Broker profile

Social Catfish

A reverse-lookup people-search site run by Social Catfish, LLC of Murrieta, California, and sold as a way to check who's really behind a dating profile. It searches by name, phone, email, username, address and photo, and posts free pages on named people that tease a likely phone number and relatives before a paid report. Its own privacy policy calls the company a data broker. The BBB has revoked its accreditation, and its California filing shows 1,537 of 3,330 deletion requests denied in 2024.

Manual removal guide Visit socialcatfish.com

Social Catfish overview

At a glance

Quick facts

Privacy Risk

LimitedModerateSubstantialExtensive

Data published: Substantial
Re-listing frequency: Recurring
Complaint record: Pattern of complaints
Opt-out friction: High
Operator opacity: Fully disclosed
Prior data incidents: None documented

Each broker is scored 1 to 4 across the six dimensions above; higher means more exposure, and the overall gauge is their average.

What each dimension means

Data published: how much and how sensitive the personal data they put out.
Re-listing frequency: how quickly you reappear after opting out.
Complaint record: the volume and pattern of complaints across BBB, Trustpilot, and Sitejabber. No listing, or a listing with no reviews, counts against the broker.
Opt-out friction: how hard the removal process is to complete.
Operator opacity: how hidden the operating company and its principals are.
Prior data incidents: history of breaches or leaks of the data they hold.

Category: Reverse lookup · people search
Operating entity: Social Catfish, LLC · Murrieta, CA
Searches by: Name, phone, email, username, address or photo
Free to view: Teaser pages under socialcatfish.com/person/
BBB: Not Rated · accreditation revoked · 2 alerts
Deletion requests, 2024: 3,330 received · 1,537 denied · 7-day median
Opt-out: Free form · email verification per its FAQ
FCRA covered?: No

Background

One company, one domain

Social Catfish, LLC is the registrant on California's data broker filing for socialcatfish.com, and the site's terms name it as the company you're dealing with. Its privacy policy doesn't hedge about the business, saying Social Catfish is "considered a data broker under many U.S. laws" because most of its revenue comes from searches that supply personal information about individuals.

The marketing is about romance scams, with the promise that a name, number, email address, handle or photo will show who's behind a dating profile. Underneath sits a people-search index that the privacy policy says comes from data resellers and public websites, and is sold to whoever runs the search.

The same company markets Privacy Lock, a data-removal service that files opt-outs on a user's behalf and names Spokeo, BeenVerified and Whitepages among the sites it works on. Getting yourself off Social Catfish doesn't need it, because the deletion form is free.

Social Catfish stands alone on the broker mapExplore the full map

Part of the index is free to read. An A-to-Z directory on the site links a page per name under socialcatfish.com/person/, and each page teases a likely current phone number, other numbers, a partial username and likely relatives before asking for payment. Those page addresses are what the deletion form's URL box wants.

Data Published

Data types

Straight from its own policy

Sensitive: elevated identity-theft, doxxing, or safety riskStandard public-record field

From Social Catfish's privacy policy, terms and report pages.

Names, aliases and usernames
Current and past home addressesSensitive
Phone numbers and email addresses, old and current
Age, birth date, marital status, gender and languages spokenSensitive
Employers, job titles and dates worked
Education history
Potential associates and likely relativesSensitive
Profile photos and public online profilesSensitive
Property ownership, deed, tax and loan records from address lookups
Criminal-record data, which its terms say may include sealed or expunged recordsSensitive

A search can start from a photo. Upload a picture and it looks for where that image appears online. The deletion form takes up to eight photos or image links, and says Social Catfish can keep "the exact image(s)" out of its image search and "does NOT store any images." A different photo of you isn't covered.

