ComplaintsforSpokeo, Inc.

• Initial Complaint

  10/23/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I agreed to pay for a one time search of $.95. On 10/23 the Spokeo company charged me $24.95 for a monthly subscription without my authorization. This is outrageous and I want my money returned to my account!

  Business response

  12/14/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/11/08) */ Dear ******* *****: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo, dated November 4, 2021 regarding our service and charges made on your account, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Please allow me to explain the charges associated with services selected to your account. Since all Spokeo subscriptions automatically renew to prevent service interruption, trials that were left unchanged, were charged on the service's renewal date. I can confirm that this subscription has already been disabled back on October 23, 2021. This discontinues all future charges for Spokeo. Upon reviewing your account, I see that this matter has already been handled with your financial institution and a chargeback was initiated. The charge of $24.95 was reversed back on October 23, 2021. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care" Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2021/11/15) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) This is totally untrue, the funds were never reversed or returned to my account. I have no problem showing my banking account activity to the BBB in order to prove this, just tell me how to go about it and I will. Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2021/11/24) */ Dear ******* *****: Thank you for your reply. As previously mentioned, this matter has already been handled with your financial institution and a chargeback was initiated. The charge of $24.95 was reversed back on October 23, 2021. Upon further review, I can confirm that the charge of $24.95 was reversed back specifically to your PayPal account. Please contact PayPal directly with your concerns regarding the release of these funds back to your account since this is matter solely dependent on PayPal and no longer with Spokeo. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care

• Initial Complaint

  10/22/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I used spokeo in the last two weeks. I was looking up info on an individual. I made sure that I only requested information that was free. Now I received a bill for ****** I have no intention of paying this and have declined the charge with my bank. **** *******

  Business response

  12/09/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/11/08) */ Dear ************: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo, on November 4, 2021 regarding our service and charges made on your account, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Please note, that since all Spokeo subscriptions automatically renew to prevent service interruption, trials that were left unchanged, were charged on the service's renewal date until disabled. I can confirm that this subscription has been disabled back on November 2, 2021. This discontinues all future charges for Spokeo. Upon reviewing your account, I see that this matter has already been handled with our Customer Care Team and a refund of $24.95 processed back on November 2, 2021. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care

• Initial Complaint

  10/21/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I signed up for a one time report purchase and have now been automatically billed twice. I never wanted a monthly service. I only wanted a one time report for $.95. This is truly deceptive, to sneak in the automatic renewal. Billed $.95 on 9/8/21 And autobilled for $24.96 on 9/16/21 and then again 10/16/21. Could not take screenshot of PayPal billing due to privacy.

  Business response

  12/09/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/11/08) */ Dear Rocio Payne: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo, dated November 4, 2021 regarding our service and charges made on your account, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Please allow me to explain the charges associated with services selected to your account. Since all Spokeo subscriptions automatically renew to prevent service interruption, trials that were left unchanged, were charged on the service's renewal date. I can confirm that this subscription has been disabled back on October 21, 2021. This discontinues all future charges for Spokeo. As a courtesy, I have gone ahead and approved two (2) electronic refunds of $24.95 on November 8, 2021. Please allow up to 7 - 10 business days from this date to see this refund returned to your credit card. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care

• Initial Complaint

  10/21/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Spokeo charged my PayPal account without authorization. I used the service for a one-time purchase. Spokeo has two different checkouts for new visitors and returning visitors intentionally misleading and bordering spoofing practice. Please find two screenshots for the same URL in regular and in incognito mode.

  Business response

  12/09/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/11/08) */ Dear ***** *********: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo, dated November 4, 2021 regarding our service and charges made on your account, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Please allow me to explain the charges associated with services selected to your account. Since all Spokeo subscriptions automatically renew to prevent service interruption, trials that were left unchanged, were charged on the service's renewal date. I can confirm that this subscription has already been back on November 4, 2021. This discontinues all future charges for Spokeo. Upon reviewing your account, I see that this matter has already been handled with your financial institution and a chargeback was initiated. The charge of $24.95 was reversed back on October 21, 2021. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care

• Initial Complaint

  10/16/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  Paid for one time use and then received a charge of 24.95 on October 16, 2021 at 430am EST.

