How to research someone?

[tryingtobesafe]

What are the best ways to track down the legitimacy of an individual or company? I have a few names, a few company names, an email, and some phone numbers. I have tried numerous Google searches, I have identified the companies thru their respective State controllers, and I have run the names thru www.beenverified.com So far I have come up with very little information. Nothing bad so far, but nothing really good either – it’s like they are stick men on the internet.

[De Master Yoda]

Experience has a lot to do with doing research successfully.

Remember Google is your friend. It helps to do a search using " as in "xxxx" instead of xxxx this will minimize the search so that only results with all the names in them will be shown.

You can also search email and phone numbers.

[tryingtobesafe]

I'm pretty good with Google, we've been friends for a long time
I was hoping to find some clearing house for names of bad guys out there that you guys may have stumbled upon.

I would just feel so much better about walking away from this "deal" if I knew that one of the principals was some guy with a rap sheet longer than my arm.

[De Master Yoda]

Unfortunately most of the scammers use fake names so a list of them would not be much help.

If you would like to send me some details via PM I will have a look at them for you and see if I can find anything out.

The bottom line to see if they really are scammers, is that they WILL ask for money. with various excuses.

Unfortunately there is no magic wand to wave to see if anyone or company is a scammer but there are many red flags and after seeing many thousands of scams, we can recognize many of the traits that show they are scammers.

[Ben]

This topic has me thinking about Google search page when searching the web.
Lets say when you look at your google search page (and for me it says UK) am I going to get hits priority relating to my country more so than a global search?
Judging by the amount of info Google have on their users searches, it would make sense that this was the case.
...so in searching Google for a defined global search I came across this Add-On by RedFly which may be worth a comment when I try it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...bal/developers
download: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...google-global/

[tryingtobesafe]

Unfortunately most of the scammers use fake names so a list of them would not be much help.

If you would like to send me some details via PM I will have a look at them for you and see if I can find anything out.

The bottom line to see if they really are scammers, is that they WILL ask for money. with various excuses.

Unfortunately there is no magic wand to wave to see if anyone or company is a scammer but there are many red flags and after seeing many thousands of scams, we can recognize many of the traits that show they are scammers.

Yoda,
Thanks for the offer - PM on the way

[tryingtobesafe]

This topic has me thinking about Google search page when searching the web.
Lets say when you look at your google search page (and for me it says UK) am I going to get hits priority relating to my country more so than a global search?
Judging by the amount of info Google have on their users searches, it would make sense that this was the case.
...so in searching Google for a defined global search I came across this Add-On by RedFly which may be worth a comment when I try it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...bal/developers
download: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...google-global/

Here's an idea for Google – “Google ScamAlert”, and it's sister product “Google Douchebag Lookup”
It could fit right in with Google Maps, Google Translate, etc., I think its brilliant