How to Run a Background Check on Your Date
We no longer get to know our potential dates in the way we once did. Now that we have the internet, many dates originate on online dating sites or social media to meet their romantic interest. While there is nothing wrong with using the internet to meet potential romantic partners, it also makes it easier for people to lie about their backgrounds or their intentions.
Running a background check is simple, inexpensive, and it can save you from potential danger or heartache down the road. While it is possible to find a significant amount of information about someone on your own, using https://backgroundchecksource.com to find a reputable background check site makes it easy.
Roughly 30% of those who use online dating, also use the internet to research the people they are considering dating. If you decide to do a background, check yourself, you want to start with the essential information. Roughly 1 in 5 Americans has a criminal record. While some criminal records might be something that you are willing to tolerate, such as an old DUI from someone who no longer drinks, other records are much more concerning.
Most crimes are prosecuted at the county level, so searching criminal records for the county your date lives in should be your starting point. Our society is mobile, though, so you need to know if your potential date has lived in more than one county. It is also a good idea to check state and federal criminal records as well.
All states are required to maintain a sex offender registry. Checking the registry is a distasteful but necessary step in doing a background check on any potential date. You should never skip this step if you have children in your life. No matter how confident you feel about the person you are getting to know, you owe it to the children in your life to make sure you are not putting them in contact with someone who is on the sex offender registry.
Check their social media profiles
First, type in their name and city in quotation marks so find out how many social media profiles the person has. Does the information on their social media profiles match the information they have given you? Spend a little time going through their social media profile and reading their posts and comments. Doing this might give you a better sense of who the person truly is. Are their racists or sexists attitudes in any of their posts or comments? Do they post insulting or demeaning things about other people? All of these things should be red flags.
Other information
Use the power of the internet to search property tax rolls and marriage and divorce records. If your potential date professed to be divorced, but you can find no history of the divorce proceedings, then that might be cause for worry.
Do they own property jointly with someone else? If so, do you know why? There are plenty of reasons that someone might own joint ownership, but make sure the story adds up. If the property is still held in conjunction with an ex-spouse, you might want to confirm that the spouse is genuinely an ex. It is uncommon for divorced spouses to retain property jointly.
You will also want to check for civil proceedings involving their name. Does your date have pending civil litigation that they have not mentioned? You will have to use your judgment to determine if the relationship has progressed to the point that they should have mentioned any civil matters in which they are involved.
A background check will not reveal everything you need to know about a person, but it is a good starting point to ensure you are safe and that dating this person is worth the time investment.
Whatever you do with the information is a personal decision, but hopefully, you will find that the person you are interested in is exactly as they have presented themselves.
