The invoice usually arrives before the photo comes down. Sometimes the photo never comes down at all, and the phone number stops working.
Mugshot removal earned the worst reputation of any service in this industry, and it earned it honestly. For years the same operators worked both sides: one company published the booking photo, a second charged to remove it, and the two shared an owner. Lawmakers noticed. Some of those operators are still trading under different names.
Which is why the checks come first here and the companies come second. Run the six checks on anyone you call, including us, and you will not get taken. Seven companies clear them, and they are listed after.
Find out who owns the company, and then apply this to us
A legitimate removal company will tell you who runs it, where it is registered, and how long it has existed. Ask for a legal entity name rather than a brand name.
This matters more here than in any other category, for one specific reason. If a company will not say who owns it, you cannot check whether that owner also holds an interest in the site publishing your photo. That is not a theoretical worry in this niche. It is the exact fraud that made the category notorious.
Now turn it on this page. Reputation Revivor publishes this article and Reputation Revivor is one of the seven companies below. Applying our own check to ourselves: we do not publish a founding year, a registered entity or the names of our staff, and our domain was registered in September 2024. By the standard of this section that is a fail, and you are entitled to hold it against us. We would rather write that here than have you find it later.
Being new is not disqualifying. Hiding is. Ask us, and ask everyone else.
Ask what you pay if the photo stays up
This one question sorts the field. Mugshot sites vary enormously in how they respond, and nobody controls the outcome across all of them. So the honest structures are the ones where the risk is shared.
- Pay on success: you pay only for photos that actually come down.
- Refund policy: you pay first and get it back on failure.
- Flat fee, no outcome attached: you carry the entire risk.
All three exist among serious companies. Only the third needs a very good reason attached, and a company that cannot explain the reason is not the one.
Count the copies before you agree to a price
A booking photo almost never sits on one site. The aggregator network copies from county records and from itself, so a single arrest can spread across dozens of listings inside a few weeks, and image search holds copies of its own.
The guides cover how to find every copy yourself, which takes an evening and costs nothing.
A quote covering your first listing leaves the rest in place. Before agreeing to anything, get a written list of the exact sites in scope, ask what happens to the ones found later, and ask specifically about Google Images, which is a separate job from the web results.
Bring your court paperwork to the first call
If your case was dismissed, dropped, expunged or sealed, that paperwork is the strongest thing you hold. It moves a request from a favor to an obligation.
A company that does not ask about your case outcome in the first few minutes is not working the best angle available. Volunteer it if nobody asks, and note who did not.
Check whether your state regulates this
A number of states have passed laws aimed squarely at the publish and charge business model. The common shape is a prohibition on charging a fee to take down a booking photo, particularly where the case was dismissed or the person was never convicted, and some laws require removal on request within a set period.
Coverage is uneven and the details differ, so do not take a general summary as advice about your situation. Your state attorney general’s consumer protection office is the right place to ask, and the answer is free. If a law applies to you, a company charging you to do what a site is already required to do for nothing is worth walking away from.
Accept that a live public record will not be deleted
If your case is active, or ended in a conviction that remains public, the county record stays. No company deletes a government record the law requires to stay published, and anyone saying otherwise is selling you something else under the same name.
What is achievable in that situation is still real: clear the private aggregator copies, clear the image results where possible, and build enough accurate results that the booking photo stops being the first thing anyone finds. That is suppression. It is ongoing, and it prices differently from removal. Know which one you are buying.
Walk away if you hear any of these
- A guarantee of total removal, including from Google Images.
- Payment demanded in full upfront with no refund term written down.
- No company address, no entity name, and no named staff anywhere.
- Pressure to decide today, or a price that drops when you hesitate.
- An offer to remove a record that your state already requires taken down free.
- Any suggestion that the site will relist unless you keep paying monthly.
