DeleteMe — Hidden Tiers, Asterisks, and False Promises?

techjunto · April 6, 2025, 4:42am

Let’s Talk About DeleteMe — Hidden Tiers, Asterisks, and False Promises?

Staying on top of data brokers and opt-out services is kind of my thing — I’ve been following Techlore for a long time, and their latest video “This Isn’t Looking Good for DeleteMe” really caught my attention on this.

If you’re relying on DeleteMe for personal data removal (or thinking about it), this is a must-watch. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes that isn’t obvious at first glance.

Also… This practice may be more common than we have come to expect.

Also.. I searched for a forum post about this video on here after posting on my own forum and … nothing. I would have thought this would be a bigger deal with how widely DeleteMe is recommended.

Update: if it’s possible that this description already played out in the forum now that I am re-looking at when the video was posted

What’s the Real Story?

On the surface, DeleteMe says they remove your data from 750+ data broker sites. Sounds solid — but the reality has some serious fine print.

1. Tiered Plans Do Exist — and They’re Real:

DeleteMe offers Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and VIP tiers with drastically expanded coverage.
These tiers are publicly documented, but not through the main Pricing Page. Instead, you’ll only spot them via their “Sites We Remove From” list, where specific brokers are marked as:
- ** Business Gold, Diamond, Platinum, VIP
- *** Diamond, Platinum, VIP only
- ᵒ Platinum, VIP only
These tiers are not openly advertised or upgradeable from your account dashboard. You’ll need to contact support directly.

2. The “750+ Sites” Claim Is Heavily Inflated:

Many of the listed 750+ data broker sites are only included in higher tiers, or marked as custom request only (^).
This means a huge chunk of removals are inaccessible to Standard or even Premium users unless they go through extra effort or know exactly what to ask for.

3. Consumer Reports Put Them to the Test — and It’s Not Great:

Out of 13 sites tested, only 9 were actually covered under the Standard plan.
That’s just 69% coverage, which doesn’t hold up well for a paid privacy service claiming broad data removal.

See for Yourself:

Site Removal List:

https://joindeleteme.com/sites-we-remove-from/

Pay attention to the indicators:

* = Standard Plan
** = Business Gold, Diamond, Platinum & VIP
*** = Diamond, Platinum, VIP
ᵒ = Platinum, VIP only
^ = Custom Request
~ = International

Notable absences from Standard coverage: PeopleConnect, Intelius, CheckPeople, and many major aggregators.

Pricing Snapshot (As of April 6, 2025):

View here → https://joindeleteme.com/pricing/

Standard Protection

$10.75/mo
Billed annually: $129/year
Covers 1 person, 1 year
Limited access, excludes many brokers and categories

Premium Protection

$35.40/mo
Billed annually: $425/year
Still only covers 1 person
But no detailed breakdown on which additional sites it includes

Higher tiers like Gold, Platinum, Diamond, and VIP are not listed on the pricing page but referenced within the removal list — hinting they’re either custom/business only or invite-only/private access.

What This Means If You’re Using DeleteMe:

You might be paying for what sounds like complete protection — but getting only a slice of it.
Their marketing leverages the “750+ sites” number while quietly walling off many of them behind tiers that aren’t obvious unless you dig.
For privacy-conscious users (especially fellow Techlorians), you may get better value from alternatives like Easy Opt-Outs or even just going manual.

Anyone Here Actually Try the Premium DeleteMe Plans?

Did you even know Gold, Platinum, Diamond, or VIP existed?
Have you gone through the process of unlocking one?
Was it worth it?

This might not be LastPass-level sketch, but for a premium service, DeleteMe really needs to be clearer.

anon52464727 · April 6, 2025, 4:59am

I think this is what the service may be relying on everyone to have the same opinion and not publicly respond lest they legitimize the concerns (as they may be seeing it).

