An unexpected Intelius charge on a credit card almost always means a people-search subscription is active on your account, usually one that started as a cheap trial and rolled into a monthly fee. To make it stop and get your money back, cancel the subscription first, ask Intelius directly for a refund on the charges you didn’t want, and if that fails, dispute the charge with your card issuer within 60 days of the statement date.
What the Charge Actually Is
Intelius sells people-search tools on a trial-to-membership model. A reverse phone lookup paired with people search costs $0.95 for a five-day trial, then $35.30 per month. An address lookup bundle runs $0.95 for seven days, then $34.95 monthly. The standalone people-search plan skips the trial and bills $21.35 per month from the start.1Intelius. How Much Does Intelius Cost? 2025 Pricing Guide
The sub-dollar trial is where most people get caught. The checkout page discloses the recurring-billing terms, but they’re easy to miss when you’re focused on looking up a number or an address. Once the trial window closes, billing starts automatically unless you’ve already canceled. State attorneys general have investigated this practice at Intelius, finding that hundreds of thousands of consumers may have unknowingly enrolled in a membership after submitting payment information for what they thought was a one-time search.
Confirming the Charge Is Intelius
Intelius charges don’t always appear under the company name. The statement descriptor starts with “PCH*INTELIUS” and often includes a truncated phone number. The common variations:
- PCH*INTELIUS 888-245-1655 (or a shorter truncation such as PCH*INTELIUS 888-245)
- PCH*INTELIUS 888-240-7714 (or a shorter truncation such as PCH*INTELIUS 888-240)
- PCH*INTELIUS with no phone number attached
The “PCH” prefix stands for PeopleConnect, the parent company that also runs TruthFinder, Instant Checkmate, US Search, and Classmates.2Intelius. How Do Intelius Charges Show Up? If none of those descriptors match what’s on your statement, the charge may be from a different PeopleConnect brand or could be genuine fraud; in that case, call the number on the back of your card.
Cancel the Subscription First
Cancel before you do anything else. Every day the account stays active is another day closer to the next billing cycle. You have three ways in:
- Online: Log in at intelius.com, open account settings, and follow the cancellation prompts until a confirmation number appears. Save it.
- Phone: Call (888) 245-1655, Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM Pacific. Ask for a confirmation number before ending the call.
- Email: Send a cancellation request to support@intelius.com with your full name, the email address on the account, and a clear statement that you want the subscription canceled immediately.
If you can’t log in because you don’t remember creating an account, or you no longer have access to the original email, calling is the fastest route. If you originally paid through PayPal or a similar platform, cancel the recurring payment inside that platform too, since Intelius may not control that billing relationship directly.
Under Intelius’s terms, cancellation stops future invoices but does not reverse charges already billed to you.3Intelius. Intelius Terms of Use and Conditions of Sale If you want money back, you have to ask for it separately.
Ask Intelius for a Refund
With the subscription canceled, contact support by phone or email and ask for a refund on the charges you didn’t intend to authorize. Name the specific charges and have your cancellation confirmation number ready.
Resist the temptation to skip Intelius and go straight to a chargeback. Intelius’s terms impose a chargeback penalty: filing one triggers immediate suspension of your account and blocks the company from issuing any refund on the disputed transaction. If Intelius then contests the chargeback successfully with your bank, you’ll owe the original charge with no company-issued refund available afterward.3Intelius. Intelius Terms of Use and Conditions of Sale Try the direct request first. Escalate to your bank only if Intelius refuses or ignores you.
Dispute the Charge With Your Bank
If Intelius won’t refund you, federal law gives you a dispute pathway, and the rules differ by card type.
Credit Card Charges
The Fair Credit Billing Act requires you to send written notice of a billing error to your card issuer within 60 days of the statement date on which the charge first appeared.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1666 – Correction of Billing Errors Include your name, account number, the disputed amount, and why you believe it’s an error. The issuer must acknowledge the dispute within 30 days and resolve it within two billing cycles, capped at 90 days. During the investigation, the issuer cannot try to collect the disputed amount or report it as delinquent.
Debit Card Charges
Debit card disputes fall under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act. You still have 60 days from the statement date to notify your bank.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 1693f – Error Resolution The bank must investigate and report back within 10 business days. It can extend to 45 days only if it provisionally credits your account for the disputed amount in the meantime.6Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Regulation E Section 1005.11 – Procedures for Resolving Errors For point-of-sale debit transactions, the investigation window stretches to 90 days.
The 60-day clock is the deadline that matters most in this entire process. Miss it and you lose your strongest legal leverage, no matter how legitimate your dispute is. If you just spotted the charge, check the statement date before you do anything else.
Federal Protections You Can Point To
The Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act makes it illegal for an online seller to charge you through a negative-option feature (where silence or inaction counts as agreement to pay) unless the seller clearly disclosed all material terms before collecting billing information, obtained your informed consent before charging you, and provided a simple way to stop recurring charges.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 8403 – Negative Option Feature
Violations are treated as unfair or deceptive acts under the FTC Act, so the Federal Trade Commission can pursue civil penalties and consumer refunds against companies that bury subscription terms or make cancellation difficult.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 15 USC 8404 – Enforcement by Federal Trade Commission If your experience involved hidden terms or an unreasonably hard cancellation, you can file a complaint at reportfraud.ftc.gov. Individual complaints rarely move an investigator overnight, but they feed into enforcement patterns that have produced significant settlements against people-search companies.
Canceling Does Not Remove Your Information
One thing cancellation does not do: take your personal information off Intelius. Your name, address, and other details may still appear in search results for anyone to find. Removal is a separate process through PeopleConnect’s suppression center, and it covers Intelius, TruthFinder, Instant Checkmate, and US Search in one go.
Go to suppression.peopleconnect.us and enter your email address. PeopleConnect sends a verification email that expires quickly, so click the link promptly.9PeopleConnect. Suppression Center Enter your date of birth and legal name, review the matching records, and select “Suppressed” from the dropdown for each one you want hidden. Records typically disappear from search results within 72 hours, though it can occasionally take up to four weeks. Because people-search databases keep ingesting new public records, a suppressed listing can resurface later, so it’s worth checking back every few months.