Without making this sound all Dash Hammett and shit, I need to investigate someone. EZ, you say, with all those sites on the net. Not so EZ, sez I, since I only know “it’s” first name and the city where “it” lives. (no gender will be used to protect the innocent). For those of you people who might be in this sort of business or have used their services in the past, I have a few questions. Can I do this in “reverse” - i.e. I have all sorts of info on the person who has been contacting “it” for many years. This is not a financial matter, however I do have some good info like social security number, license plate, checking account number. Would this be a difficult thing for professionals to do? Can I do it myself? There’s no way for me to get access to private phone records, right? “It” is not cooperating in a personal matter, there is nothing illegal about anyone’s actions involved. I just need to know how to find “it” in the quickest, most economical way.
PS - If you are reading this and you recognize yourself as “it”, please come forward. Makes things so much easier on us all.
It isn’t clear (to me, at least) what exactly you’re trying to find out. When you say you want to “investigate” them, what information are you looking for? Criminal history? Business licenses? Trying to find out where they are now?
In general, these sorts of things are fairly simple for a professional to determine based on the information you already have. When I worked in the business, though, we were unable to access most of the relevant databases without stating the reason we were looking the information up. Speaking very generally, it needed to revolve around a lawsuit or a criminal investigation of some sort. I didn’t get the impression from you that anyone was being sued, so you’re not likely to get too much out of a reputable PI.
However, if you know a law student or someone else with access to Lexis Nexis public records, you can get an awful lot of information legally. There are other similar resources, but I’ve been out of the business for about 5 years, so I don’t know what the latest and greatest is.
I’ve also heard that Zabasearch can turn up a surprising amount of information, but I don’t know how reliable that is. Supposedly you’re then provided iwth links that will allow you to pay for a full background search. I don’t know what their definition of a background search is, however.
OK, I’ll try to be less vague. This involves “it”, who we believe has insinuated themselves into a fair sum of money from my family member, with or without sex and drugs involved. So I guess it is illegal stuff I’m looking for, but really I just need “it’s” last name and a phone number, to start with. If I can get the phone records of my relative (they are either hidden well or destroyed, so would have to be thru other means), and I know what city and area code "it " lives in, couldn’t I do a reverse trace? Unless they are blocked or unlisted, right? Hmmm, the plot thickens…
Using either the SSN or the license tag # most pay “get personal info on this person” sites should easily be able to get you a name. Email them via their links and see if this is possible. Zabaseach is powerful, but I have discovered that lots of people are not listed (or not listed correctly) in phone directory records. Now that I’ve gone to cellular only for my house I may even be off the phone co map.