Private detectives: Under pressure to produce "false positives?"

When people hire private investigators to find out whether their spouse is having an extramarital affair, or such things, is there pressure on the investigators (within the investigator’s own mind, that is) to produce a “false positive” even if there is no evidence than an affair (or other bad behavior) is taking place?

Would clients usually respond badly if told, “No, your husband/wife is not, in fact, cheating on you?”
(Not a need answer fast question.) :wink:

I gotta disagree. Clients would attend a PI, in my opinion, out of a desire to, “just know the truth”, I suspect. As opposed to ‘being right.’

I’m going to answer this as a former PI, even though we did not normally do domestic work.

Most PIs are paid on an hourly basis, usually with a substantial retainer. A PI does not normally promise a specific result (e.g., “We’ll find all the evidence you need to divorce your wife”) and would run into some trouble if he/she did. An opposing attorney would love to find some evidence that a PI promised to come up with “the goods” in exchange for his/her fee. (A typical question from the opposing attorney would be, “Did you agree that you would not receive payment for your services unless you obtained evidence favorable to your client?”)

I worked many cases in which we received five-figure fees and basically came up with nothing. Maybe I’ll talk about that in a different thread…

As far as TV PIs…that’s a different story.

Ah OK thanks. Surely as a PI, you had to still gather lots of info to assure the client that you did not slack off on the job?

Yes, we provided numerous logs and records of our activity. Being a PI is like being a soldier…99.9% of the time it’s a huge bore and then something VERY interesting happens. I’ve been on “stake-outs” where I sat in a car or in the woods for 12 hours at a time. Why? Our client wanted to know if the subject was actually disabled or just malingering. We would watch the house just to see if the subject engaged in any significant physical activity inconsistent with claimed injuries.

Incidentally, PIs are most often hired by attorneys. They are acting as the intermediaries/representatives for the actual client.

Good PIs get a real rush when they get something worthwhile, which happens less often then you might think based on TV.

I met two PIs over the years and they both described the job as incredibly boring. Neither mentioned anything interesting happening but the one who was staking out a house to see if a man wanted by the police came home said he’d be really happy if he spotted the guy so he could go home himself.

Very true. You might sit in the back of a van for a 12-hour stretch, peeing in an empty juice bottle and eating stale sandwiches. Then the subject decides to go bowling and you’re able to get video of a guy who is claiming 80% disability from a work-related injury winning the league championship.