Instant Checkmate Review
Jacob Wilson, iReviews- August 31,2022
Jacob Wilson, iReviews
August 31,2022
Instant Checkmate is a website with numerous tools to help with its goal. That goal is to find all the public information that exists on a person from criminal records to social media presences. It’s a lot of stuff to look into, but what do I think about it?
The website has several impressive features in itself, and the quality of a website will make it easier to keep track of those aspects. The information they gather can be used to see your records which is the easiest thing to do. This makes it great for finding a lot about yourself out, but there is much more to it than that.
- Free searches in line
- Capable of self-searching
- Membership instant searches
- 128-bit encryption on searches
- Self-Search is not always correct on the first try
- People with common names are harder to find
- Slower searches without a subscription
- Not a tool many will use constantly
There is a lot of sensitive information, important knowledge, and personal records to keep track of today. A regular person can only be expected to keep track of so much for themselves or others, and that’s where an online tool like Instant Checkmate comes in to help.
Product Features:
- People Search
- Reverse Phone Lookup
- Inmate Search
- Criminal Records
- Self-Search
What Is Instant Checkmate?
Instant Checkmate has two main goals behind its function. The first is to learn the public records and similar background information of anyone you might know. The second is to find out what people can find out about yourself and what your publicly available records are.
These searches can be broad in scope, pinning down every note of information that there is on a person. There is the option to make these searches more narrow to look for specific details like public records, background checks, or who someone is with a reverse phone lookup. Useful when you just need one or two types of information.
Instant Checkmate Features
There are two main features behind Instant Checkmate. They have a free search available for broader searches, but they will be on the slower side with paid memberships getting instant searches.
These broad person searches can be done for yourself or other people you know. When doing one for yourself it will ask several specific questions about yourself to narrow the search down, though common names may still lead to the wrong person being picked out.
The other form they come in is the more narrow searches that can be far more limited without a membership. It’s a good expansion in the number of records they dig into I think, but you should ask yourself how often you will be digging into records to justify the cost. These include more specific searches like reverse phone lookups, background checks with more records, and other bits of data not available with their free search.
Instant Checkmate Test
I’ve found using Instant Checkmate simple to use more than other tools of its type. Hiccups feel common, but they tend to be from user mistakes and happen less the more often you use them. Still, when they do happen they can sting a bit from the length of time a new search can take.
Finding information on myself took only two tries to get accurate. This is even taking my exceptionally common name into account.
For less common names it’s a lot easier. Unique names and less common names get narrowed down fast. It can still grab the wrong person sometimes, but having some information on a person before the search makes it easy.
Overall it was a decent test run searching for myself and a few test people. There isn’t much to complain about other than those occasional hiccups, and I see the value that this product can produce for people who need to search.
Who’s Instant Checkmate For?
I feel there is plenty of people who can use the Instant Checkmate database. I want to preface this by saying to limit its use for personal reasons. Find out what your online presence and available records are, know more about people, and try to reconnect with people.
Instant Checkmate is a tool that some people are not only recommended against using but downright shouldn’t. There are obvious ones, such as employers who are not allowed to screen their employees in this manner.
Anything that falls into either a legal grey area or outright illegal use of screening people should be an obvious no-go for this service. Still, I wanted to make sure I made that as clear as possible here so that no one gets the wrong idea about what they should do with Instant Checkmate.
What Are the Capabilities of Instant Checkmate?
Instant Checkmate’s ability to dig into records is impressive, but it has limits. The biggest one is that it draws primarily from US sources. This means that their product probably won’t work well for anyone that doesn’t have a record within the United States.
Along with this, I’ve found that the service can have trouble when it comes to finding individuals with common names. This is a problem I’ve noticed with nearly every service like this, so it’s not an issue that I see going away anytime soon. If you don’t have enough exact information about them already it can be hard to pin them down against a backdrop of potentially hundreds or even thousands of people with the same name.
Should You Buy It?
Instant Checkmate having a free search option means that the only purchasing there is to do is getting a membership that opens up further features and instant searches. The question then becomes, are these added features enough value for whatever you’re planning to use Instant Checkmate for?
That’s a personal question that’s hard to answer, but there are a few reasons the answer may be yes. If you want to keep track of your records without much hassle, have a reason to keep track of open records of others, or want to find an old friend for whatever reason it could be useful to you. Whatever you plan to use Instant Checkmate for, just remember that you still have to follow laws on who you’re allowed to get information on.
How to Buy an Instant Checkmate Membership
If you’re at all recommended in getting an Instant checkmate membership then you need to go to their website and sign-up. You will find that here.
I’d say it’s worth giving the free search a few tries before you go into the membership. It can be worth it, but it’s best to get a feel for the service first. If nothing else, they do offer decent support to their members and the questions they may have.
How Does Instant Checkmate Compare to the Alternatives
I see Instant Checkmate as a unique product that offers a niche service in a growing field. That means that the amount of competition that it has is limited but growing.
There are a handful of other services that offer similar searches but in different ways. I want to take a look at one or two that I found particularly interesting in the way they handle their services compared to Instant Checkmate.
BeenVerified is another person verifier. Their services offer general people searches, phone lookups, and email lookups. A limited amount of options compared to others, but it still covers the major options I think most people would be looking for.
What it does offer different is its payment method. Instead of a membership, BeenVerified offers a one-time fee of a single for each search that you plan to do with their full options.
What this means is that if you plan to do a lot of searching for phone lookups, email lookups, or general people searches, then it may not be a better deal. However, If you’re just looking for a handful of searches BeenVerified is suddenly a much better option.
Final Verdict
Instant Checkmate is a quality product and service in its field. It’s something I think you can either get a lot of use out of or will use once on yourself. Finding people you’ve lost contact with can be so simple with Instant Checkmate, and keeping tabs on where phone numbers are coming from can suddenly be an actual option.
I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone. Like I said before, there are legal grey areas and downright illegal applications when using this product. You can’t use this to screen employees, tenets, or for anything else of that nature.
If you’ve got reasons to search through records and don’t want to do it yourself, this can simplify the process. I’d recommend it based on the quality of the searches.
If finding information on people or reverse phone lookups are features that you will find ample amounts of usage out of, then there is no better service out there that I’ve yet to find. It’s a niche product, but it fills its niche well.
Resources and Further Reading
- https://www.instantcheckmate.com/ – Instant Checkmate Website
- https://www.beenverified.com/ – Beenverified Website
