How To Opt Out of USPhoneBook, and What To Do If It Refuses

Search your own phone number, and USPhoneBook is often one of the first results. Anyone can view the listing for free, and it advertises your home phone, cell phone, current address, former addresses, and relatives before you've clicked anything.

USPhoneBook has an opt-out form. It's free, takes a few minutes, and works for a lot of people. Although it didn't work for me. 

When I submitted a removal request from my North Carolina address, USPhoneBook refused to process it because North Carolina has no comprehensive consumer privacy law. When I tried the deletion form instead, it closed before I could submit.

Here's how the process works, what we ran into, and what to do if the same thing happens to you.

What is USPhoneBook?

USPhoneBook is a public data broker, or people search site. It pulls from public records and third-party data suppliers to build free profiles you can look up by phone number, name, or address. No sign-up is required to make your personal information available to anyone who searches you, and you can't simply close or delete an account to have your info taken down. 

What USPhoneBook shows about you

A listing displays your name and links to phone type, relatives, and associates, with a prompt that your full address is available. The sidebar sells the rest: home phone number, cell phone number, landline, current address, former addresses, and relatives.

Per its privacy notice, updated Aug. 4, 2026, the company collects real names and aliases, current and former addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, names of relatives, gender, age, marital status, and detailed property records including estimated value, equity, square footage, and last sale date.

When I clicked "GET DETAILS" for my phone number, USPhoneBook gave me a dossier of personal information that was so granular it included the type of phone service and the provider. It even included a date range for when I lived at previous addresses down to the month and year, which I have never seen in a people search report. 

The report was wild, listing 9 potential family members and a link out to 35 more. Clicking it funnels to other people search sites because USPhoneBook also lets you request paid background reports via TruthFinder.com and PeopleFinders.com. 

You can also request a full background report via USPhoneBook Pro.

Personal details available in the report include:

• Current & Past Contact Info
• Addresses & Phone Numbers
• Business Records
• Professional Licenses
• Family & Associates
• Social Media & Photos
• Properties & Assets
• Public Records
• Criminal Records
• Court Records
• State & County Records
• Bankruptcies, Judgments, Liens

The creepier part is that you can include family members in the report, too. USPhoneBook pushes for a paid membership, which lets you access up to 250 reports monthly depending on your plan.

Is USPhoneBook legit?

USPhoneBook is a real company with a real removal process, and the opt-out form does work for people it accepts.

It is not a background check service in the legal sense. USPhoneBook states on its own site that it isn't a Consumer Reporting Agency under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and that the site can't be used for employment, credit, or tenant screening.

Before you start: your state decides whether USPhoneBook opt-out works

USPhoneBook processes removal requests based on state consumer privacy laws. If you live in a state that has one, you have a right the company has to honor. If you don't, you're asking for a favor.

Roughly 20 states have comprehensive consumer privacy laws in effect, and the number keeps changing. Check the IAPP state privacy legislation tracker for the current list before you file. 

Under European privacy laws, data rights don't depend on which country you live in within the bloc. In the U.S., a removal request that's a legal right in Texas is a favor in North Carolina.

If your state isn't on it, file anyway. Just know what you might get back, and read the section on refusals below.

How to opt out of USPhoneBook

USPhoneBook uses a two-stage process. You request a link by email, then you fill out the real form.

1. Open the opt-out form. Go to the USPhoneBook opt-out form. In the I am dropdown, select The subject of the request, or An authorized agent of the subject of the request.

2. Enter your name and email. First name, last name, and email are required. Middle name is optional. Complete the CAPTCHA, check the authorization box, and submit.

3. Check your inbox. You'll land on a "You're not done" page confirming the email went out.

4. Click the link within 24 hours. Open the email from noreply@usphonebook.com and click through. After 24 hours, the link expires, and you start over.

5. Fill out the second form. First name, last name, city, state, ZIP, and email are required. Date of birth, phone, and street address are optional, though leaving them out makes it harder for USPhoneBook to match your record.

6. Omit special characters. USPhoneBook asks you to drop periods and hyphens, so "James Brown, Jr." goes in as Brown Jr.

7. Confirm. Check the accuracy box, complete the reCAPTCHA, and click Confirm Removal Process.

Two things the form doesn't tell you clearly. One request covers one record. If you have multiple listings under a maiden name, a middle initial, or an old address, each one needs its own request. And information that doesn't match a record won't be opted out at all, so search yourself first and copy what the listing actually says.

The Do Not Sell request is the same form

USPhoneBook's Notice of Right to Opt-Out of Sale and Sharing of Personal Information sounds like a separate route. It isn't. The online option links to the same opt-out form, but it includes a contact phone number: 888-747-4095.

It also flags a second step most people skip. The form only covers your USPhoneBook record. To stop the sale and sharing that happens through cookies and trackers on the site, you have to change your cookie settings through the "Cookie management" link in the site footer, though that just directed us to a pop-up for site-level preferences. 

You can also send an opt-out preference signal like Global Privacy Control from your browser. USPhoneBook also says it doesn't honor Do Not Track signals, so GPC is the one that counts. If you're in California, the same signal is what backs the state's cookie consent rules.

