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Catfishing is the act of creating a fake online persona to lure people into a relationship. Some people do it to scam others out of money or exact revenge on people who’ve done them wrong. Other times, it can be as innocent as someone lacking confidence and posting misleading photos hoping to land their dream partner.
There’s a weapon out there to combat this problem of catfishing: Social Catfish. This online detective agency specializes in verifying people’s identity on dating apps or social media sites. The service consults a large pool of public records like social networking accounts, professional records, public databases, education/government records, and news articles. We’ll address this more as we dig into our complete Social Catfish review.
Social Catfish is a BBB-accredited business and a Chamber of Commerce member. We recommend this service to any of our readers who want to know the truth about the people they interact with online; it is an excellent companion to any online dating app!
| Sign-Up Time: | 5 minutes |
| Cost: | Unlimited Social Searches – $27.48 per month |
| Active Members: | 2+ million users per month |
- Social Catfish Rating
- Overview of Social Catfish
- Cost and Premium Memberships
- Should You Join Social Catfish?
- How to Sign Up with Social Catfish
- Frequently Asked Questions
Our Social Catfish Rating
Overall Rating 
Social Catfish is coming in with an overall score of 4.0 out of 5!
Even though the following chart is our rubric for rating dating apps, we repurposed it to cover and review the online detective service Social Catfish. We liked what we saw as we examined all the pros and cons of the site, so much so that we gave them a score of 4.0/5 stars.
Anyone who wants the added protection and security of knowing they’re dealing with someone legit on their favorite dating app should check out Social Catfish and the identity verification services they extend to their paying members.
Ease of Use 
Social Catfish has terrific usability overall. Signing up and entering payment information to access your report only takes five minutes or less. Aside from describing the person you want to learn about, it’s not as if you have to do any work. It’s a valuable tool for staying safe in all interactions on your favorite dating app, and it’s super easy to join!
Features 
We were impressed with how much you get for the price you pay for a Social Catfish membership: unlimited social searches, a detailed history of all searches you request, hassle-free cancellation abilities, the missing money search prompt, and free access to the “Members Only” support group on Facebook.
Cost
The cost to use Social Catfish each month is around the same amount most people pay for a dating app membership. It’s fantastic that you can opt for a three-day membership to see how well the service performs. You might only want to perform a few searches and be done with it, so we liked seeing the shorter membership option. If you look at the features you get alongside the amount you pay, you can quickly see there’s a look of value for customers here.
Match Quality
When we refer to daily matches, we’re talking about how well Social Catfish can pinpoint the people we seek online. Our research team tested several searches, and each came back quickly. Social Catfish has a great system in place, consulting public records and documents to trace the true identity of any given person they’re shown. We had no complaints on our end whatsoever because our results were 100% successful.
Safety and Security
Social Catfish’s premise is finding out if people online are telling the truth, so they’re entirely invested in keeping their customers’ private data safe and secure. Social Catfish gathers information that’s part of the public record, so there’s no threat of them sharing personal information for marketing purposes. Payment information submitted by paying members is kept confidential via an encrypted connection; it’s never shared with other parties.
Customer Service
Social Catfish has five-star rated customer care specialists on call each day of the business week that can address any problems, issues, or concerns you might have. Members can call via phone (1-844-422-8347) or send messages to welcome@socialcatfish.com. Our review team tested these contact options and experienced friendly, prompt service whenever they called or wrote a message.
Overview of Social Catfish
Social Catfish Fast Facts
- Year Founded: 2013
- Best For: Verifying the legitimacy and authenticity of the people you meet using online dating apps or websites
- BBB Accredited: Yes
- Chamber of Commerce Member: Yes
- Satisfied Customers: 200,000+
- Reports Run: 17+ million
- Likes on Social Media: 40,000
- Number of Five Star Reviews: 160,000
- Number of Facebook Followers: 11,577
This isn’t a dating app but an online detective agency that singles can use while meeting new people online using dating apps or websites. Social Catfish is the perfect companion piece to any dating app. It benefits singles who spend a lot of time online and want to avoid awkward or dangerous situations.
Services offered by Social Catfish include the following:
- Reverse Image Searches: If you can view or download someone’s photo, upload it as a JPG or PNG file to Social Catfish’s reverse image search machine, where they’ll check it against photos online. This will trace it back to a specific person. You must join the “Unlimited Social Searches” plan to use this feature.
