A Private Investigator’s inquiry into his profession, his environment and himself.
Since their release in 2006, I’ve yet to read the first independent review outlining LawMate’s line of miniature Digital Video Recorders so I decided to write one.
[Click here to continue reading ‘Lawmate PV-500/600/700/800 Micro DVRs’]
Consider the scene:
The Investigator arrived at Claimant’s residence at 05:00 this date. Upon arrival at this location, the Investigator observed that Claimant’s vehicle was not on the premises. No activity and no lighting was observed at the site, and there was no other evidence that would confirm or refute occupancy at this location.
Investigator checked all other known destinations for Claimant including boyfriend’s residence, parent’s residence, and place of employment. Despite a thorough search, Claimant’s vehicle could not be located and the investigation was suspended at this time.
Possibilities:
All these lead to one result if you stick around… A damn fine chance you’ll waste precious billing time watching an empty house or sleeping subject. The seasoned Investigator won’t spend a lot of time trying to figure out where she went. Rather, he’ll just move on to another case and research this one later in the day.
I think most important is to note what time the Investigator got there: 05:00. Starting that early provides the option of moving on to something else and at most, the next case starts around 06:00 - Still plenty early to catch someone at home if necessary and get in a full 10 hours. And even if that subject’s not home, there’s still time to try and catch another subject if you hurry your ass up.
One trend is to do surveillance only during “Business Hours” on W/C assignments. Sure, that’s when the subject should be home to prove the case but nowadays, how the hell do you know for sure? Thanks to the prevalence of CallerID people just won’t answer the phone. Banning of CID spoofing just compounds that problem. Gas prices lend prudence to car-pooling so if his car’s there, so what? Fact is if you’re not there early enough to see some lights come, you better be ballsy enough to do door knocks. Otherwise nothing says that you didn’t spend the day watching an empty house.
It’s also difficult to justify starting another case (especially for another client) that day if you don’t discover your first one’s crapped out until 09:15 - Your client will wonder what the hell you were doing all morning. Sleeping late?
In the end, flexibility is the hallmark of the Professional Investigator. You just can’t do surveillance as a “part-time” job or you’ll wind up pissing off clients with your ineptitude. Since there are a precious few clients that regularly use surveillance (insurance, namely), cut-rate part-timers make the entire industry look stupid and the rest of us pay. Your subjects plan your day, not you. You can’t tell them when to be active so it works into your schedule.
So start early, and keep your gas tank full. Word.
Why some of my collegues bitch about SIU agents being a pain in the ass is beyond me. I’m forever hearing they don’t answer calls, don’t respond to e-mails, don’t provide enough information about claimants, blah blah.
In my experience, I’ve never found one I didn’t get along with or one who didn’t show me the utmost respect and courtesy. They’re professionals, and good at what they do. All they expect is for you to be professional, and be good at what you do too.
All I can figure is it’s a matter of time. Meaning, mutual respect for it since neither you, nor your client, have any to spare. “Time is Money” is an accurate statement but “Talk is Cheap” is horseshit. Talk takes time, that’s all I’m sayin’.
So, why would it suprise a decent PI that a busy-as-hell SIU agent dosn’t return phone calls? When my caseload’s heavy, I don’t either - particularly when someone wants a great answer to a stupid question. In fact, I’ve worked dozens of cases where everything from the assignment order to the submission of the report was handled via electronic mail and at that, only a couple of messages. I’ve even had a couple of clients I’ve only corrosponded with, and never actually spoken to. It’s a beautiful thing, that e-mail. I can’t text-message for shit, my fingers just aren’t that nimble. But if I could, you bet your ass I would in the interest of respecting my client’s precious time.
At that, I’m at a bit of a loss why some collegues don’t get responses to their emails. Could it be their e-mails are actually eeeeeeeeeee-mails? An e-mail, as far as I’m concerned, ought to be around 3 lines long at most - Anything more should go into an attachment as an official “Document”. I get some messages from these other guys that are just tedious to read, mini-books in fact. Most of the time, it’s just long-winded bullshit that they wanted to word “just so”. Whatever. If I get an e-mail that looks like it’s going to take more than 30 seconds to read, it’s got a great chance of going in the crapper.
