Uebelhart . Net

I was thinking this blog would be a place to occassionally tell stories related to my job as a Private Investigator. So I shall.

Let’s first start off with “What is a PI?”

Well, that’s a complex thing.

I guess I should state what we are NOT: We are not Cops, Private Cops, or Wanna-be-cops (well most of us, I have met some that are). We have no more “powers” than the average citizen. Yes we are licensed, bonded/insured, and regulated (at least those of us that operate legally are). We subscribe to an ethical standard and maintain a level of proffesionality and take continuing education. All our license entitles us to is to hang our shingle as a PI and charge for our services.

Services, what services?
Well we research, locate, snoop, interview, follow, surveil, and generally dig through tons of data.

There are many types of investigators out there: some specialize in certain aspects of the field (like domestic/divorce, assets, or deaths) while others do a little of everything. What do I do? A little of both.
Our firm, and myself, specialize in providing services to the business and legal industries. 99% of our work comes from those types of clients. Frankly, I don’t like working for indivuals: they get too emotional and generally make bad decisions (which is why we hardly ever do domestic work).

I find 90% of my time is spent sitting at my desk on my computer or on the phone to do my work. Another 5% is spent at the courthouse and the other 5% is doing other fieldwork. It used to be more like 50% desk, 15% court, & 35% field, but the advent of the computer and more specifically the internet age has changed that balance, and the fact that we hire contractors to do alot of field work helps (I hate spending 8 hours sweating in a car to watch a doorway).

A typical week for me would entail locating a couple of people (i.e. skip tracing, but that is a term usually used for debtors, most of mine are former employees, witnesses, defendants, etc.).
I’d also do 2-3 pre-employment background checks (If you are hiring someone to be your new VP of Finance, wouldn’t you want to make sure he doesn’t have a past conviction for fraud or something?).
Maybe an asset search every week or two (where we find what money/assets a debtor has after they lost a lawsuit and claim they don’t have anything).
Same rate for Due Diligance investigations (If you are buying/merging/partnering with a company or person, don’t you want a glimpse into their history?).
Then occasionally a surveillance (watching that person who claims they can’t work and catching them roofing a house is always a good thing).

Then there are the odd ones that don’t fit a general category: researching for a company to find which of it’s employees has been selling insider secrets, interviewing ex-employees to see their opinions of a company, etc.

Yes, it’s kinda boring at times, but it can also be fun. I love Logic Puzzles (you know those things with the grids and you have to match Laura to the Red Hat she bought on Tuesday before Mary did not buy the Green Socks), so the nature of many investigations appeals to me. I often describe my job as part Logic Puzzle, some Fill in the blank and Cryptogram mixed in, and the hidden into a search-a-word printed onto a Jigsaw Puzzle (which has been intermixed with another puzzle).

We do not act like or do the things like the detectives you see on TV (Magnum, Reminton, or Rockford), in fact much of the stuff they do would lose them their license and get them thrown in the pokey as well as being sued into the poorhouse. (More on that particular rant in a post to come).

So I hope I have explained a little of what a PI is and is not.
In the future I detail some cases I’ve worked and explain the methodology I employed.