BeenVerified is legit: a real New York company, owned by The Lifetime Value Co., that has legally resold public records since 2007, and that legality is exactly why your address, age and relatives are sitting on it. People who type "is been verified legit" into Google are usually not asking whether the subscription works. They've just found a page about themselves and want to know whether it's a scam, a hack, or something they can do anything about. The short version: it isn't a scam, it isn't a hack, the listing was built from records anyone can buy, and BeenVerified will remove it for free if you ask the right way.
This page covers who runs BeenVerified and what it costs as of October 2026, including the $1 trial its pricing page doesn't show. Then it walks through the "been verified scam" complaints, cancelling, and the opt-out, with what we've learned from filing removals on it. We read every price and rating below on the live pages on October 5, 2026.
Who runs BeenVerified
BeenVerified is a subscription people-search site. Its privacy policy, last updated September 9, 2026, says the site "is provided by The Lifetime Value Co. LLC. acting through BeenVerified, LLC." The Lifetime Value Co. (LTV) dates its mission to 2007, and BeenVerified's own about page gives the same founding year and a New York City base. LTV runs a family of lookup brands on one data platform. Its site lists eight other brands next to BeenVerified, among them PeopleLooker, NeighborWho, NumberGuru and the vehicle-history site Bumper.
The California data broker registry is the most complete list. The company files there as "BeenVerified, LLC and its subsidiaries and affiliates" at 48 W 38th Street in Manhattan, with thirteen domains under one registration. We re-read the live registry file on October 5 and it matched the copy we saved in September. In the same filing the company answers "No" to being regulated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which matters for the legal section below.
It's a separate corporate family from Whitepages or Spokeo, and from the PeopleConnect sites such as TruthFinder, even though the listings look interchangeable.
What a BeenVerified report includes, and where the data comes from
The product is aggregation. BeenVerified buys and collects public records, adds data from commercial suppliers and the open web, then matches all of it to names. Section 2.4 of its privacy policy lists the categories it pulls from "third party data providers":
- Names, previous names and aliases, with current and past addresses, phone numbers and email addresses
- Possible relatives, associates and neighbors, with their own contact details
- Criminal, civil and bankruptcy court records, down to case number and disposition
- Work and education history
- Vehicle records, including VIN, plate number and accident history
- Property and asset records, including real estate transactions and watercraft
- Marriage and divorce records
- Licenses and permits, from professional licenses to weapons permits and FAA certifications
- Public social media profiles and usernames
- Obituaries and unclaimed-property records
The About Our Data page names the upstream sources in broader terms, from government and court records to deeds and phone directories. It says most records "refresh within days of a change being reported to the source."
Nobody consents to any of this, and the site says so in its own way: the FAQ states plainly that "the person you are searching for is not notified."
Is Been Verified a scam, or just a subscription?
Not a scam. Subscribers get real reports built from real records, and the company has operated for nearly two decades. The scam searches trace back to two complaints, both worth understanding before you touch the site.
The membership keeps billing. Every BeenVerified plan renews automatically "until cancelled," and its billing FAQ confirms membership "will be automatically renewed to the same term until you cancel." People who ran one search, often on a $1 trial, find the full monthly charge later. The Better Business Bureau's own alert on the company says that as of January 2025, complaints were "still alleging surprise charges by the company from an automatic conversion to a paid subscription." That, more than anything about the data, drives the "beenverified scam" searches.
The search experience is dressed up. When we walked BeenVerified's search funnel while building our removal coverage, the "Refining Your Search" stage (the screen that says it's looking up billions of records) had genuinely variable timing: one run cleared in under 20 seconds, another sat on the same screen past a full minute. A run on October 5 took about 13 seconds, sandwiched between a "Where Do They Live?" question and a request for age and middle name, and then came a checkbox promising not to use the results for FCRA purposes before any results appear. The suspense builds anticipation before the paywall. A minute of database work is not happening on your behalf.
Neither of those makes the company fake. They make it a subscription business optimised to convert curiosity.
How much does BeenVerified cost?