Quite frankly, my rates are high enough to charge by the minute so anything that takes more than a few seconds to read costs me money. If it’s in an attachment, the meter starts running - That’s something I consider more like evidence, and digesting such would be time spent on my client’s behalf. As a professional, I try to spend such time-money wisely and with value to my client in mind. Since the entire concept behind the SIU’s existence is to both provide value to policy holders and keep their company competitive, it wouldn’t suprise me that long-winded e-mails addressed to their department likewise go in the crapper as a matter of policy.
As for not providing enough information about a claimant, I’m baffled. Isn’t that what the PI is being paid to gather? If the SIU had enough information about a claimant, why in the hell would they need a Private Investigator?
Absolutely, the more info they can predicate, the better and the SIU guys know that - they’re not idiots. They do get busy sometimes and don’t always review the assignment orders. If they send me one that looks especially difficult (like, a “John Smith”), I’ll occasionally ask if they’ve got anything else on a claimant just to keep from killing the budget on database work. But generally, a name, address and SSN is all I expect. If a PI can’t work on that alone, he probably dosn’t have the resources needed to be effective at his profession and I can see why the SIU wouldn’t be particularly communicative.
I suppose success in the claims industry is all about trying to be a low-maintenance vendor. Do the job, write the report, don’t bug the client and be done with it. That’s how I roll.
If you went to Martinsville this weekend, you know you watched a helluva race.
I have no freaking clue what all went on. Sometimes I think that’s because I’m a sorry fan, sometimes I think I got dropped as a child. In reality, it’s because there’s just too damn much to watch at once when you’ve got a half mile to keep up with and nothing in your ear but a non-stop roar.
All I know is there was plenty of action and (I think) Ward Burton finished without killing the car. Go Driver!!!!. Beat the hell out of the Fall Race at Bristol, hands down. Daytona was damn good, but I’m going on out and calling it the best I’ve attended this year.
Johnson won and thank heavens, we got to hear about the dead people again! I’m convinced they do that yearly to associate Martinsville Speedway with Hendrick Motorsports in some semi-official way. I was sad too that people died there. Hell, I was in Horsepasture when it happened and kinda cried a little inside just being in that area. But now I’m really sick of hearing about it every time one of their drivers wins at Martinsville. This is the kind of crap that turns people off to Hendrick and corrupts the memory of those poor folks.
My old man died 13-September-2001. I miss him terribly, but I don’t read a eulogy every year. Instead I go fishing, and cast a line for him. Everyone in my family and all his friends know he died that day. None of us have to advertise it. Hendrick should be satisfied to win the race for those folks - We all know they’re in their hearts. We also know why they race so hard to win at Martinsville, and it always pays off. I don’t care for Hendrick, but I don’t begrudge them that race. I just wish they’d give the victims the respect of words unspoken. It’s almost like these guys that have “In Memory of Such’n'Such” vinyled onto their back windows. It’s just lame as hell.
Lastly, whomever was in charge of directing exiting traffic at the South Lot entrance on George Martin Drive Drive was a total dumbass. In several years of Subway 500s, I’ve NEVER seen such a mess. Usually, we’re out of there and back home in around an hour. This year, it took over 3 hours just to get out of the damn parking lot. We didn’t have that much trouble at either Bristol race, or even Darlington this year.
One guy I talked to after having moved maybe 30 feet (in two hours) said he’d just heard from his buddy who’d left from the back of the campground (behind Hardee’s). That guy was already in Winston-Salem. What’s up with that?
When we finally got out of the lot, traffic headed west towards US220 on Old Sand Road was understandably at a stand-still. So, they everyone sent east without any further direction. Eastbound traffic was a bare crawl too since it also eventually ends at US220 in Ridgeway.
What they could’ve done, but didn’t, was send 1/2 of those folks up Eggleston Falls Road (about 1/4 mile east) to Old Mill Road, then to Old Leaksville Road. Old Leaksville Road terminates at VA-87, from which you can go to US220 a couple of ways. At most, it would’ve taken 4 or 5 more deputies and a few signs along the way to empty that lot. At the very least, it would’ve gotten everyone out of the friggin parking lot and onto the roads.
When we finally got out of there, there were still several thousand vehicles waiting behind us and I’m sure some of those poor folks were there past midnight. But we turned off onto Eggleston Falls and followed the route I just described. We encountered not a single friggin car until we got onto US220 and even then, traffic was virtually non-existent.
Regardless of the traffic, we still had a helluva time and I’ll be headed back next year. I’ll just try and park a little closer to the exit.
It’s a growing trend. Voice of America did an article on a couple of female investigators in the Vienna, VA area. It’s a good piece with an excellent accompanying video clip.