I would not recommend anyone going for DeleteMe. And having read and heard enough about EasyOptOuts, I’d say its much better. It’s also simpler and easier trusting two people than a “company” behind a “premium” product. The podcast episode from Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragon’s is great. Anyone interested should definitely listen to it.

techjunto · April 6, 2025, 6:09am

Resources for Data Removal On Your Own

The Big Ass Data Broker Opt Out List

Data Removal Services Comparison

Source: Google Sheet

Criteria/Brand	Price (per month)	Countries	# of Data Brokers
Incogni	$7.49	USA, EU, UK, Canada	??
Privacy Bee Shady	$8	USA	??
DeleteMe Shady	$35.40	USA	9
AVG BreachGuard	$43.99	USA	??
Norton Privacy Monitor	$12.99	USA, EU, UAE	??
Optery	$3.99	USA	360
DeleteMyInfo Shady	$9.99	USA	??
Bitdefender	$39.99	USA	??
McAfee	$89.99	USA, UK	??
OneRep Be aware!	$8.33	USA	168
Avast BreachGuard Fined $16.5M for data sale	$43.99	USA	??
Your Digital Rights	Free	Global	300
Easy Opt-Outs	$1.66	USA	110

= Yes / available
= No / not available
“Shady” = Questionable practices reported or verified (e.g., lack of public list, misleading claims)

Maintain table here

techjunto · April 6, 2025, 7:58pm

Platinum and VIP Plan Details

Corporate Plan Tiers

Source

Henry · April 7, 2025, 11:47am

Thanks for documenting all of this in text. (We’ve only done videos) It’s really a bummer. I was a customer for years and even as a customer I had no idea about the other plans. It’s all very strategically done in a way to make whichever plan you’re on feel like you have the most protection.

For the record, DeleteMe did genuinely remove lots of records for me during my time using it. So it’s not a useless product. But in light of new information there are just objectively better options for a better value.

Libalpm · April 8, 2025, 1:32am

This is not surprising the only way to remove these things is to change them. Regardless if you ask for data removal they’re going to still keep your data and claim “Public Records” or whatever excuse they can come up with. I noticed several times after I requested for my data to be deleted on Spokeo it reappeared 3 months later. Another question is can you even trust your own OPT out service with your information? This is why I change all the information that is sensitive.

classboxchair · August 6, 2025, 10:18am

Are you referring to Optery here by any chance? Is their Internal Processing still worth it over their new AI processing option in 2025? Thank you.

Henry · August 7, 2025, 2:26am

Optery & Easy Opt Outs (both listed in our resources) performed well in the Consumer Reports research. Easy Opt Outs is far more affordable and what I’m currently using for myself. I recently started playing with Optery and it seems pretty nice as well, albeit pricier.

Praline · August 14, 2025, 1:57pm

I am giving a little bit of life into this discussion as I’ve recently noticed Incogni added a new infobox to attract customers to their more premium plan :

I actually subscribed to Incogni at the beginning of the year since there were some discounts and it appeared to be the only very good service available in the EU (I know there are two others from the table above, and according to this post, DeleteMe can be used as well, but as this topic suggests, they are shady).

Back then, their premium plan wasn’t available yet, so my questions are :

Since Optery and Easy Opt-Outs aren’t available in the EU, do you consider Incogni to be an actually viable option ?
Do their Deloitte verification means something that makes them worth/on par with the reported (as per Consumer Reports) efficiency of the two others ?
Should I upgrade my plan ?

For convenience, I have pasted their pricing plans :

It’s more expensive than Easy Opt-Outs for sure, but you can have multiple emails checked, and there’s a family plan as well (which I’m thinking could prove useful given the habits of my family).

So far, I’ve been satisfied with the standard plan, but I don’t know to which extent my peace of mind is legitimate…

harry · November 10, 2025, 4:08pm

Hi @techjunto - I’m the founder and CEO of Privacy Bee and stumbled across this post. We’ve historically not been the best at marketing ourselves, but we do stand strong by our product and the quality/integrity of what we’ve built. I’d love to learn more (in public here) about what has you concerned.