There are two price lists, and the cheaper one isn't on the pricing page. The pricing page sells two memberships. The offers page, linked as "Current Offers" from the site's FAQ menu, sells a $1 seven-day trial and a 10% discount on both memberships. We followed each offer through to the checkout's "Total Today" line without paying, as of October 2026:
| Plan | Where it's sold | Charged today | Then renews at |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month membership | pricing page | $36.89 | $36.89 every month |
| 3-month membership | pricing page | $71.94 ($23.98 a month) | $71.94 every 3 months |
| 7-day trial | offers page | $1.00 | $32.89 a month after day 7 |
| 1-month, 10% off | offers page | $32.89 | $32.89 every month |
| 3-month, 10% off | offers page | $64.14 ($21.38 a month) | $64.14 every 3 months |
Sales tax comes on top of every figure. Each plan is capped at 100 reports a month, and the trial at 100 reports for its seven days. The pricing page also says all plans get the same features, so the longer term only buys a lower monthly rate.
The pricing page sends mixed signals about a trial. Its "Billing details" pop-up on the one-month card says "Your 7-day membership trial is limited to running 100 reports," but the checkout behind that card's Get Started button charged $36.89 today with no trial line. BeenVerified's own Is BeenVerified Free page settles the wording: it "doesn't offer a free trial," only "$1 trials for new customers." So the honest answer is that there's no free trial anywhere, and the $1 trial lives on the offers page.
The terms and conditions (last updated October 23, 2025) let BeenVerified raise prices with an email notice. If you don't cancel within seven days of that notice, you've agreed to the new price.
BeenVerified takes US-issued cards from the four big networks, and four wallets led by PayPal and Venmo. Charges show up on statements under one of five billing descriptors, most of them variations on BeenVerified.com: BVD*BeenVerified.com, BVC*BeenVerified.com, BV*BeenVerified.com, BEENVERIFIED INC. and plain BeenVerified.com. If one of those is on your statement and you don't remember signing up, the billing FAQ suggests someone close to you probably did. It asks you to email support@beenverified.com.
How to cancel BeenVerified
Cancelling the subscription is a separate job from removing your data. The billing FAQ and section 19 of the terms give these routes:
- Log in and open My Account. Under "Edit My Account Information" choose "Cancel My Account." The FAQ calls this the route "for best results."
- Use the live chat, or the Contact Us form with "Cancel Account" selected and your nine-digit membership ID.
- Email support@beenverified.com with your membership ID and a clear request to cancel.
- Call 1-844-823-2869 with the membership ID handy. The checkout pages print a second number, 1-866-885-6480. The about page puts phone hours at 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern on weekdays, while online and email requests are accepted around the clock.
Your membership ID is in the Welcome New Member email and in the Account Details section of your account. Cancelling stops the next renewal. You keep access until the paid term ends, and the terms say cancellation "does not affect charges that have already been incurred."
If you subscribed inside the iPhone or Android app, none of those routes work. Apple or Google holds the subscription, so cancel it in your Apple ID subscriptions or in Google Play. The FAQ notes that deleting the app does not stop the billing.
Can you get a refund from BeenVerified?
Sometimes. The pricing page promises that if you're "dissatisfied with the results of your search, we will gladly help you out or offer a refund," but the refund policy itself is discretionary. You email support@beenverified.com, and requests are handled "on a case-by-case basis." Section 20 of the terms adds that refunds are "typically limited to receipt of a single refund per subscription," and that the company can refuse anyone who asks repeatedly.
Timing differs depending on which page you read. The refund FAQ says a refund may take up to 10 days to post, while the terms allow up to thirty days. App-store purchases are refunded by Apple or Google, not by BeenVerified.
Disputes don't go to court. The terms require individual arbitration through Arbitration Resolution Services after a 30-day informal negotiation period, with class actions waived. They cap BeenVerified's liability at the greater of $100 or what you paid in the previous six months. They also give you one year from the event to bring any claim.
What reviewers say: Trustpilot and the BBB
The two biggest review sites disagree, and the gap says something about who writes each kind of review.
| Where | Rating | What else the page shows |
|---|---|---|
| Trustpilot | TrustScore 3.4 from 3,095 reviews | 42% five-star and 31% one-star; claimed profile on a paid Trustpilot subscription; replies to 96% of negative reviews |
| Better Business Bureau | B+, not accredited | 523 complaints in the last three years, 157 closed in the last 12 months; customer reviews average 2.11 of 5 from 206 |
Trustpilot splits between delighted and furious with little in between, and BeenVerified quotes it on its own pricing page.
