One that has worked for me has been to check out the executives listed on the company website and do a search against their names, both independently and combined with the company name. I'd try the exact text of the executive names on Google and also on the BBB website. The BBB search will let you know if they have put together other companies under different names, popular technique for scam artists. I'd also try doing an exact text search against their street address. That may let you know if they have more than one company listed at the same address, another popular scam artist technique. Along those lines, I'd try searches on the exact text of the company name and executive names along with the name of the city, county, state, and judicial district they are in. You could try those on google, but you might have better luck on a state caselaw index, if there is one in the state they are in. It's a little more work, but one other technique that has worked for me as well has been to do a nationwide people search against the names of the executives and matched the hits up as to which was within 50 miles of a company office. Generally, you won't get more than one hit, so you know then that you have a home address (and maybe phone number) for a bigwig in the company. You can then do the same address and court records searches listed before to see what they have been up to at home. Your scammer might have hidden problems by opening a new office in a new city, but if they have hosted a scam from home, the address might give you a hit. By the way, that "name near an office" technique works great if you are getting really bad customer service and want to make a point. I called the VP of an airline at home once on December 22nd to find out what happened to my sister-in-law's 3-day lost baggage. After he got over his initial shock and anger, we got that luggage back in a REAL hurry. Good thing too -- she wasn't my sister-in-law yet, the wedding was the 23rd, and the bag had her wedding dress in it. :) Hope that helps! - Kevin Doug Bronson > cc: Sent by: Subject: Internet Search owner-kclug@marauder.i lliana.net 04/07/2003 10:06 PM Hi group, This is a little off topic, but I need some help with an internet search. I'm trying to find some NEGATIVE information about a company on the internet. I have used all of my search tools (google, netscape, webferret, exite, hotbot, yahoo etc...) and all I keep getting is the same old info., all of which is the company's adds. and/or sites linking to their URL. I've tried searching the BBB's site, the states site which they are in, their regulatory's sites and several newsgroups which would pertain to their business. All turned up nothing new. Either I'm the only person on the planet that has a problem with this organization or they are covering up all bad publicity, very well. So my questions are: Any search engines out there that will search most of the newsgroups? Any other general search engine I should try? Any linux or windows based programs that will aid in the search? I know that everyone is wanting to know what company it is and what they did that pissed me off. But I prefer to keep it confidential. I feel that they might catch wind that I'm on to the little scam that they are trying to pull on me, thus start making my life miserable. So for now let me just keep it MY little secret. Thanks Doug