Instant Checkmate does not provide "background checks" and incompletely provides criminal records. Zephyr Cove, Nevada

For fun one night, I decided to try this Instant Checkmate.  The information posted was wrong.  I know the person I checked has an extensive criminal record and this website informed me that this individual had NO criminal background.  Wrong.  The website also told me that I would only be charged a one time fee of $24.86.  I have now noticed that this "one-time" fee has been charged for a total of five months.  I finally tracked down a customer service phone number for this company and the agent told me that their site does not tell the consumer that he/she will be charged for every month until the consumer calls Instant Checkmate to cancel the account.  Well, I could hear the agent tell someone in the background that it happened again and the computer messed up and continued to charge a customer even after the trial month was up.  She then told me should was authorized to refund me 2 of the 4 months that I did not use the account.  When I complained, she told me she could refund me 3 months.  What a rip off for something that does not work.  It took me a while to discover the name of the company that was making these bogus charges to my account as they did not list a name or phone number on the charges.  I had to go through my bank.  Now that I know they are based in Las Vegas, Nevada, I will file a complaint the the BBB in that city.  Take my advice, don't use this company.

The situation may not be as bad as the report indicated, but I've held back on paying the fee for a full criminal background check from Instant Checkmate, at least for now.  I will not name the person of interest (to me), but the initial search showed that he had three criminal records in the state of Texas.  These incidents happened in the Texas counties of Grayson, Denton and Henderson.  I know for sure that he has lived in all three counties (currently, he is living in Grayson County), but I only have the full police report and the court record for the incident that took place in Denton County TX.  The address given in the cursory (free) Instant Checkmate webpage matches exactly with the criminal record that I am holding (it was about drugs).  The writer of the negative report that I'm responding to needs to know that Texas has a free public search system for convicted criminals, and I had found the Denton county criminal record through it late in 2007.  IT HAS SINCE DISAPPEARED!  Things like that happen in good ole Texas -- also in Oklahoma.  Maybe that can explain the apparent non-existence of records in other states.

I used the free system to try to find the other two criminal records (that I did not know about  before using Instant Checkmate), and the free systems in Texas drew a blank for those, too.   It turned out that the Grayson County incident was real, and a police officer down in Henderson County took an interest in my inquiry about the person of interest and what might have happened in that county -- that one hasn't been resolved just yet.

The person of interest shot my grandson to death in Oklahoma in 2007, but Instant Checkmate had no record of it.   It isn't their fault.   The district court never made a record of it, either - in their eyes it was a non-crime, a "homicide in self-defense."  But the person of interest shot him to death less than a week before his court date as a critical prosecution witness and he and another killer involved in the original crime come from the same community.  The DA who was going to use my grandson as a witness called it "self-defense" under Oklahoma's castle law and turned the shooter loose on the very day of the killing.  My grandson was not even armed, and he was shot several times.  Technically, the shooter was never in the court system, didn't have to post bond, etc., because the state's castle law has a presumption of innocence if someone even says "I believed I was in mortal danger." 

Obviously I have reams of information about this case.   I'm pretty sure my grandson's shooting death was an outright murder, which I'll call murder #2.  The grandson witnessed interstate drug trafficking of methamphetamine from Mexico and an associated murder (i.e., murder #1). 

I think this kind of situation shows the difficulty of tracking criminal records.  An Oklahoma detective claimed that he couldn't find a criminal record for the one who killed my grandson, but I had no trouble locating his Denton County records.  At this point I can safely assure you that Instant Checkmate got two of four incidents right.  But that's all I can really say.

Although my experience with Instant Checkmate was not bad as the first guy reported in January, I decided I didn't want it and called the 800 number for the office in Las Vegas to cancel.  They refunded all my money but told me to check back in a month.  They sent me some emails in Feb and Mar, and I decided to check back with them.  I bought the whole package and it is now excellent!  The website seems totally different as if it is new owners, although the office in Las Vegas says its the same people.

Several checks that did not return any criminal records in January now show pretty complete history.  The only one that is missing is one that I know had a trespassing arrest in 1979.  Again I called Las Vegas and they said their records are sketchy before 1980 because those records still have to be entered into databases by hand unless serious crime.

What I recommend is before you spend $, just call the 1-866 number and check what you're getting.  Also be ware that no website is going to give you a record of a crime that was committed very recently.  None of these websites are updated more than quarterly.

Bottom line, I think Instant Checkmate now works very well.