The BBB file is the more useful read for someone weighing the "scam" question. Its Pattern of Complaints alert says many consumers reported "the difficult process and unsatisfactory results from trying to opt out." It also records that the BBB asked for the company's cooperation in April 2019 and that complaints about surprise charges and stalled opt-outs were still arriving as of January 2025. The B+ grade carries the note that the business "has failed to resolve underlying cause(s) of a pattern of complaints."
Is Been Verified legit and safe?
For your credit card, yes. It's a real company with real billing and a working cancellation route, not a phishing site.
If you're asking "is BeenVerified safe" about being listed on it, the listing is the unsafe part. A BeenVerified profile packages your current address and phone numbers with your age and family connections, for anyone with a subscription, with no reason required and no notification to you. That bundle is the starting kit for stalking and doxxing, which is why removing your listing is worth fifteen minutes.
Is Been Verified legal? What the reports can't be used for
Reselling public records is legal in the US, so BeenVerified is legal. The boundary is the Fair Credit Reporting Act. BeenVerified's FCRA page states that "BeenVerified is not a consumer reporting agency" and lists the uses it restricts, from employment and tenant screening to credit or insurance decisions. The site-wide disclaimer repeats that the reports can't be used for any purpose "that would require FCRA compliance."
A disclaimer alone doesn't settle the question. In January 2013 the FTC explained its settlement with Filiquarian Publishing, a background-check app maker whose reports carried an almost identical "not for FCRA purposes" warning while its ads pitched them for hiring. The agency's verdict, in its business blog post: "Just saying that the info can't be used for FCRA purposes doesn't absolve a company from liability." What counts is how the reports are marketed and used. BeenVerified's checkout and search funnel both make you tick a box promising not to use the results for those purposes before you can continue.
That disclaimer is what makes the model work, and it's what should concern you as a listed person. Because the reports are sold as "not for FCRA purposes," anyone can buy yours, for any reason, with no purpose stated. And because BeenVerified isn't a consumer reporting agency, an error in your profile doesn't carry the FCRA's dispute rights. The privacy policy says correction requests about report data "will need to be actioned by" its data providers, whose contact details it will pass on. Residents of states with privacy laws can ask for corrections, but the practical lever for most people is removal.
How accurate is BeenVerified?
Middling, and structurally so. The pages that appear right before a purchase carry the disclaimer that a report is "not necessarily 100% accurate, complete or up to date." The terms go further. They warn that "false positives" from "similarly named individuals" may occur, and that criminal data may include records since expunged or sealed. BeenVerified's own data page recommends treating a report "as a starting point for your research rather than the sole basis for important decisions."
The duplicate-record problem comes from the same place. BeenVerified builds records from separate data feeds, and its opt-out FAQ explains the consequence. When a new record arrives with "different spellings, initials, combinations of information, and/or addresses" that it can't match to your existing one, "a separate record may be created." So it's common to have more than one listing: one under your full name, another with a middle initial, a third under a maiden name or an old address.
For someone using the site, that means reports need scepticism. For someone trying to get off it, one opt-out may not be enough.
How to remove yourself from BeenVerified
BeenVerified's opt-out is free and needs no ID or account. It runs through its opt-out search page. The older beenverified.com/app/optout/search address still forwards there. As of October 2026 the flow is:
- Search your first and last name, with a state if you know it. A Cloudflare check sits under the fields. On our October visit it passed on its own and showed "Success!"
- Pick your listing from the results by checking the age and locations against your own.
- Enter an email address. The page says it is used only to verify the request.
- Click the link in the verification email. Nothing is filed until you do, and in our experience the link stops working after about 48 hours.
- Wait for a second email confirming the record was opted out. The page says the change shows in search results "the next time our server refreshes," which "in most cases" takes 24 hours.
Things we've learned from filing removals on this platform that the page doesn't advertise:
- The opt-out search doubles as a free look at your own listing. It returns the same name, age and city card a subscriber would see, without a paywall, which makes it the quickest way to check your exposure before deciding what to do. It's the screen we captured, empty, for the figure above.