I’m assuming it’s related to the “lack of a public list”, which I understand. We used to show our list only after a member logs in, instead of having it publicly available, but that was changed earlier this year. You can now browse every single Data Broker we support here: https://hive.privacybee.com/brokers
We also categorize the data brokers into sub-types to make it easier to navigate, and show our deletion guides for free on every one of them. As of today (11/10) we support 1,035 Data Brokers which I believe is by far the most comprehensive offering in the entire industry. We also have takedown guides or opt-out paths mapped on 182,373 additional “custom sites”, but I don’t count those here since they’re not really Data Brokers (unlike some competitors who try to combine custom counts with broker counts).

We also operate fully global (not just US/EU), minus 7 countries that the US restricts trade with: https://support.privacybee.com/en-us/article/what-countries-does-privacy-bee-cover-9yj3rb/ (since our HQ office is in Atlanta, GA)

Is there anything else I can answer or address for you (with 100% transparency)? We genuinely are working hard to be the best product in this industry and while I believe we’re succeeding from an R&D and product efficacy perspective, we candidly need to fix our marketing and communication efforts.

Thank you!

Neigdoig · November 10, 2025, 10:44pm

You might want to take a look at Optery, which is what I use. I have the free plan, which only warns people about information on certain sites, but paying in certain tiers will let them remove data of which you provide to them as your power of attorney.

The tiers basically give you how many sites, out of 600+ data brokers will be removed in terms of the data, and it’ll be pretty easy to do once you get set up.

techjunto · November 11, 2025, 4:31am

Love that you’ve taken the time to transparently respond. Yes my concerns and I believe most people’s here are rooted around deceptive tactics that companies use to fluff up their numbers and rely on duplicates or provide numbers that aren’t represented in the plans they even offer.

I line that you mentioned the guides as that’s one thing I love seeing where companies are transparent about the process and users can see for themselves some of what is going on and why they should consider paying for it.

I’ll browse around and research it further and update my table if needed

magnumpeye · November 11, 2025, 11:42am

This is what I said about a year ago. I asked “is there any proof these services delete stuff?” and all I got were blind faith answers. I might be a tech illiterate person compared to most people here. But life experience counts for something.

Praline · November 11, 2025, 8:59pm

To give some more information to everyone since my last comment regarding Incogni.

I subscribed at the beginning of 2025 (February). My last comment was in August.

We are now in November and I can confidently say their service works. The reason I say this is because all the requests they sent were completed.

I had input 3 different emails in the service to look for databases and send deletion requests, and as of Novembre, I don’t receive spam emails anymore. Maybe one or two per month in total (for reference, I used to have several dozens a day prior to entering the Privacy-journey).

Of course, this cannot be considered a proof that the data was actually deleted from the data brokers servers. But that seems to be quite a good indicator.

I don’t know about the other services compared to Incongi, but overall this “removal business” seems to be fair and not a scam.

Henry · November 14, 2025, 5:04pm

I’ve been testing out Optery actually these last several months, so far good experience! Pros/cons to EasyOptOuts from what I can tell. I think Optery is a bit more approachable to regular people, and their free plan is nice for fact-checking EasyOptOuts. But comparing paid plans is quite more difficult to justify Optery given how cheap EOO is.

Neigdoig · November 15, 2025, 1:13am

I hadn’t really looked into EOO too much, though I took a look at a different one. It’s basically where you have to be manual with that one, I think. I could be wrong, but Optery allows me to see which data I need to get off of the brokers (if I’m allowed to do that with a VPN that is).

Tech_User_Station · November 21, 2025, 4:46pm

I’m not sure if you know this but that Google sheet you are referencing is not reliable. That is, it’s been promoted by bot accounts on Reddit mostly likely on behalf of Incogni. It’s still up on some subreddits [1] and on others it has been removed [2] [3].

SunDevil311 · November 26, 2025, 2:48am

I’ve personally been using EasyOptOuts and Google “Results about you.” The big issue is the data will most likely be recollected, so you’ve got to keep paying to keep getting it removed.

It’s difficult to justify more than what EasyOptOuts charges, knowing that it’s not going to be permanent. Really just a matter of time…