Complaint Review: locatefamily.com

The data mining industry in the United States is out of control. Under current federal law all citizens are considered private with the exception of politicians.

My critical review of locatefamily.com and myheritage.com demonstrates why you should always check the credentials, integrity and reputation of any business before giving them your hard earned money.

Currently the Federal Trade Commission is allowing these data mining companies to regulate themselves. This is a big mistake. Allowing the Data Mining industry to regulate themselves is synonymous to allowing the Fox to guard the Hen House. We all know what will happen to the Chickens.

The Federal Trade Commission has the authority and the responsibility to pass regulations that protect the privacy of the American Consumer. It is time for the FTC to pass regulations that support a national data mining opt out list.

American consumers that value their privacy will simply enroll in the National FTC sponsored Data Mining Opt Out list and the data mining companies would have twenty-four to permanently remove all information from the enrolled consumers.

Willful noncompliance with the FTC Data Mining opt out list should result in a minimum fine of ten thousand dollars for each and every violation. The data mining industry must feel the pain to encourage their honesty.

Let’s examine my experience with locatefamily.com and myheritage.com . Publishing the names and addresses of any American Consumers subjects them to serious personal injury and even death. Stalkers love websites like Locatefamily.com and myheritage.com .

The reputation of locatefamily.com is bad, very bad. The BBB Better Business Bureau has them down as a background investigation firm with numerous complaints.

Private detectives and other undesirables such as bank skip tracers use these websites to locate people.

Skip Tracers are compensated individuals that search for debtors that owe debt typically to banks such as Wells Fargo.

I discovered that my personal information was prominently displayed on locatefamily.com and myheritage.com . I typed in my name, nick names, middle names and surname and reviewed the information.

I am debt free so why would anybody be searching for me?

I contacted locatefamily.com and asked them to remove my personal information. They delayed trying to buy time and I was promptly inundated with emails from some Philippine based One Rep hustle. One Rep wanted to be paid for removing information they stole and should have never been published.

I set up a brand new email on a prominent website to document the hustle. This private email address was only made available to locatefamily.com.

I then contacted myheritage.com to opt out of their website.  myheritage.com does not have an interactive online opt out page. I tracked down their number and made the call.

Agent Alex took the call. I made it crystal clear I wanted to opt out of their data mining website myheritage.com . Alex asked for and I gave him the email address for the removal process.

Curiously myheritage.com never contacted me on the supplied email address. Instead myheritage.com contacted me on the brand new email address that was set up for the exclusive use of locatefamily.com and was never shared with myheritage.com .

The myheritage.com team is completely incompetent. Rather than honoring mu opt out request these morons enrolled me into their incompetent service.

This demonstrates and proves that the data mining industry are liars, thieves and are completely unworthy of the public’s trust.

I have been involved in six invasion of privacy lawsuits. I prevailed against all six defendants and all six defendants were required to pay significant money damages.

It is really simple, you invade my privacy you get sued and you pay.

It would be a breath of fresh air if the Federal Trade Commission would actually do their job. The charter of the FTC is to protect American Consumers from unfair trade practices.

Stealing and posting of consumer’s information then asking to be paid to remove it definitely sounds like an unethical and unfair trade practice.

Personally because of the horrible reputation of locatefamily.com and myheritage.com I cannot recommend them. Why would you want to do business with thieves and liars?