Email, Chat or Call the pi agency and talk directly with a licensed private investigator.  Don’t waste your time with a secretary, ask to talk to a licensed pi.  Why tell your personal details to a receptionist or perhaps it is even a call answering service. 

Make sure you have questions written down already to ask.   Include questions such as the following:

1. Are you a licensed and insured private investigation agency?  Make sure they say yes to being licensed and insured, as well as being a private investigation agency – as some are just a security company who offer investigations by subbing out your contract.

2. Ask if the person you are talking to will be your contact person, should you wish to retain their services.  If not – then stop right there and ask to speak to the person that will be overseeing your case.   You most likely will not be talking to the actual investigator who will be conducting your investigation – but rather your case manager – which is fine as they are the people who are responsible that all goes well with your investigation.

3. Ask about fees. 

4. Ask what is included in these fees.  I am hoping they will say photos/video, and the investigator’s time on the case. 

5. Ask them to send you their retainer and authorization form for you to read over before making a decision.  In the retainer and authorization form you should find “other disbursements” read these very carefully – as this will outline other costs which will include mileage fees, photocopying, possibly photos and video as well as tapes, cd’s  – that the video is to be transferred on, parking, admission, etc if you are worried about some of the costs and fee they will be applied – EMAIL – at this point do not call the pi agency back, but rather email, so you have a legal document stating your concerns and their answers should a discrepency arise later. Email your contact person and ask what are the specific charges for each of the “other disbursements”.  

6. If there is not a mention of “disbursements” and you do not see mileage fees, photocopying, or any other of the above items – then email your contact and ask if they are all included.

7. If your contact will not send you a retainer and authorization form – then I would just move on to another pi agency.  I would think to myself why won’t they send me the form to look over? What do they have to hide?  No matter their excuse, you need time to look offer the contract, as that is essentially what the retainer and authorization form is – a contract for services. 

8. I would call a few agencies in the area, and obtain their forms and sit down and really look them over.  Do not and I repeat do not necessarily go with the lowest costing agency – as that is exactly what you will get – a low, inexperienced team of investigators.   You get what you pay for.  If the retainer form is a half of a page basic enter your information here and sign form, then this is obviously not a reputable or organized firm. 

9. Go with your Gut! … Out of all the investigators who you talked with from the different agencies you called – who sounded the most sincere and understanding about your situation? …. whether it be a locate of an uncle you haven’t seen for years, an infidelity concern, theft issues, or perhaps even just obtaining a legal document from the courthouse.  You must feel that your investigator / Manager handling your case is sincere and determined to do everything they can to bring closure to your situation. 

10. Pay your retainer, sit back and relax.  You have done all you can to hire a professional, expereinced and dedicated pi firm to solve your issues and bring immediate closure to your situation. 

** One last note **

When paying your retainer – only pay a portion of what you feel your case will cost.  ie: if your case should cost anywhere from $400 – $700, pay $500.  Then the agency has to give you what they have to date, before you will pay any more.  Just a precautionary measure. 

Abigail Pearce

email: awomanpi@rogers.com

www.awomanpi.com

1-888-521-9811

Many critics have stated that this is a dangerous way of dating.  But, it’s not any more dangerous than meeting someone while vacationing, on a walk, or at a party … you have no idea where this person came from, their background or their friends and family. 

With a thorough background check, either way of dating is fine – if you don’t know the background of a person, or have suspicions – you can discover all you need to know about the person, their background and their family by hiring a pi.  

Scary???? …. No.  Just being smart. 

The difference between Online dating and meeting someone at a party is that with online dating however, you can’t be sure the photo of the person you are interested in - is really that person.  So, you have to meet to make sure! … no big deal – just meet in a public area, do not allow your date to gain your license plate number, as even though it is illegal for anyone to run a plate – I never take anything for granted and would rather be safe than sorry.

A little piece of advice from a fello online dating groupie – if you are a member of lavalife, make sure if you find a person of interest under the relationship or dating category – that you also look under the “intimate” category to see if they have posted a profile there as well.  You may laugh at this – but seriously, enter the age range and locale and you may be unpleasantly surprised … unless you are looking for that sort of thing.

Abigail Pearce

A Woman Pi

www.awomanpi.com

email: awomanpi@rogers.com

We handle each case with a legal premise and will not nor do we have to do anything that is illegal. We obtain the information our client is looking to confirm/deny regrading a person based on the pertinent information the client gives to us.

We can verify marital status, dependant status, education, professional licenses, criminal issues, civil suits and basically anything else the client is looking to obtain all legally.

It’s amazing what we find! and although most is common research – it is research that only people in our trade have access to or are able to obtain, but I do not feel it is unethical, as our client was told various stories by their significant other and all they would like to do is verify or deny if their stories are true.

For instance we had a client who was recently divorced, she had a 7 year old daughter and had met a man via the internet (this is another blog) she met the man and eventually they became an item. Our client thought she had found Mr. Right – he was suave, honest and sincere. he got along well with her daughter and appeared to have all the qualities our client was looking for in a man. He was often away on business, but that comes with the territory when you are dating a Regional salesman. One day our client found another cell phone in her boyfriend’s car and questioned if it was his. Her boyfriend said he was trying it out as his was on the fritz. She thought nothing of it, then a few other little weird coincidences started to surface. Our client decided to call us to conduct a background check. She was very nervous as she did not want him to find out she was doing a background check on him. We assured her that all the searches we conduct do not show up anywhere, so he would never know. We ended up finding out that her boyfriend was married and had another family across the boarder. The other family had no idea about our client and considered themselves as a happy family.

So, it pays to find out the truth! … if we found nothing on her boyfriend, then that would still have brought closure – knowing she had nothing to worry about. The last thing on her mind was that he had another family – she thought he may have just been avoiding creditors.

Abigail Pearce
A Woman Pi
http://www.awomanpi.com
1-888-521-9811