- Name Searches: Enter anyone’s name and country of residence, and Social Catfish will check these details against public records like social networking apps, education/government records, news articles, professional records, and public databases.
- Username Searches: Search using people’s aliases and usernames. You can see if other social media sites or platforms have flagged these names.
- Reverse Cellphone Searches: Searches can be done using someone’s cellphone number, and things can be narrowed down quickly as phone numbers are only assigned to a single person.
- Email Searches: You can even use Social Catfish to check on emails you get from people you don’t know. This is an excellent method to avoid romance scammers or phishing attempts.
Social Catfish uses common-sense techniques to verify people’s true identity, drawing from public records. They use information such as social media profiles, photos, phone numbers, addresses, or emails to help their customers be sure they are being told the truth by the people they meet online.
Social Catfish Cost and Premium Memberships
There are three membership plans at Social Catfish, two of which are broken down into two separate costs: the first five days and each month following.
| Plans | Cost For First Three Days | Price Per Month |
|---|---|---|
Unlimited Social Searches | $5.73 | $27.48 |
Unlimited Image Searches | $5.99 | $26.99 |
Search Specialist* | N/A | N/A |
*The Search Specialist is a one-time payment of $397.00 for a single in-depth report.
New members can pay for the first three days at the above rates. Still, if they don’t cancel that membership in those three days, the plan will automatically upgrade to a month-long membership (with continuous billing). If you want to use Social Catfish’s service indefinitely, enter your payment information and do nothing else. The three-day membership will upgrade to the monthly plan and automatically re-up at the end of every billing cycle.
Key Takeaways
- Unlimited Social Searches can help you determine if you’re dealing with a catfish, but it doesn’t include picture search functionality.
- Unlimited Image Searches doesn’t provide access to search for names, usernames, phone numbers, or emails.
- Unlimited Image Searches only works if you can access people’s images or photos.
- With limited data, Social Catfish can find all the important details on anyone they report using the Search Specialist.
Premium Membership Features
Enjoy these features after committing to one of the three membership plans available at Social Catfish:
- Find or verify the identity of anyone using just an image
- Find information on anyone using their name
- Locate online social profiles, including work, social, and dating profiles
- Access criminal records
Do Social Catfish Memberships Renew Automatically?
The Social Catfish subscriptions will automatically re-up at the end of each billing cycle, but members can shut off the feature under their account settings and billing preferences. Shutting off auto-renewal is like canceling your membership, but you can use any remaining time left in the month before the service terminates.
Should You Join Social Catfish?
Some of the market’s best dating apps deal with the catfishing issue, even big names like Tinder, Bumble, or OkCupid. It’s not just poorly designed dating apps. This is a problem across the board for all dating apps, though the severity level isn’t the same everywhere. We’d ultimately recommend Social Catfish to any of our customers or readers, but there are some cases where it might serve you better not to join.
Reasons to Join
You Want to Know the Truth
Social Catfish is popular amongst truth seekers and those who don’t want to turn a blind eye to this pervasive problem in the online dating and social networking world. We recommend this service to anyone who’s highly suspicious of motives or wants peace of mind knowing they are dealing with someone legitimate.
Avoid Potential Scams
Although using Social Catfish isn’t a guaranteed safeguard to sidestepping trouble or disaster 100% of the time, it can significantly cut down the chances of you wasting time with someone hiding behind a fake name or face. More importantly, you can avoid being scammed for money, being the victim of a revenge plot, or being strung along emotionally by someone who doesn’t care about you.
Save Yourself Time
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to see who’s legitimately worth your time and attention? You get halfway there by using Social Catfish to pinpoint scam profiles or illegitimate accounts that don’t have your best interest in mind. That’s time you can never get back otherwise.
Reasons Not to Join
You Have Your Own Vetting Techniques
Many people are already aware of catfishing and scammers, so they’ve already developed their own system for vetting unknown people they meet on social media or dating apps. A popular technique is matching someone’s name and location against other social media accounts. So, we’d not recommend Social Catfish to people who already have a personal vetting system and don’t want to pay for an extra service.