  Business response

  02/24/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/10/21) */ Dear **************: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo, dated October 20, 2021 regarding our service and charges made on your account, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Please allow me to explain the charges associated with services selected to your account. Since all Spokeo subscriptions automatically renew to prevent service interruption, trials that were left unchanged, were charged on the service's renewal date. As requested, I can confirm that this subscription has been disabled today, October 21, 2021. This discontinues all future charges for Spokeo. As a courtesy, I have gone ahead and approved an electronic refund of $24.95 on October 21, 2021. Please allow up to 7 - 10 business days from this date to see this refund returned to your credit card. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care**************

• Initial Complaint

  10/16/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I paid $0.99 for a one off search and today they have taken $24.99 out of my paypal account. I was no made aware it was a subscription and believe this was false advertising.

  Business response

  11/03/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/10/21) */ Dear ***** ******** I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo, dated October 20, 2021 regarding our service and charges made on your account, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Please allow me to explain the charges associated with services selected to your account. Since all Spokeo subscriptions automatically renew to prevent service interruption, trials that were left unchanged, were charged on the service's renewal date. I can confirm that this subscription has already been disabled back on October 16, 2021. This discontinues all future charges for Spokeo. As a courtesy, I have gone ahead and approved an electronic refund of $24.95 on October 21, 2021. Please allow up to 7 - 10 business days from this date to see this refund returned to your credit card. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care

• Initial Complaint

  10/14/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I ** requesting to remove my personal information, the URL https://www.spokeo.com/******-*****/California/Glendora/pXXXXXXXXXX and https://www.spokeo.com/******-Llovido/California/Covina/pXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX The information on their site is false, misleading, and deceptive in addition based on this data the company is financially benefiting from false and misleading information while violating my privacy and defaming my name. I am asking the my profile and all subsequent personal data be removed. Thank you, ****** *****

  Business response

  10/20/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/10/19) */ Dear ****** *****: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo on October 18, 2021 regarding the removal of your information from appearing on our site, Spokeo.com, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Spokeo collects publicly available information from a variety of public sources, including phone books, social networks, marketing surveys, real estate listings, business websites, and other public sources (collectively "Public Information"). The listings on Spokeo.com contain only Public Information. Personal information, on the other hand, such as information that users provide to Spokeo about themselves or information about their use of Spokeo, is not included in the Public Information that is made available through the Spokeo.com people search. Spokeo regards your inquiry as a request to have your Public Information removed from public listings available on Spokeo.com. As such, Spokeo has suppressed from public display on Spokeo.com the Public Information it believes to be associated with you (based on the information you provided about yourself in your inquiry). Spokeo's database contains billions of public records, and Spokeo is constantly receiving new or updated records. When Spokeo receives new or updated records, Spokeo will endeavor to link those new or updated records to your privacy preference. However, should you in the future find another listing containing Public Information about you on Spokeo.com, please contact our privacy team directly at *******@spokeo.com so that we can ensure the new Public Information is suppressed from public display. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks! - Spokeo Customer Care Consumer Response /* (2000, 7, 2021/10/19) */ (The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.)

• Initial Complaint

  10/14/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I am asking to remove my personal information. The URL: https://www.spokeo.com/***************************************** The information on their site is false, misleading, and deceptive. In addition the company is financially benefiting from false and misleading information which is violating my privacy and defaming my name. I am asking that my profile and all subsequent personal data be removed. Thank you, ***********

