’re canceling from a drop-down menu.

Just before you cancel, you’ll be offered the opportunity to keep your membership with extra features at a reduced price. I was offered a monthly membership for $16.95, with the phone and email report features thrown in. (This is a sneaky way to lower the Instant Checkmate cost).

To confirm your cancellation, click the green “Cancel My Subscription” button.

Alternatively, you can call 800-222-8985 on weekdays between 07:00 and 16:00 PST.

Frequently Asked Questions About Instant Checkmate

What is Instant Checkmate used for?

Instant Checkmate is an online background-checking service used to find publicly-held information about U.S citizens. Type in the name of a U.S citizen into this website and you’ll find their contact details, social media profiles, address history, criminal records, social security information, business records and more.

What does Instant Checkmate tell you?

Reports include the following information about the person you search for.

• Full name
• Date of birth
• Images
• Employment history
• Education
• Social media profiles
• Social security details
• Possible relatives
• Possible relationships
• Phone number
• Location
• Email addresses
• Neighbors
• Criminal record
• Financial records
• Business profiles
• List of licenses
• List of assets
• Sexual offenses

Does Instant Checkmate notify the person you are searching?

No, your privacy is guaranteed.

Does Instant Checkmate show dating profiles?

No. The website searches many popular and niche social media profiles, but no data is pulled from online dating profiles.

Is Instant Checkmate Anonymous?

Yes. No-one will be notified that you have looked them up on Instant Checkmate.

Is Instant Checkmate legal?

Yes. Instant Checkmate only shows you publicly available information, so there’s no breach of privacy.

Does Instant Checkmate have an app?

The Instant Checkmate app is only available to download on Android in the United States. There is no Instant Checkmate app available on iOS.

Is Instant Checkmate legit?

It’s fair enough to ask “Is Instant Checkmate legit?” - as it makes a lot of big promises during the sign-up process. Still, the answer is a resounding yes. Our Instant Checkmate review proves that the service is legit.

You’ll receive detailed profiles of any U.S. citizen you search for on Instant Checkmate. The amount of information found varies from person to person, but you’ll generally be satisfied with the results. Instant Checkmate has received over 70,000 5-star reviews from users, and an A+ star rating from the Better Business Bureau.

Is using Instant Checkmate safe?

There were no red flags are far as user safety found during our Instant Checkmate review. The people you search for aren’t notified. All searches are secured with a 256-bit encrypted connection.

Is Instant Checkmate free?

No, you’ll have to sign up to a paid membership to access unlimited searches on instantcheckmate.com.

Is an Instant Checkmate free trial available?

There is no Instant Checkmate free trial, but you can get a 5-day trial for $1. To access this, navigate to the payment page and then leave it. You’ll see a pop-up offering a $1 trial when you do this. You’ll get access to the same features during your trial as you would during a full membership. We used the $1 trial to complete our Instant Checkmate review

Does Instant Checkmate have reverse phone lookup?

The Instant Checkmate reverse phone lookup is available. To use the Instant Checkmate reverse phone lookup service, click the link in the main menu at the top of the website. Alternatively, navigate to http://phone.instantcheckmate.com.

How do I cancel Instantcheckmate.com?

Click ‘Account’ in the main dashboard, then navigate to “Membership Settings”. You’ll see a Cancel Subscription button on the next screen. Click that and you’ll be asked to choose a reason why you’re canceling from a drop-down menu.

Just before you cancel, you’ll be offered the opportunity to keep your membership with extra features at a reduced price. I was offered a monthly membership for $16.95, with the phone and email report features thrown in. (This is a sneaky way to lower the Instant Checkmate cost).

To confirm your cancellation, click the green “Cancel My Subscription” button.

Alternatively, you can call 800-222-8985 on weekdays between 07:00 and 16:00 PST.

Is Instant Checkmate hard to cancel?

No. Some websites make you jump through hoops to cancel your subscription, but Instant Checkmate isn’t one of them. You can easily cancel online or over the phone.

Is Instant Checkmate worth it?

The answer to this question is subjective and will surely depend on what information is discovered. What if you found out that someone close to you had commited a serious crime or sexual offense? That information is arguably priceless. What if you used Instant Checkmate to find a long-lost family member? Again, potentially priceless.

If this information is waiting to be found, you can count on Instant Checkmate to find it. That was certainly the case in our Instant Checkmate review anyway.

Who is the parent company of Instant Checkmate?

The parent company of Instant Checkmate is called PeopleConnect. The founder and CEO is Max Shapiro.