It’s an Extra Cost Each Month
If you’re already paying for a dating app each month, using Social Catfish will be an additional cost that can cut into your budget. It’s not as if you’re doomed to be scammed if you pass up using this service because most users on dating apps or matchmaking services are legitimate, normal people. For those whose budgets might not allow the added expense of Social Catfish, we’d suggest foregoing the service.
How Do I Sign Up For Social Catfish?
We signed up for a Social Catfish account to report what being on board as a brand-new member is like. It’s easy to complete and nowhere near as involved as registering with a dating app. Complete the first steps in a matter of one to two minutes, and then enter payment information to unlock your first report.
Follow the sign-up steps below to sign up and become a paying member of Social Catfish.
Step 1: Enter Their Name
Visit www.SocialCatfish.com and enter the name of the first person you’d like to investigate. Enter their name and the country they hail from.
Click “Search” once you’re finished.
Step 2: Enter Their Location
Select the state where your person resides.
You don’t need to know their current address to get a report on this person. It could be a former address or residence; Social Catfish needs only one, and they can find any other addresses this person might have had in the past.
Select the current or former city where your person resides.
Step 3: Enter Their Age Range
Submit the current age range for the person you’re looking up. You can skip this step, but it helps to narrow down the search. There are four age ranges to choose from.
Once you enter an age, click “Continue.”
Step 4: Let Social Catfish Do Its Thing
After submitting the basic information on your person, Social Catfish will begin looking up this person using public records.
Social Catfish will check social networking apps, education/government records, news articles, professional records, and public databases. Needless to say, they do some thorough investigatory work.
Step 5: Enter Your Email
After waiting for Social Catfish to search all available databases and public records, they announce that your report is ready and everything it will include.
You must enter your email and hit “Continue” to proceed to the next step, where you unlock the results of your Social Catfish report.
Step 6: Pay for a Social Catfish Membership
Now that your report is ready, you must become a paying member of Social Catfish to access it and perform additional searches. Choose the best subscription for your time and budget, and enter your payment info to get started as a new member.
Social Catfish is so easy to sign up with, and it’s worth the time and money to discover the true identity of the people you meet online. They all told me I could become a member of the service in five minutes or less. And the only work you have to do is submit a name or image, while Social Catfish does the rest.
Frequently Asked Questions
Check out the most popular questions we’ve gotten about Social Catfish from our customers and readers. You can get many of the service’s highlights in this convenient FAQ section of our Social Catfish review.
Though most of our reviews focus on dating apps and matchmaking services, Social Catfish is a web-based detective agency that aims to protect its customers from online scams like fraudulent dating profiles. Social Catfish consults public records to confirm the identity of any names or photos submitted by users. It’s a great companion to any dating app or social media site.
Catfishing is luring someone into a relationship using a fictional or fraudulent online persona. Dating apps are particularly susceptible to catfishing because people use these services to find connections. Catfish can easily access some of these sites due to lax vetting or verification systems and minimal standards for joining as a new member.
Unfortunately, there’s no way to enjoy Social Catfish and their services for free. They don’t offer a free membership plan and require new users to pay for any reports they request. Submit your first search while signing up for a new account, choose a membership plan, and enter your payment info to unlock the results.
The site started in 2013 and has developed a remarkable track record of success with its customers in the last ten years. Over 2 million active members use the service each month, and they have over 160,000 five-star reviews from current and former members. Social Catfish is a BBB-accredited business and a Chamber of Commerce member.
Since Social Catfish opened its doors in 2013, they have gotten a lot of good feedback from former and current customers. Many people who’ve used the service for themselves give Social Catfish high marks, particularly when it comes to their team of investigators and how they work in complicated scenarios. Social Catfish can be highly valuable if you want to avoid online abuse, stalking, or unwanted attention while using a dating app.
Enter the name or a photo of the person you’ve met online. Social Catfish matches the image or name against public records like social networking apps, education/government records, news articles, professional records, and public databases. It’s a common-sense approach that can quickly verify the identity of any person. They can do searches using an email address or phone number as well.
There are three membership plans found at Social Catfish. The first is called “Unlimited Social Searches,” which costs $5.73 for the first three days and $27.84 each month after. The second is called “Unlimited Image Searches,” which costs $5.99 for the first three days and $26.99 each month after. The final option is paying for a search specialist, a one-time payment of $397.00 for a single in-depth report on anyone in your search.
