Intelius Not Nice?... Reunion.Com?

Question

Why does Intelius still list a deceased relative as living?? ! I was so excited when I went to 411 and they had a relative listed as being 71 years old and had addresses to boot! Yes, all I had to do was send some money and they would give me all the details(his name, by the way, is not duplicated any where else in the ENTIRE USA) . Well I gave my money to OMNITRACE instead(GREAT COMPANY BY THE WAY), and they discovered he had passed away in 1992. 16 YEARS AGO!!! Same with Reunion.Com, who, after I found out this relative was deceased, they were still sending me emails saying" Hey send us some cash, we have MORE info on your relative!", and they were also listing him as 71 yrs old! Isn't Reunion.Com supposed to be a reputable company?

Answer 1

The only way of being sure of not getting conned by these company's is to do the proper research yourself, the records are out there for everyone to use, you will probably have to pay still, but at least you will know that the information you get is true, and from a genuine source, not something cobbled together that might not even be connected to your family.

Answer 2

It isn't that they mean to "deceive" you. Intelius and other services like it use public records. If no one changed the public record to denote that someone is dead, the record stays active. It happens a lot when a husband passes away and his wife keeps the published phone number and doesn't change the deed on the house. Until she dies and there's a probate, the records don't change and keep getting reported like he's alive. My own mother still shows up as alive on most public record searches and isn't even in the Social Security Death Index even though she died in 1990. The reason is that my stepdad never filed the paperwork to take her off things. There wasn't any probate and legally he's the only one who could change things. 18 years later and he's still not motivated to do it. He's not alone in this country.