Dating-safety watchdog
Spokeo
by Spokeo, Inc.
A people-search site best known for its $0.95 trial — and for being the subject of the FTC’s first case over selling social-media data as an employment-screening tool.
Can you legally use it?
no legal screeningThe question the affiliate reviews skip — and the most important one for a “background check.”
Legal status — No legal screening
Not a consumer reporting agency for screening use today — and historically the FTC’s landmark example of what happens when a people-search site is marketed for employment screening without FCRA safeguards.
Regulator action
June 2012: in the FTC’s first case addressing the sale of internet/social-media data for employment screening, Spokeo paid $800,000 for marketing consumer profiles to recruiters and HR ("Explore Beyond the Resume") without FCRA safeguards — and for posting fake "independent" endorsements written by its own employees.
FTC sourceHow accurate is it?
Data quality: Mixed.
Strong at surfacing linked phones/emails/social accounts; weaker and unverified on records and relationships. As with all of these, treat a hit as a lead to confirm, not a fact.
What Spokeo costs
Observed 2026-06-08. Where a price is gated behind a search, trial-anchored or discount-tested we say so — we never guess.
| What you pay for | Price | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 7-day trial Converts automatically to a monthly membership unless cancelled by 11:59pm Pacific on day 7; trials that convert are generally non-refundable. | $0.95 | source |
| Monthly membership (after trial) The renewal rate is the real price; the $0.95 is the hook. | ≈$22.95/month (1-month) or ≈$17.95/month (3-month); plans run to ~$29.95+(gated) | source |
How it works: Search a name/phone/email/username → a teased profile → a $0.95 7-day trial that converts to a recurring monthly membership if you don’t cancel before the deadline.
The privacy trade — both ways
high data riskWho you expose
The person you look up — and Spokeo’s profiles notoriously pull in social-media data.
⚠ The service is itself a data broker that sells personal data
Getting your own record removed
Spokeo offers a self-service opt-out by URL/email; profiles can reappear as data is re-aggregated.
Claims vs evidence
What it promises — and whether anything backs it up.
“Cheap, instant access to anyone’s details for under a dollar.”
ContestedThe "$0.95" is a 7-day trial that auto-renews into a monthly membership (≈$17.95–$29.95+). The under-a-dollar framing is the hook, not the price.
source
Flags
Red = a serious, documented issue (an FTC finding, a deceptive teaser, a hard auto-renew trap) · amber = a pricing / accuracy / privacy concern · green = something notably honest.
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FTC penalty (FCRA, 2012)
$800,000 settlement — the FTC’s first social-media-data employment-screening case — plus a charge for staff-written fake endorsements posed as independent.
source - 🔴
$0.95 trial → auto-renewing membership
A sub-dollar trial converts to a recurring monthly charge unless cancelled by a strict deadline; converted trials are generally non-refundable.
source - 🔴
Not legal to use for screening
Not a consumer reporting agency — using it to screen a tenant or employee violates the FCRA.
Who's behind Spokeo?
Spokeo, Inc., an independent people-search company operating since the late 2000s. It aggregates phone, email, address, social and public-records data into profiles.
The verdict
The $0.95 is bait for an auto-renewing membership, and Spokeo wrote the cautionary FTC precedent for this whole category back in 2012. Useful as a quick way to see what social accounts a phone or email links to — but anything it implies about someone’s record is unverified, and you can’t legally screen with it.
Same lens, the whole industry
We decode dating apps, coaches, matchmakers, courses, AI tools and profile services the same way — what it costs, who's behind it, and what the claims are worth. No affiliate money, anywhere.
Keep digging
We take no money from Spokeo, Inc. or any safety service, and we run none of their affiliate links. Figures observed 2026-06-08from the provider's own page, a dated review where the price is gated, or a primary FTC notice; gated and undisclosed details are recorded as such, never guessed. See methodology.