Open the opt-out page and ignore Free Identity Monitoring
Go to peoplefinders.com/opt-out. The page is headed Do Not Sell My Personal Information and it stacks two options inside one card: Right to Opt-out on top, an OR divider, then Free Identity Monitoring underneath, and the page tells you "Both options are completely FREE." Only the top one removes anything. Free Identity Monitoring signs you up for an account, which creates a customer record instead of taking yours down.
Click the green Next button under Right to Opt-out. Your address bar won't change, so you're still on /opt-out and that's correct. There is also a phone route: call (877) 551-9688. PeopleFinders lists that number as an equal opt-out method alongside the web form in its Do Not Sell notice, but we have not confirmed whether the operator completes the request on the call or emails you the same link.
Stage one takes your name and gives you nothing
First Name and Last Name are required, Middle Name is optional, and the email address you type here is where the actual removal form gets sent, so use one you can open right now. Under "I am:" choose The subject of the request unless you're filing for someone else, then tick the authorization box underneath it.
Now solve the CAPTCHA. It's reCAPTCHA Enterprise with image challenges, not a one-click box, and the whole domain sits behind bot protection, so a script or a removal browser extension can't do this part for you. Click Send Request. Nothing has been removed at this point. All you've done is ask them to mail you the form.
The emailed link dies in 24 hours
Watch for the email and open it fast. PeopleFinders' instruction is exact: "If you wait more than 24 hours to click this link you will need to request a new one." They also warn it "may take some time to arrive," so check your spam folder before you decide it never came. Miss the window and you go back to the CAPTCHA and start the whole thing again.
The link opens the Record Suppression Form. That form is the request. Everything before it was the request for the request, which is why a guide describing one single PeopleFinders form is describing a page that isn't there anymore.
Fill the suppression form once, because you can't edit it
First Name, Last Name, Street Address, City and State are the enforced fields. Email, phone and date of birth carry no asterisk, so the form will submit without them. Fill them in anyway. PeopleFinders warns that omitting information "will only hinder the opt-out process," and a thin submission is the one that quietly matches nothing.
Strip the punctuation out of your name. Their instruction is specific: "Please omit any special characters, such as periods and hyphens. (ex: for the name James Brown, Jr. please put “Brown Jr” in the last name section)". A period in a suffix or a hyphen in a surname can break the match, and a broken match looks exactly like a successful submission.
Read every field back before you tick the certification box, because the warning above it means what it says: "You will not be able to modify the information once you click submit." A typo costs you the entire email loop over again. Then click Submit. You'll get a confirmation page and a confirmation email, and that email confirms they received the request, never that anything came down.
Check on day three with your cache cleared
PeopleFinders states the window plainly: "Please allow 3 days for your record to be fully removed from our site." On day three, clear your browser cache first, then search your own name on peoplefinders.com. Their FAQ tells you to do it in exactly that order, which tells you they expect a stale page to be handed back to you.
If the listing is still up, run the whole submission again with more complete details. Their FAQ points at the reason: "If our system cannot match the provided information to a record, the information will not be removed." Nothing tells you that happened, so your check on day three is the only signal you're going to get.
Two more jobs this opt-out doesn't do
PeopleFinders LLC also runs findaneighborhood.com, and opting out of one doesn't visibly opt you out of the other. Its Do Not Sell notice carries the same (877) 551-9688 number and links to a separate opt-out form on its own domain. Treat that as a second submission you have to make, not a formality.
If Google or Bing still show the old listing after the page is gone, PeopleFinders hands that back to you, saying they "are unable to influence the speed at which Google and Bing update their caches." They point you to Google's Refresh Outdated Content tool, which is the right tool and works for anyone. Their Bing link is worse: it opens a Bing Webmaster Tools sign-in built for site owners, checked September 8, 2026.
It comes back, and you can be denied
Put a reminder in your calendar to run this again. PeopleFinders says so themselves on the opt-out page: "we regularly receive new public records, so even if you opt out, your publicly available information may appear in our products again in the future. We recommend you periodically refresh your opt-out request." There's no standing suppression here, and an incomplete submission leaves records behind that can reattach to your name later.
Denial is a real outcome and their published numbers say so: of 773,547 opt-out requests logged in 2025, 544,843 were denied, largely on the stated ground that the person "was determined to not be a covered consumer under an applicable consumer privacy law." If you're denied, appeal at the Privacy Rights Appeal Form or by calling the same number.
Expect the appeal to ask for more than the opt-out did: the request type, the date you originally filed, the URL of the listing, your date of birth, and a required phone number, street address and ZIP. Know what you're appealing for, too. This is suppression from one website, and it doesn't reach the voter, property and phone-directory records underneath it.