  Business response

  02/24/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/10/19) */ Dear ***** *****: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo on October 18, 2021 regarding the removal of your information from appearing on our site, Spokeo.com, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Spokeo collects publicly available information from a variety of public sources, including phone books, social networks, marketing surveys, real estate listings, business websites, and other public sources (collectively "Public Information"). The listings on Spokeo.com contain only Public Information. Personal information, on the other hand, such as information that users provide to Spokeo about themselves or information about their use of Spokeo, is not included in the Public Information that is made available through the Spokeo.com people search. Spokeo regards your inquiry as a request to have your Public Information removed from public listings available on Spokeo.com. As such, Spokeo has suppressed from public display on Spokeo.com the Public Information it believes to be associated with you (based on the information you provided about yourself in your inquiry). Spokeo's database contains billions of public records, and Spokeo is constantly receiving new or updated records. When Spokeo receives new or updated records, Spokeo will endeavor to link those new or updated records to your privacy preference. However, should you in the future find another listing containing Public Information about you on Spokeo.com, please contact our privacy team directly at *******@spokeo.com so that we can ensure the new Public Information is suppressed from public display. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks! - Spokeo Customer Care

• Initial Complaint

  10/13/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Customer Service Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I have tried to contact to remove my info from there website- ************************************* ***** ********** to no avail-I am being********** and ******* and would like my info removed due to a ****** *******! Thank You

  Business response

  02/24/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/10/19) */ Dear ***** **********: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo on October 18, 2021 regarding the removal of your information from appearing on our site, Spokeo.com, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Spokeo collects publicly available information from a variety of public sources, including phone books, social networks, marketing surveys, real estate listings, business websites, and other public sources (collectively "Public Information"). The listings on Spokeo.com contain only Public Information. Personal information, on the other hand, such as information that users provide to Spokeo about themselves or information about their use of Spokeo, is not included in the Public Information that is made available through the Spokeo.com people search. Spokeo regards your inquiry as a request to have your Public Information removed from public listings available on Spokeo.com. As such, Spokeo has suppressed from public display on Spokeo.com the Public Information it believes to be associated with you (based on the information you provided about yourself in your inquiry). Spokeo's database contains billions of public records, and Spokeo is constantly receiving new or updated records. When Spokeo receives new or updated records, Spokeo will endeavor to link those new or updated records to your privacy preference. However, should you in the future find another listing containing Public Information about you on Spokeo.com, please contact our privacy team directly at *******@spokeo.com so that we can ensure the new Public Information is suppressed from public display. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/contact where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks! - Spokeo Customer Care

• Initial Complaint

  10/10/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  unauthorized automatic ****** charges.

  Business response

  01/12/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/10/15) */ Dear ****************: I received your complaint to the Better Business Bureau page for Spokeo, dated October 14, 2021 regarding our service and charges made on your account, and I am happy to assist in resolving this matter. Please allow me to explain the charges associated with services selected to your account. Since all Spokeo subscriptions automatically renew to prevent service interruption, trials that were left unchanged, were charged on the service's renewal date. As requested, I can confirm that this subscription has been disabled today, October 15, 2021. This discontinues all future charges for Spokeo. Upon reviewing your account, I see that this matter has already been handled with your financial institution and a chargeback was initiated. The charge of $24.95 was reversed back on October 4, 2021. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/******* where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care" Consumer Response /* (3000, 8, 2021/10/15) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) That is not correct $24.95 was deducted on Sept 5 and has not been refunded. Also .95 was deducted on Sept. 27 Your cooperation in correcting this would be appreciated. ***** Business Response /* (4000, 10, 2021/10/22) */ Dear ****************: Thank you for your reply. Upon reviewing your account, concerning the charge of $0.95 on September 26, 2021, this was your initial purchase of service. Concerning the charge of $24.95 on October 4, 2021, as previously stated since this amount was reversed via chargeback from your Financial Institution, you will need to contact them on the release date of these funds since we no longer have access to them. I apologize for any inconvenience, or hardship this matter may have caused. You are more than welcome to contact our Customer Care team through our contact page, http://www.spokeo.com/******* where we are available by phone, email, and chat 7 days a week from 5AM to 8PM PST. Please feel free to contact us directly should you have any future questions or concerns regarding this matter. Thanks -Spokeo Customer Care Consumer Response /* (4200, 12, 2021/11/02) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) There is still A charge on my bank account for $24.95. This has not been returned. I expect you to send a check in this amount asap. **************

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