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Hiring a PI: What to Look For in a Private Investigator

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 17:41:57 GMT

The private investigations industry will reach $7 billion in 2019. Many private investigators are hired by companies who need to look into threats, HR background checks, and potential business partners.

Read on to learn the best tips for hiring a private investigator.

Request an In-Person Meeting

Never hire a private investigator without meeting him or her in person. An in-person meeting will help you decide if this PI is the professional you can trust to be discreet and competent.

Unfortunately, many private investigators run a solo practice based on their experience as an ex-cop or other skill. However, when you have a highly sensitive investigation, you need the support and professionalism provided at a higher level.

Meeting in person will help you make a better first impression assessment of the investigator’s professionalism and manner.

You might need your private detective to testify in criminal or civil court. You want to make sure your PI is a reputable representative of your case.

If the PI cuts you off, doesn’t answer your questions, or is vague, it’s probably not a good match. Remember, you are the client, and the private detective should be trying to win you as a client.

You need to find a person that you trust. After all, you will have to share sensitive information with him or her.

Trust your gut feeling on this one. If something about the private investigator seems off, thank them for their time and keep looking for a better fit.

Ask to See Their Private Investigator License

Before you hire a private investigator, you must do your due diligence and ensure you choose a reliable and professional PI.

First, ask to see his or her PI license. Check their license is valid in your state.

Check for Insurance

One of the private investigator requirements is having insurance. Make sure you ask your PI before you hire him or her to show you proof of insurance.

This protects you from being liable if anything happens to the private investigator during the investigation.

Ask About Qualifications and Experience

You want to make sure that the private detective you hire is qualified to do the job and do it well.

If the person has a website, review it to see if it lists his or her qualifications. Many private investigators are former police officers. But that’s not a good enough reason to hire someone.

Years of police work won’t help you if you have a legal issue. In those cases, you need a civil and criminal case investigator.

Make sure to ask your PI how many years of experience he or she has. You want to make sure your PI is qualified to investigate and possibly testify in the type of case you are hiring for.

Ask how many cases similar to yours he or she has worked on in the past year.

It’s best to choose a PI that specializes in the type of investigations you need. Not every private investigator excels at every type of case. So choose one whose strengths are the type of investigation you need.

You also want to know if your case will be handled by just one PI of if there will be other private investigators on the case.

They Should Engage With Professional Organizations

A private investigator might not necessarily be part of any professional organizations. But if they are passionate and reputable, it is more likely.

This is a good way to weed out fly-by-the-night companies who may scam you. Shady investigators won’t care about the newest legislature and continuing education.

Some professional organizations that a private investigator might belong to include the National Association of Legal Investigators, the National Association of Investigative Specialists, and the National Council of Investigation and Security Services.

Membership in these types of organizations will help you to see a company’s standing in the investigation community.

Get Testimonials & References

Before you hire a private investigator, you’ll need to do a little investigation of your own.

Go online and look up the company or private detective. It is important to run a query on the investigator as well as on the agency.

Of course, investigative work is discreet. So if you don’t see much, that’s not necessarily a bad sign. Ask your PI to give you a list of three previous clients that you can contact as references.

Be sure to ask about the private investigator’s professionalism, work ethic, and the results.

Ask to See a Work Sample

The end product, whether it’s a written report, a photo, or a video, is the evidence that you may need in court.

This evidence must be of good quality. In many court cases, concrete proof can give you enough leverage to get a settlement without needing to go to court.

A good investigator will likely show you examples of their work. If not, make sure to ask so you can get a good idea of what you can expect.

For example, you’ll want photographs with time and date stamps marked. The report should be typed up and legible without any missing information.

You’ll be able to learn a lot about the private investigator based on how thorough and detailed his or her reports are.

Avoid Cheap Pricing

When hiring a private investigator, don’t just shop around for the lowest price. Premium rates usually mean that the agency has a solid reputation that warrants the price.

