PACER is not free---warning!

[twuoo]

I must have missed the fine print somewhere, but I thought that logging into PACER to check status is free.

I never printed out anything, but got a bill that dates back to January for around $40

Is this normal?

[HHM]

Man, you must check in 10 times a day.

As soon as you log-in, you are charged for that first page view, and so on.

[danaf]

Step away from the Pacer site. :-)

[hendry70]

It's free until you click one the links concerning your case. It will let you know when you've been charged for a page.

[HAP]

I'm wondering if they had a glitch lately. I just came on here to bring this up - I just got our statement saying I owed like $54 and that I viewed 600+ pages - there is no way in hell I looked at that many pages. I need to write them disputing this, but not sure how I could prove it.

[lrprn]

PACER is designed for use by lawyers and people inside the court system. They just can't keep us consumers out because it's government-owned and we are tax-paying citizens

You need to be extremely careful using PACER. As several of you have discovered, even the most innocent searches sometimes brings back many unexpected pages that cost $0.08/page, even if you do not open them all.

Stick to looking at your own case and only your own case. Also only look at new documents - don't keep opening the same documents over and over - then you'll be fine.

[CindyLou]

trick is this: don't EVER use report ti search for any thing! only use query and be specific as possible so that you only go where you need.

I look at all kind of crap and my bill only averages 15 per month. Highest ever was 60 and that was the first when I used the report function...

[MajorMike]

Ours was $80 this quarter ( it's for 3 months ) and I too, know I didn't access it that much. It said hundreds of pages which is impossible. I need to contact them as well.

[southernbelle]

I recently used it to check Michael Nifong's case in N.C. (just curious). I was EXTREMELY careful when opening pages because I learned from my first PACER experience about 2 months ago which cost me about $30 in about 30 mins. to be careful what I opened. To look at the Nifong case only cost me about $3. I paid close attention to the number of pages opened. I learn fast grasshopper.

[woeisme]

you don't have to print out or even look at documents to get charged for them on PACER. If you do a search and it brings back 200 pages of documents, then you get charged for 200 pages regardless of whether you ever click on page one. so the OP is right, you do need to be careful in your searches!

If you are unsure of whether or not what you are doing is racking up charges, you can get a status on your quarterly charges. As soon as you log on the home page there is a link to "check account balance" so if you are unsure if what you are doing is creating a large amount of charges, check the account balance. They don't actually charge you until you have over $10 of fees in a single quarter. For example, last quarter I only had about $5 of fees, so my debit card was never charged anything. This quarter I have less than $3 so far, and am very careful about limiting my searches, so expect no charges again.

[Dirk Squarejaw]

you don't have to print out or even look at documents to get charged for them on PACER. If you do a search and it brings back 200 pages of documents, then you get charged for 200 pages regardless of whether you ever click on page one. so the OP is right, you do need to be careful in your searches!

Thats what happened to me this past month when I was researching a lawyer that I had gone and talked to. I thought something was fishy when he told me he was getting people $50 and $75/mo payments in chapter 13 cases. Glad I did because it turned out that he does in fact get almost everybody a low monthly payment ranging from $25 - $100/mo.......for the first couple months until their payments go sky-high after a couple extra trips to court for revised plans.

When searching, I didn't check off the box where you choose from "OPEN" or "CLOSED" cases and it pulled up all kinds of cases from the late 80s to present. I didn't look at all these cases, but because the list of all his cases was so long, I got charged for all those results. All of a sudden, I went from a bill for $3.xx to $31. Oh well, $31 is far cheaper than what this guy would have cost me in the long run.

[FreshLikeADaisy]

You know, PACER is free to the public at my district courthouse, and I'm sure there are others. There are also several schools around the country where PACER access is free.

I am definitely an advocate of doing PACER searches -- I learned a LOT that way -- but I did it at the courthouse, writing down case #s and names of the cases I wanted to use as exemplars for my own. So at home on my own dime, I was only using the direct query function. I think I've charged up *maybe?* $16.00 worth of views, if that, but it's because I did all the expensive stuff for free at the courthouse.

P.S. Dirk, I sure am glad you swerved around that wreck -- you're right, $31 is much less than you would have paid in time and worry, maybe even dollars, if you'd gone for that. Good for you for checking that atty out!!!

[BVeronica]

If anybody has any experience (good or bad) with Free Court Dockets, please let me know on the other thread mentioned by BradyS.

[BkinTX]

I just checked my billing history and I only owe $1.12 and I've looked several times at my own stuff.

[shabam]

Have you guys heard of recap (pacer spelled backwards)

https://www.recapthelaw.org/

It is a firefox extension that basically allows you to access pacer documents for free that others have retrieved before. I have used it a few times myself when researching
other cases.

For any cases that are not online, once you retrieve a document, it stores the case for others to read.