Contact

Contacts & links

Social Catfish, LLC

Operating entity: Social Catfish, LLC
Registry address: 38770 Sky Canyon Dr, Ste A Murrieta, CA 92563
Address in the site footer: 25096 Jefferson Ave. STE A-4 Murrieta, CA 92562
Phone: (844) 422-8347
Privacy requests: privacyrequests@socialcatfish.com
General inquiries: welcome@socialcatfish.com
Deletion form: socialcatfish.com/opt-out/?id=request_delete
Privacy policy: socialcatfish.com/faq/privacy
CA data broker filing: 3,330 deletion requests in 2024, 1,793 complied with in full and 1,537 denied, 7-day median · cppa.ca.gov/data_broker_registry/

Reputation

Trust signals

BBB alerts · 2.1 / 5 twice

The BBB lists Social Catfish as Not Rated, with alerts on file for Accreditation Revocation and Misuse of BBB Name and/or Logo. It logged 125 complaints in three years, and 55 of them sit unanswered. Trustpilot and SmartCustomer both score the site 2.1 out of 5.

Better Business BureauMurrieta, CA · accreditation revoked · 125 complaints in 3 years, 55 unansweredNot RatedAs of 2026-09View profile ↗

Trustpilotsocialcatfish.com · 568 reviews2.1 / 5As of 2026-09View reviews ↗

SmartCustomer (formerly Sitejabber)socialcatfish.com · 100 reviews2.1 / 5As of 2026-09View reviews ↗

Removal requests acknowledged, then ignored
Listings back days, months or a year after they came down
Requests bounced as unverified, third-party or automated, then questions about state, middle initial and age
A small first charge followed by a much larger monthly one
Photo searches that stop at a paywall before any result appears

Litigation

Litigation history

Daniel's Law defendant

Social Catfish is one of the data brokers Atlas Data Privacy Corp. sued in New Jersey in 2024 under Daniel's Law, which lets police officers, judges, prosecutors and their families keep home addresses and unlisted phone numbers off sites like this.

Atlas Data Privacy Corp. v. Social Catfish, LLC

Pending as of Nov 2025

N.J. Super. Ct., Law Div., Bergen County · BER-L-000769-24 · Daniel's Law

Court: Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Bergen County
Docket: BER-L-000769-24
Last listed: Pending with defense counsel on file and no default, November 3, 2025

Atlas sues as the assignee of covered people who sent takedown notices, which the law gives a site ten business days to honor. Police1 named Social Catfish among the defendants in February 2024. The case is row 18 of the 111 pending Daniel's Law cases that plaintiffs' counsel listed for New Jersey's courts on November 3, 2025, when asking for them to be managed together. No ruling or settlement turned up.

NJ Courts, Daniel's Law case list (PDF)

Web searches turned up no FTC or state attorney-general action against Social Catfish, no federal docket lists it as a party, and no breach of its data is on record.

FAQ

Q & A

Common questions

Who owns Social Catfish?

Social Catfish, LLC of Murrieta, California. It holds the California data broker registration for the domain and is the company named in the site's terms. Neither names a parent company or a sister site.

Is Social Catfish a data broker?

By its own account, yes. Its privacy policy says the company is considered one under many U.S. laws, the Texas Data Broker Act included, and it's on California's data broker registry.

How do I get off Social Catfish?

Use the free Request for Deletion form, or email privacyrequests@socialcatfish.com, which its privacy policy names for deletion requests. The Social Catfish removal guide goes through the form, including the optional answers that keep a request from bouncing.

Is Social Catfish covered by the FCRA?

No. Social Catfish's terms state it's not a credit reporting agency under the FCRA, and they bar using its results in decisions on credit, insurance, jobs, housing or education.

Take yourself off data broker sites

Redact scans 120+ data broker sites from your device, finds where your details are listed, and submits the removal requests for you. If a broker relists you, it files again.

Scan for Free

Last updated:

September 10, 2026 · Walked on August 7, 2026 as a single step, with no step screenshots. Today's recheck read the live deletion form, privacy policy, FAQ, terms and a public name page, plus the 2026 California registry, the BBB, Trustpilot, SmartCustomer and a New Jersey court list. It named the operator as Social Catfish, LLC rather than an Inc., found the free name pages and a Daniel's Law suit, and replaced every review figure.