How to do Basic Background Checks

If you pay attention to the news, you've probably seen the story about the Florida couple with 13 adopted kids that was murdered. So far eight people have been arrested in that case. This morning Fox News Channel mentioned reported that one of those arrested was a Realtor and some of the others were folks who have done work on the house.

Sadly,this is not an isolated story. More and more often now you hear stories of how murdered victims had relationships or ties to their killer. It's getting more difficult to know who to trust anymore as the news continues to remind us that you can really never know a person.

While most of us don't spend the time or money to do proper background checks on people who may be working around the house for us or others we encounter that can pose a potential threat, there are some basic step we can take for a preliminary check.

There's very little privacy today in America. And while many of us think that's a bad thing, it does allow you to find information on others more easily these days. Anytime you invite strangers to your home (realtors, landscapers, handymen, repairmen, computer techs, etc,), it's prudent to do a quick check on those people to see if any red flags are raised.

Here are some free checks you can do quickly and easily:

• Search the person's name in Google, MSN and Yahoo
  
• Search the person's name on MySpace.com
• Search the person's name on Facebook
• Search the person's name on WhitePages.com
  

These are just some of the basic steps you can take without spending money. But often times they will give you more information about the character of the person you're dealing with.

If you need more detailed information about a person, then you should spend the money to do a proper background check. It's not as expensive or complicated as it sounds. But if you're hiring a nanny, babysitter, etc. then you should really consider doing a proper background check.

One of the best sites open to the public is Intelius. This site offer a variety of different searches for a small fee.