7 of 10 - Racing to Meet a Deadline
So You Asked - 3 Topics for the Blog
Ten posts in ten days aint easy. For one thing, there are days like today where I’m racing to send in reports, while dealing with a zillion other things. In fact, you want to know how busy I am, busy enough to turn down a trip to Manny’s with a client today. For another thing, there’s the problem of coming up with ten ideas in ten days. That aint easy. I already punted yesterday, with less a new post and more a summary of the previous posts. I also made a plea yesterday for help. Ideas. I need ideas.
I cannot say I have been inundated with ideas despite some direct reach-out to some in my network. I did get from one friend, these three questions:
Is there a hierarchy of searching you perform based on the target?
What are capabilities around identifying physical assets, including bank accounts (both domestic and international)?
What is the baseline information you need to locate an individual?
The first question is an excellent question and one that could take a week’s worth of blogging to address. What is a background or due diligence investigation? The basic answer, insert whatever profession you want, whatever you want it to be. I once listened to someone who did the research for prospective FBI agents discuss his process. He said he started with the subject’s birth, looking at all the associated records, to have a really good place to start. He would then trace the person’s life from pre-k up to his or her application to ensure he really had the right person. Is anything less a background investigation? On the flip side, someone may check one county for criminal records. What governs the answer depends on three things, time, level and depth of information needed, and budget. As that other saying goes, you can have two. Another way I can answer this is, I have a plan, a method, a system for a background check when you do not know what you want, or I can make you a system based on what you know you want.
Can you get bank accounts. That’s a question people like me get all the time. It does not help that a Google search will identify many companies that will say they do bank account searches. Here’s the thing, if they get that information through impersonating the target i.e., by calling an 800 number or by causing a bank employee to reveal something they are required to keep secure, it’s a pretty suspect piece of information. I will not provide such information. Can you identify bank account information via legitimate methods of inquiry, yes but how much. The best is if there is a collection action in place or other legal judgment, and then we can proceed legally and with some good options. Need more, well we can save that for another post.
What do we need to locate someone? Anything. But we need something. I can put any name into certain databases and find addresses. The thing is, how do I know that the information found is for the right person. You have to give me something, a date or relative age, a company, an address or at least a city, a social security number. Obviously, the more you can give or the less common the person’s name, the more clear cut the answer. It also depends on how hard the person is trying not to be found. The addresses that we find first are derived based on information provided to companies that provide credit, loans, utilities and the like. If you are not getting current credit, loans, utilities and the like, you will not be providing anyone current addresses, and we will not find you. That does not mean we cannot locate you. It just means we have to try harder.
That’s seven of ten in the bag. I’m hoping I’ll have an easier time getting to number eight.