If you take a look in the phone book there are pages of private investigators offering a great service and to give you the answers you’re looking for however, although there are some great ones out there many of them are just looking to rip you off. It’s important that you hire a legitimate private investigator as otherwise you could find yourself getting into a lot of trouble for example, if you hire a PI to follow your adulterous husband – or indeed wife – and you give them your money, then they go to your husband or wife and tell them they’ll come back to you with a good report if they pay them yet more money. Not only has the phoney PI been paid by you but they’ve been paid by your husband or wife too and they also told your husband or wife that they were being followed. This would not be a great discussion to be involved in. Although this is a bad outcome to hiring a PI, as long as you hire the right guy, you won’t end up in this predicament.
If you are considering calling on the expertise of a private investigator then you should hire one by recommendation. Has someone you know recently used their services and if so were they any good? If not then you’ll have to look elsewhere. You could ask at your local police station for their recommendations but they will often only recommend investigators that are within police associations and the truth is, many good investigators are not.
Once you think you’ve found the right guy for you there’s a list of qualities that you should check against to make sure he’s going to do the job properly…
o A private investigator must be licensed and to become licensed they must have experience
o They must be experienced: you should look at their whole record, including their education, technology skills, and previous work etc. – all the obvious really. You should also look into their specialist area; private investigators are a little like teachers in the fact that they do certain things, there’s no point asking an English teacher to teach maths just as there’s no point asking a legal investigator to investigate marital matters. You should ask how many years experience they’ve had and how many cases they’ve worked on that are similar to yours – also ask about the outcome of those.
o Make sure they’re legitimate and have a clean record. Contact your local police station and ask whether they’ve had any complaints made about them.
o Do they have a good character? Their overall impression is important so if you have a good impression then that’s a good start; if you don’t then you should try someone else. You have to consider his thoughts on confidentiality and ethics and most importantly do you feel that you can trust them?
There’s a lot to consider if you’re thinking about hiring a private investigator; one of the main requirements that they should meet is whether or not you trust them.
This article was written by police Chief Inspector Mark Long on behalf of www.privateinvestigatoruk.com.