What happened when we tested it

I ran the USPhoneBook opt-out process in September 2026 from a North Carolina address. Here's what happened.

The opt-out was refused

The rejection email said the person in the request "lives in a state that does not have a comprehensive consumer privacy law that applies to our data," and that USPhoneBook was "not able to process the request at this time."

That's accurate. North Carolina has no comprehensive consumer privacy law. Three bills were introduced in the 2025-2026 session, including House Bill 462, and none has been enacted.

Note the wording, though. Not "your state has no law," but no law "that applies to our data." USPhoneBook's position, stated plainly on its Do Not Sell page, is that public records fall outside state privacy laws entirely. Your state is the first gate. The public-records argument is the second, and that one applies to everybody.

The deletion form closed before we could submit

USPhoneBook's privacy rights form offers an alternative route to have your data removed.

The form covers three avenues: Right to Know, Right to Delete, and Right to Correct. Phone number and street address are required here, though they're optional on the opt-out form. We selected Right to Delete.

The context (my interactions) dropdown has four options covering:

1. No direct relationship with the company
2. Job applicant or employee
3. Vendor or business
4. Marketing email subscriber

For anyone whose data was scraped into a people search site, only the first one is true. Selecting the only accurate option for anyone listed on a people search site removes the form fields and leaves no way to submit a deletion request.

In their place, a notice explaining that publicly available data isn't covered by state privacy laws, that the information in a listing "is not stored by us" but retrieved from third-party providers when you search, and that "while we cannot delete data held by third parties, you do have the option to prevent your information from appearing on our website." This statement is followed by a link back to the opt-out form that had already refused me.

That's the loop. The deletion route sends you to the opt-out route, and the opt-out route sends you away based on your state. For a North Carolina resident, no manual path ends in data removal.

If USPhoneBook doesn't store your information, there's nothing to delete, and the right to deletion disappears. That's convenient, and it doesn't sit easily beside the retention section of the company's own privacy notice, which says it stores personal information for as long as needed to fulfill the purposes it was collected for. There may be a distinction between data about site visitors and data in the search product. USPhoneBook doesn't draw one.

What to do if your request is refused

You have four options, and none is guaranteed.

1. Appeal. Go back to the privacy rights form and choose I want to appeal the handling of my privacy request in the first dropdown. USPhoneBook asks you to name the specific law you believe applies and explain why it covers you. Don't reply to the rejection email. The company says replying won't start an appeal and may not get a response at all.
2. Call. 888-747-4095 reaches the same process by phone. A person may weigh a request differently than an automated review.
3. Send a GPC signal. It won't remove your listing, but it does cover the tracking-based sharing that the form leaves untouched.
4. Refile later. State privacy laws keep passing. North Carolina has bills in committee right now. A refusal today isn't permanent.

Why removals don't stick, even when they work

Say you live in a covered state and your request goes through. Your listing comes down. You're still not finished, and USPhoneBook says so itself.

On its Do Not Sell page, the company explains that its products use publicly available information, that this data isn't covered by state privacy laws, and that it will "try to apply your request to the publicly available information we collect, as a courtesy."

Three consequences follow, all of them stated by USPhoneBook:

• It doesn't touch the source. Your removal changes nothing about the public records the data came from.
• Your listing may return. The company says it regularly receives new public records, and that your information may appear in its data products again.
• You're expected to keep refiling. USPhoneBook recommends you periodically refresh your opt-out request.

If your listing reappears, the request didn't fail. That's the system working the way the company describes it.

One practical note when you go back to check: USPhoneBook tells you to clear your browser cache and run a fresh search rather than reloading a saved link, or you may be looking at a stored copy of the old page.

How to stay off USPhoneBook

Do it yourself. Put a reminder on your calendar every few months. Search your name and phone number, check for new or duplicate listings, and refile. It's free, and it works as long as you keep doing it.

Use a removal service. Data broker removal services file requests across hundreds of brokers and rescan on a schedule, which matters more than any single removal, since reappearing is normal. See our tested rankings in the best data removal services guide.

Worth knowing before you buy: not all paid services work around your state's privacy law. In general, data removal services can reliably save you the recurring manual work across every other broker, and hundreds of them hold the same records.

USPhoneBook has its own opinion here. Its confirmation page pitches its "partner" OneRep with a button offering to remove your info from 300 or more sites. Read that for what it is: the company that published your phone number earning a referral on the cleanup. 

If you're weighing it, start with our OneRep review rather than the pitch on the page. We've tested popular data removal services and recommend Incogni.

Bottom line

Start with the USPhoneBook opt-out form. It's free, only takes a couple of minutes to complete, and should work if you live in one of the roughly 20 states with a comprehensive privacy law.

If you don't, expect a refusal, and know the deletion form won't help. It closes for anyone who says they have no direct relationship with the company, which is everyone a people search site lists. Appeal through the privacy rights form, name the law you think applies, or call 888-747-4095.

And whichever way it goes, put a reminder on your calendar. USPhoneBook calls the removal a courtesy, says new public records keep arriving, and tells you to refile periodically. 

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