- The online tool removes one record. In the page's words, "we only permit you to remove one record from our People Search Results through our online Do Not Sell My Info/Opt-Out process," and it asks you to email privacy@beenverified.com for any others. If you have three listings, file the one with your current address online and send a single email that names the other two.
- People search is only one of the databases. Right under the search box sit separate links to opt out of BeenVerified's Property Search and Contact Search, and the FAQ warns your name "might appear in search results for the other search services" after a people-search opt-out. Homeowners and anyone with a work profile should file those too.
- There's a second, formal route. The registry lists a privacy request form where you choose "Do Not Sell My Information" to remove public data from the site, or "Delete My Information" to delete a subscriber account. It asks for your street address and age, and says requests are processed within 16 business days. It's slower, but it doesn't depend on you finding the right listing.
- Judges, prosecutors, law-enforcement officers and their households covered by New Jersey's Daniel's Law can skip the form and email privacy@beenverified.com with a link or screenshot of the record.
The registry shows how the company handles these in volume. For 2024, BeenVerified reported 31,905 requests to delete: 19,791 complied with in whole, 11,512 in part and 602 denied, with a median response of 3 days. It also logged 657,801 requests to stop selling or sharing data, of which 111,001 were denied. Those are the company's own figures, and the registry gives no reasons for the denials.
Our step-by-step BeenVerified opt-out guide covers every screen. The other LTV brands each need a check of their own. Our guides for PeopleLooker and NeighborWho say which form each one uses, as does the one for NumberGuru.
A caveat that applies to every broker: opting out removes what's listed today. BeenVerified's FAQ says a data partner may later supply "a new record about you that we cannot match to the existing record," and that record goes live. That's the re-listing problem, and it turns removal into a recurring check rather than a one-time errand. Removing yourself from BeenVerified also does nothing about Spokeo or Whitepages. Our full removal guide maps the rest.
Is Been Verified legit for background checks and hiring?
It's a legitimate company, but not a legal background check for decisions about people. Hiring and tenant decisions need an FCRA-compliant consumer reporting agency, and BeenVerified's own FCRA page prohibits those uses. It warns that misuse "can lead to possible criminal penalties," and the exposure is yours, not BeenVerified's. For personal lookups, such as an old friend's number or a date's real name, it's legal. The accuracy caveats above still apply.
Frequently asked questions
Is BeenVerified free?
Searching is free and so is the opt-out. Seeing a report isn't. The cheapest way in is the $1 seven-day trial on the offers page, which turns into $32.89 a month. The regular memberships are $36.89 a month or $71.94 every three months, as of October 2026. The opt-out FAQ says you "never have to pay for the removal of your own record."
Does BeenVerified have a free trial?
No. Its own page says it "doesn't offer a free trial." What it offers is a $1 trial for seven days, capped at 100 reports, after which the card on file is billed monthly until you cancel.
How do I cancel my BeenVerified subscription?
Log in and use My Account, then "Cancel My Account," or email support@beenverified.com, or call 1-844-823-2869 with your nine-digit membership ID. Subscriptions bought in the iPhone or Android app have to be cancelled through Apple or Google.
Can I get a refund from BeenVerified?
You can ask, by emailing support@beenverified.com. Refunds are case by case and usually limited to one per subscription, and they can take up to 10 days to post (the terms say up to thirty).
Why does BeenVerified have my information?
It aggregates public records and purchased data into name-keyed profiles. No consent is needed to build one, and none is needed for you to have it removed.
Does removing myself from BeenVerified remove me from PeopleLooker?
Don't count on it. The sites share an owner and a data platform, but BeenVerified's FAQ only promises removal from its own people-search results. Search each LTV site where you might appear and file where you find a listing, starting with PeopleLooker.
Will my BeenVerified listing come back?
It can, when a new record arrives that the site can't match to your opted-out one. BeenVerified asks you to email privacy@beenverified.com when that happens. Recheck every few months and re-file if a listing returns.
That recurring recheck is what Delist My Data is built to automate: filing the removal, then watching BeenVerified and the rest of the people-search sites and re-filing when your data reappears. We're in pre-launch, and the waitlist is where founding-member access starts.