The seven that clear the checks
| Company | Pricing structure | Refund or success term | Founded |
|---|---|---|---|
 National Security Law Firm |
3,000 flat per item | Full refund if not removed | Not published |
 Reputation Resolutions |
Quote, pay for performance | Pay on successful removal | 2013 |
 Removify |
Per item, 500 to 2,500 | No win no fee | 2019 |
 Guaranteed Removals |
Quote per case | Pay after results | 2009 |
 Reputation Rhino |
Quote, reported 10,000 plus | 30 day money back | 2011 |
 Defamation Defenders |
Project, reported 500 to 5,000 | Money back guarantee, disputed | 2016 |
 Reputation Revivor (publisher) |
Quote, not published | None published | Not published |
National Security Law Firm
Clears check two more cleanly than anything else here. A flat 3,000 dollars per item, refunded in full if the content is not removed or de-indexed. A licensed DC firm working in all 50 states, so the work carries attorney client privilege. Financing runs 3 to 24 months.
It fails check three for most people. At 3,000 per item, a photo spread across fifteen aggregator sites is unaffordable. This suits a small number of high value listings.
Reputation Resolutions
Founded 2013 in Colorado, BBB accredited since 2014 with an A plus and a reported clean complaint history. Removal work is pay for performance, so check two is satisfied. Handles court records alongside mugshots.
Independent review volume is very thin, roughly three on Clutch and one on BBB. Ask what is billed regardless of outcome, because monitoring and SEO may sit outside the performance term.
Removify
Genuine no win no fee across content and review removal, and they publish a success rate of about 88 percent rather than implying 100. Melbourne based, founded around 2019.
Independent ratings are low and mixed, around 2.3 on Trustpilot from a small sample against 4.9 on their own site. Some customers report billing and cancellation friction. Get any deposit and its refund terms in writing.
Guaranteed Removals
Canadian, running since 2009, covering mugshot and criminal record removal alongside search, reviews and personal data. Pay after results across most removal work. Their published guidance tells buyers to try self removal first in some cases, which is advice that loses them revenue and is worth crediting.
Pricing is case dependent, so check three applies directly. Confirm the site count and whether partial removal counts as complete.
Reputation Rhino
A New York agency whose founder is a former attorney, which means legal removal routes are available alongside suppression. Publishes an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee, which is rare in this business and clears check two.
Reported project totals run from 10,000 dollars upward, and legal fees may be billed separately from the retainer. Confirm which before signing. Only seven Clutch reviews were verifiable, and the founding year is inconsistent across sources.
Defamation Defenders
The narrowest focus of the group, concentrating on mugshot and arrest record removal specifically, and BBB accredited since 2019 with an A rating.
Included with a warning attached. They advertise guaranteed results and a money back guarantee, which is a very strong promise about content somebody else controls, and several Trustpilot complaints describe paying substantial sums with no updates and no result. If you use them, put the refund conditions in writing and define what counts as a result before paying.
Reputation Revivor
Us. Read check one again before you read this.
We work on booking photos and arrest records only, so the sites we deal with are the same ones every week and we know what each requires. Dismissal and expungement paperwork is our first move. We chase the duplicate and cached copies rather than the first listing, and we file for de-indexing once a source page is gone. Where a record is public and staying, we say so and price suppression separately.
Where we fail our own checks: no published pricing, no published pay on success term, and no independent review record for you to check. Our mugshot removal service page states what we attempt and what we decline, and a case review costs nothing either way.
One company worth naming as a caution
InternetReputation.com trades since 2008 and offers mugshot removal within a wider managed service. Two things put it outside the list above. Its assets were acquired by NetReputation in 2020, so the operating entity differs from the historical brand and check one gets harder to run. And complaint forums document billing disputes, denied refunds and blocked customer contact. It may work out fine. It is not where we would send someone who has already been burned once.
Where to report an operator that takes your money
If you paid and got nothing, you are not out of options and you are not the only one.
- Your state attorney general’s consumer protection division, which is also the office that enforces any state mugshot statute.
- The Federal Trade Commission, which collects reports on deceptive practices.
- The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, if the operator has disappeared with your payment.
- The Better Business Bureau, which is weaker but creates a public record other buyers will find.
- Your card issuer, quickly. Chargeback windows are shorter than most removal timelines, so do not wait months hoping.
File more than one. These offices act on volume, and the operators in this category rely on people being too embarrassed to complain.
Last updated on July 28, 2026