While it can seem dramatic to hire a private investigator, sometimes you are left with no other options to find someone important. Whether it be a family member, a long-lost relative, or just a friend you need to reconnect with, private investigators can be a great way to track somebody down.
What should you look for in a private investigator?
1. Look for their experience
When you are hiring a private investigator, it is important that you find someone who has a lot of previous experience in finding people who are lost or simply don’t want to be found.
Lots of private investigators have different skill sets, so it is important to find one with the skill set that you think you will require. Although it can be tempting to hire somebody based on their charisma and charm, it is important to take into account how well they actually know the field.
It is also important to find out whether the private investigator will be doing the work themselves or whether they will be outsourcing some of the skill sets. To some, this might be a problem, but to others, it really doesn’t bother them, it just comes down to personal preference.
2. Do they have insurance?
There are lots of different types of insurance that a legitimate business should have, and private investigators are no different. It is important that you check and double-check that the private investigators that you are hiring have all of the correct insurance and paperwork so as to avoid any legal problems.
3. Identify their services from the beginning
It is very important that, before you approach a private investigator, you know exactly what you want to get out of their expertise. You need to carefully write down all of the information that you know that you want from them about the person they are investigating and how you want to approach the situation if they manage to find them.
This is very important, as often people will hire a private investigator, and then not know what to do once they have managed to track down the person that they are looking for. Planning ahead is always the best idea, as you aren’t left in a situation where you don’t know what to do once your private investigator brings you all the information about them.
4. Meet with them in person
It is very important that you meet the private investigator who is going to directly handle your case. You can portray a lot more in a face-to-face meeting than you can in any written or over-the-phone form.
The investigator that is dealing with your case needs to know as much information as possible regarding the lost person you need to trace so that they can thoroughly fulfill the wishes that you have from them.
It is also a common mistake that people make when hiring a private investigator: they don’t thoroughly appreciate the importance of meeting the guy in person. This is so important because it can show you what kind of work setup they have.
While this isn’t about judging them, their work setup shows their professionalism if they have an office or work from home as opposed to a meeting in a fast-food restaurant.
5. Collect every piece of information you can get
When hiring a private detective, it is important that you give them as much information as possible. You need to gather as many details as you can about the person that you are looking for. While private investigators can find out a lot of personal information, they aren’t mind readers, so they will need some information to get them started.
One great tip that many private investigators suggest is that you write down literally all of the information that you have about this person in order to give them the best picture possible.
6. Do your research about them
Even if, in some countries, you need to have a license to work as a private investigator, these don’t heavily regulate the work that a private detective can do. So, it is important that you conduct your own research on the person who is investigating you on your behalf.
It is crucial that you know how in-depth the private investigator will search and that they have experience looking for people, whether they want to be found or not.
7. Check their prices and compare
There are a lot of different private investigators that you can use, but it can be hard not to filter your options by price, from lowest to highest. While it is OK to be on a budget for this kind of work, it is important to remember that often the price reflects the quality.
With this in mind, it is important to not narrow your options and disregard some of the more expensively priced services, as there is usually a good reason for being high priced.
8. Expertise
As a lot of private investigators tend to be “jack of all trades” and have a whole variety of areas that they specialize in, it is important to find the right one for you that specializes in finding missing people or identifying unknown individuals.
There is no point in hiring somebody who has a mind that is usually built to hack spyware and bugs, as these skills are what you will be paying for, but they won’t necessarily be useful for what you need.
Why not do research online?
It is important before you commit to hiring a private investigator that you conduct as much research into the missing person as you can. There is a certain amount of research that you can do yourself, and there is no point in paying a private investigator for research that you can do yourself through the Internet and social media sites.
You can find out a lot of information about people through their social media accounts, their online activity, and their patterns of behavior online. This is very easy for anybody to access, and you don’t need to be a professional sleuth to find these things out. Make sure that you conduct as much research yourself as you can before handing the investigation over to a private investigator.
