UserSearch is an OSINT platform that has been making it’s way into OSINT discussions on X (Twitter). Their claim to fame is: “A Professional Forensic OSINT Platform. All your investigation tools, datasets & techniques in one platform.” But is it actually a useful tool and worth the money?
Username Search 3000+
First stop is at the username search. Whatsmyname.app is my favorite free tool so far. It will get a few false results, but it does quite well. Let’s compare the username “skipvue” on both platforms. This isn’t my username, but someone that I’m currently suing for defamation. Not all results will be for her.
UserSearch – 19 results out of 633 – It said it was supposed to search over 3k websites, but it only searched 633. That’s troubling.
Only 9 sites out of the 19 were actually hits. The other results were dead links or not recognized by the given website as a user profile.
Whatsmyname – 10 results out of 724.
8 sites out of the 724 were actually hits. The other results were dead links or not recognized by the given website as a user profile.
All in all, it was a pretty even match, but I was disappointed that UserSearch didn’t search the 3k websites as advertised.
Reddit User (Intel AI)
For 20 cents, this search will search billions of public Telegram messages on a search term. I searches “skiptracer” and got one result out of Australia. Just one?! That’s a bit hard to believe. Another crapshoot.
Vehicle Lookup
There’s not a lot of instruction here. It says you can search Pipl personal or business for 70 cents or $1.00 and search by registration mark. It didn’t give much info on how to do the search, but after getting an error, I figured it was the VIN. I searched for a VIN I obtained recently in a case on the personal search.
The state was right and the vehicle type was right, but the owner and address was completely wrong. I have direct DMV access and I know the owner on the registration has had this vehicle for at least a few years. He isn’t related to the person in the search results. This is dangerous if people were to believe the results as actually being accurate!
Just for good measure, I tried the Pipl Business results for $1.00 and unfortunately it was still for the incorrect person.
Breach Search – Dehashed
I was happy to see Dehashed as a breach search tool, but then bummed when I realized that it only gives minimal results back. I think I’ll stick with Snusbase, my preferred breach search. For 10 cents, I guess the tool is ok, but not that beneficial at the end of the day.
Website Forensics
The 3rd party website search did pretty well. As I understand it, this will identify unique 3rd party advertiser IDs and reveal some information. The Hotmail email off of the domain is definitely useful. This is probably the first search on this website where I like the results!
Picture OSINT
One tool I think investigators will appreciate is Facecheck. Facecheck is my preferred facial recognition tool that I get every couple months. For $47 (+ bitcoin fees) it’s a regular purchase for me. However, many people may not want to but a package and instead use it as needed. The problem with this search is that while it showed the top result (which was me,) there were no other previews. In fact, everything else was false. This could be a helpful tool, but I would say a subscription directly with Facecheck is probably the better choice.
Phone Search
There are several phone tools. I’ll try my phone number in most of them and give you the results.
Predicta – It found a few results, but didn’t give any information. Plus, the carrier was wrong.
Epieos – It said the service is unavailable, but it didn’t mind chewing up $1.40. Wow!
Castrick – There were 3 results, but the results were redacted.. so what’s the point?
OsintIndustries – This one was decent. It brought back results and one result had an accurate geolocation.
Pipl-Social – This search was the best by far! The name, most of the addresses, vehicles, and social media were nearly completely accurate. A lot of good information showed up for just the phone number.
Background Check – This wasn’t as good as the Pipl Social search, but it wasn’t bad either.
Overall, this isn’t a bad feature. I didn’t really care for most of the searches, but the Pipl-Social was definitely a plus!
Person Search
I decided to search myself in Pipl Business. I searched for my first and last name in my city and state. I would say it did ok. Some of the results were average and other results, not even close.
Business
I decided to search for a local business called: artisan development, llc. It came back with no matches on UserSearch, but in OpenCorporates, it definitely gets results. That was a bust, plus more money lost.
Conclusion
I think I’ve done enough searches at this point. Is the site worth it? Maybe on a pay per search for some of the searches that you really like, but on a monthly basis ($18.97) – I think it’s a complete ripoff.
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