It's very easy to get background checks done on people online but it's not so easy to find out what shows up on a criminal background check without actually signing up to one of the online public records web sites. You can always get a refund if you aren't satisfied of course - Make sure that the site has a good guarantee - but it's still a lot of bother if you have to do that. A much better way is to examine some samples of reports from such a web site before joining. That way you can decide if it's worth a try before you get your credit card out.

Don't get me wrong here because I think that there are some online public records web sites that do an absolutely amazing job of providing you with all kinds of interesting information about almost anyone that you can think of. The databases aren't perfect however. They use hundreds if not thousands of databases from all over the place and you can't expect them to have everything.

Having said that, I have personally managed to find several old friends and check the criminal record of someone recently. In fact I found the information that I was finding to be just a little intoxicating. I didn't want to stop searching because I was finding all sorts of interesting stuff. I was getting hooked.

When you talk about a criminal background check you should think about a background check that includes any criminal history. The person you are checking out may not have a criminal history at all but there is probably still plenty of information for you to find. Here is a brief list of just some of the data that might show up.

State criminal records check, email addresses, name and address, address history, civil filings, relatives and associates, arrest warrants, neighbors, property ownership, neighborhood check.

If you take a look at some samples of reports from the web site that you think you might join before you sign up then you can get a good impression of what to expect once you are in the members area.

When I was trying to work out which public records site to use I found it very difficult to find any information at all to indicate what I might find if I joined up. That's why, when I found a good site, I secretly copied all the sample reports and put some of them up on a web site so that everyone could see them.

When you've looked at the reports and decided that it's the type of information that you are interested in you can go ahead and join the web site. As I said you can't expect to find out everything but there's a very good chance that you'll find more than enough information to make it more than worth your while. It's fun too so give it a go.