Best skip trace service?

[DeMarris Manns]

Anyone have pretty good success with a Skip Trace service? I recently tried Unlimited Skip Trace which is powered by www.findtheseller.com. I wasn't pleased at all with it. It's a product that came with the iFlip program (Cameron Dunlap). It gave me the same outdated information that I found when I Googled vacant home owners.

I have a list of about 30 vacant homes here in Memphis. I just drive and look for vacant homes. I'm having a hard time getting in contact with the home owners. Everything I find is old landline phone numbers and no recent addresses for the most part. Most people have cell phones nowadays. But those numbers are hard to come by. 

[Allen Bruce]

It depends on the size of your organization.

I usually start my search with www.truepeoplesearch.com or www.familytreenow.com.  Both are free and usually can provide or confirm addresses.  As with all online searches in the era of Cell Phones the Phone #'s may be out of date.

I and a colleague ran a test of several entry level skip traces sites such as BeenVerified, Intellius (I use this one), Speakeo, usa-people-search, etc and found them to be almost identical.  In some cases the only difference was the color and font on the information, otherwise they were identical.  But here is the kicker, I found these pay sites seldom provided good cell numbers over the above free sites.  Maybe a 20% increase.  Decent, but only worth the cost if your bottom line depends on it.

For larger organizations, especially when looking for property owners, www.findtheseller.com or www.unlimitedskiptrace.com are "somewhat" more helpful when it comes to phone numbers. 

LTO and Micorbilt are good but for individuals or small organizations (Read: Home Office) the hassle of getting approved for an account really isn't worth it.  I have found in the case of searching for heirs (when the property has not been transferred after or during a Probate, etc. and you have a name only) their results for phone numbers are no better than the basic sites mentioned above.

Lexus/Nexus or Westlaw (Reuters) can provide the same information with a lot less hassle although somewhat more expensive than LTO.  I have a Westlaw account but find problems finding good #'s with it as well when dealing with heirs.

I hope this helps.  If anyone has a good site for Mobile Phone #'s please PM me.