Budget private investigators either are struggling to get business or know that they can’t get excellent results.

You don’t want to risk getting sub-standard service when your business is involved. Hire a professional investigator that has the experience and skillset to get results.

Original Article: Hiring a PI: What to Look For in a Private Investigator

5 Reasons for Hiring a Private Investigator

Fri, 01 Apr 2022 17:44:52 GMT

Private investigators can be used in a variety of situations to find out information that would otherwise stay hidden. Hiring a private investigator can help put your mind at ease and they can help you in circumstances where you wouldn’t know where to start.

Private investigators can be used to trace people, catch out a cheating partner, gather evidence of fraud and can even help in criminal investigations. In this article, we will take a look at 5 reasons you may turn to a private investigator. If you want to see how much a private investigator costs view our latest article.

Tracking a person

You may want to track a person to make sure they are safe, or you could be tracking a partner to make sure they are being faithful. Businesses may also want to track their vechicles incase of theft or if they suspect their vechicles are being used outside of the companies fair usage policies.

Whatever the reason for wanting to track a person a private detective can help set it up for you without the other person knowing. These trackers can be set up for long term usage and updates can be provided in real-time through Apple and Google Maps.

GPS tracking is very useful in cases where you may suspect a cheating partner as it’s very easy to prove the person was not where they say they were at a given time. The trackers are very powerful and can usually pin point a persons location within a few feet.

Fraud Investigations

Private investigators can help individuals and businesses in cases where fraud may have occured. A private investigator can review documents, and conduct surveillance to see if any type of fraud is occuring such as auto insurance, healthcare fraud and homeowners fraud.

For businesses a CEO may look to retain a private investigation firm to prevent embezzlement or to conduct background checks on employees to stop the business from hiring someone who has been sued for fraud in the past.

Sweeping for bugs

Individuals and businesses are often targeted for espionage and private investigators can conduct thorough bug sweeps to keep your information private.

A competitor or unsavoury person may try to get access to your private information to either get a competitive advantage of your company or to use this information to blackmail you at a later date.

You may think that bugs are planted only in movies but it’s more common than you may realise. Quite often bugs are found in hotel rooms and boardrooms up and down the country. By hiring a private investigator to sweep for bugs you have a better chance of keeping your information private.

People tracing

Finding lost relatives can be a difficult process and without the right level of training, it’s almost impossible. Most people may turn to Facebook to search for distant relatives but after nothing shows up they don’t know where to turn.

Sometimes people don’t want to get in contact with these lost relatives but just want to know that they are safe and doing ok. A private investigator can help you in these circumstances and can help you track down family members or friends that you haven’t seen in years.

Process Serving

If you have a law firm and need documents delivered to a defendant usualy a private detective is used to serve these documents, this is known as a process server.

The main job of a process server is to let someone know they are in the process of a legal case. Tracking these people down can sometimes be difficult and can take up time, however with the right tools a private investigator can track and serve documents in a prompt and professional manner.

Process serving can differ company to company but it’s worth noting that you should hire a private investigation firm that has legal knowledge and understands the procedure chain. At Covert Investigations LTD we were founded by two ex police officers and all of our private investigators are members of The Association of British Investigators so we got you covered there.

Background Checks

As mentioned above in the section mentioning fraud cases, private investigators can help businesses and individuals conduct background checks.

Although most people leave a trail online these days that can be found through a Google search the information that can’t be found this way is often the information a person or company would want to uncover.

For businesses hiring the wrong person who may have criminal convictions, could have been involved in fraud or could have lied about their qualifications and work history this could have profound effects on the business, both from a reputation point of view and a monetary one.

For individuals who are hiring a person to look after a vulnerable person such as a child or a grand parent, background checks could give you troubling information about that person which could keep your family safe. On the other hand a background check may not show any flags and can give you a piece of mind that your family members are in capable hands.

Original Article: 5 Reasons for hiring a private investigator