Pipl is People

When researching on line, most people go to Google and types in a name, e-mail address or phone number.  Sometimes this tactic turns up something valuable but usually it won't.  Many times success is dependent upon the uniqueness of the person's name.

Good luck if you're trying to research John Smith from New York City.

Don't get me wrong, Google's a great search engine and in future posts, I'll talk about the ways I use Google to research, but when I'm researching someone, the tool I use first is pipl.com. Pipl allows you to search by name, e-mail address, username or telephone number.  Unlike a regular search engine, Pipl searches the deep web, that part of the web that search engines don't usually index.

According to its website, Pipl's "robots are set to interact with searchable databases and extract facts, contact details and other relevant information from personal profiles, member directories, scientific publications, court records and numerous other deep-web sources."

What I like about Pipl is that if you know a person's name and where they live, you can search and let Pipl do a lot of tedious work, the burrowing and sifting that's required to get a full profile of a person.  Pipl is especially good at scouring multiple social networking sites like Facebook and Linkedin.  It also searches some public records simultaneously. But don’t be fooled.  Pipl doesn't search all of these sites.  

That’s because many public records sites are part of the invisible web.   It's called invisible because it can't be "seen", searched and indexed by search engine robots. Therefore, don't think if you've done a Pipl search, you've found all the pertinent information about the person you're researching.  

Pipl is a starting point.  It'll give you lots of good information about the person you're researching.  From the perspective of an on-line dater, it could give you the make or break information you need to decide if you want to date the person; are they married, do they have a criminal past.

Pipl will give you information that'll lead you to other facts about the person you're researching.   It won't give you all the information about the person. It's not the end all of on-line researching.  It's the beginning.  Give it a try and see what you think.  Search your own name and see what you find.

Dater Beware

A few months back, I was walking with my friend Cindy. We hadn't seen each other in a while, and since I knew she was signed up for plentyoffish.com I asked her how on-line dating was going.

"Good!" she said. "I've been exchanging e-mails with this guy Joe! He's really cute and when we've talked on the phone, he makes me laugh."

"Sound's great," I said. "Have you met him yet?"

"No, not yet." She paused a second. "His profile says he's looking for a committed relationship, and he says that he's trustworthy and honest but I'm just not sure about meeting him yet."

"Wait, his profile says that he's trustworthy and honest?"

"Yeah, well actually it says, I'm the most trustworthy and honest person you'll ever meet."

I stopped walking and looked at her. "Let me tell you something. If you have to tell people that you're trustworthy and honest, then you probably aren't. Can you give me his e-mail address and profile name so I can check up on him?"

"Would you?"

By the time I got home from the walk, Cindy had already forward Joe's profile name, address and his most recent e-mail asking to meet for a drink.

The first thing I did was google profile name. Profile names are unique strings of letters and numbers. If a person uses a profile name in one on-line forum, they might use it somewhere else, somewhere that the might not want to use their real name.

I got a number of returns from my search. One was from Plentyoffish, but two others were from swinger sites, one a straight swinger site and the other a gay swinger site. To confirm it was the same Joe, I matched his Plentyoffish photo with a photo from the swinger site. His swinger profiles contained numerous photos of himself naked and close ups of his genitals.

Next I searched his e-mail address and found his full name attached to it in a softball league roster. Then, using his full name, I searched public records to make sure he wasn't a criminal.  Luckily he wasn't.

Cindy was dating to find a boyfriend or husband. She didn't want a one-night stand or to swing. Swinging was Joe's choice but he was lying to Cindy about his true intentions. On the surface, Joe was a normal thirtysomething, single, never married, was in sales and had a few tickets but the surface didn't tell the whole story.

I reported by findings to Cindy. She was shocked and sad but ultimately glad she'd found out before she'd met Joe face to face and developed stronger feelings for him.

She e-mailed Joe and told him that she wasn't a swinger and didn't want to date one. In response, he e-mailed her a photo of his junk. She blocked his e-mail and has never heard from him again.

Cindy has since met a nice guy on line and is dating him.

Dater Beware! In matters of the heart as in matters of business, due diligence helps avoid costly relationships.

The Date Detective Mission Statement

This blog exists to give people the tools and skills they need to investigate and confirm details about people before entering into relationships with them. For on-line daters, this is particularly relevant, but these same tools and techniques can be used by renters, small businesses, on-line buyers and sellers or anyone that might be entering into an agreement or relationship with another person.

The sources cited in this blog will almost always be on line and in most instances free. The Internet give individuals the power to perform the same sort of due diligence that companies execute before entering into business deals. Additionally, because access to public records is important to personal due diligence, I will occasionally post about public records laws and policies.