private investigations - accurate details

Several private investigations fall between the cracks due to small, unnecessary, and silly errors.  While conducting a private investigation or background check, you must verify what the most up to date information is in order to avoid going around in circles.

For example, let us say hypothetically that your services have been hired to conduct private investigations about Shai Versano. The first assignment given to you by the attorneys who hired you is to find out all the dirt about Shai Verasano, a private investigator from the southern part of the country.

These attorneys are in need of urgent private investigations and want the investigation report yesterday already.  If you attempt to find the missing person, chances are you’ll be out of luck and on the conclusion of the investigation report (which you charged the client a 2000 NIS advance for), you will have to write that the person you searched for was not located.

The attorneys will tell you: “We know for certain that this person exists and we even hired his services in the past!!”  What’s the problem here? Well, the problem is that you wasted the client’s money by investigating the wrong person.  You were supposed to search for and investigate Shai “Versano” and not “Verasano.”

This is only one example illustrating the great importance of attention to detail in the field of private investigations. It is very important to attain the most precise information possible from the client before beginning any private investigation. It is also important to remain realistic and to understand that situations are different depending on the case. We have been dealing with private investigations for many years - trust us.

Following are a few more examples. A few weeks before this article was written, our agency received an order to conduct three financial investigations and serve subpoenas to defendants in a particular lawsuit. The lawyers stated that they wanted us to conduct urgent private investigations, locate the defendants, and serve subpoenas to them with the greatest urgency and no matter what the cost.

Upon each envelope filled with documents that we received, the identification numbers of the investigation subjects appeared and based on these numbers we were expected to execute the necessary private investigations. As mentioned, we were required to locate the addresses of the subjects and turn over these envelopes to them. In an examination that we performed, it was found that two out of the three identification numbers given to us contained errors.

The identification numbers given to us belonged to other people that were completely unrelated to the case at hand.  A different private investigation agency could have considered the data given to them by the lawyers to be factual and begun conducting the urgent private investigations without delay... Investigations that would have resulted in interesting information about uninteresting people. 

Who is to blame? Past experience in the execution of private investigations in a wide range of fields teaches us that the blame is always cast on those conducting the investigation.

A small change in such numbers can altar the whole picture. A scatterbrained clerk at an attorney’s office can double both the expense and time required in order to execute a private investigation. It is therefore extremely important to be certain that every bit of information handed over to the investigators is correct.

We, as private investigators, are supposed to be sure to receive information with the greatest level of completion and accuracy possible before conducting a private investigation. Sometimes, partial information submitted by the client before the private investigation can cause an investigator to waste several hours finding information that the client already knows, but didn’t think was relevant to hand over to the investigator.

Another factor exists, beyond the wasted funds of the client. While private investigations are being conducted, there is a certain element of risk of exposure. Even those who chose well and hired the services of a reputable private investigation agency may find that the investigators are exposed during the investigation. It happens to everyone.

Why, then, increase the risk of exposure by conducting unnecessary private investigations? If the client had revealed that he knew which neighbors were acquainted with the subject of the investigation and warned the investigators not to be in contact with them, unpleasantness could have been avoided. But the client forgot this small detail. It didn’t seem important enough. This fact caused the execution of a private investigation (one that could have greatly assisted in legal proceedings) to fail.

Over the years we have become familiar with our clients, and now ask our clients a million and one questions.  Actually, before beginning a private investigation for a client, we investigate the client as well. We have no choice. There is great importance in the precision of information and submission of full information to the private investigator before beginning any private investigation.

There is no substitute for this, and it cannot be overlooked. It is better to submit an excess of information along with details that seem unnecessary and unimportant rather than forget or withhold important information, which can lead to the waste of time and resources (at the very least) and the failure of an investigation (at worst).