How to Save Money on Private Investigations

Posted by Pamela S. on Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

There is no getting around it; hiring a private investigator isn’t cheap. There are things that you, as the client, can do to save money on an investigation. Whether you are a corporation concerned about employee theft or fraud, an insurance company

investigating suspect claims or the victim of a scam, an educated consumer will save money by taking the advice of the experts.

Here are some tips gleaned from years of working with clients:

As with everything else in life, you get what you pay for. Hire an agency with experienced investigators and the resources to get you results faster.

Provide every nugget of information. If you don’t give it to us, we will have to find it, and it will cost you money. We understand that you might have a pile of files and don’t want to go through them, but it will save you grief.

I can’t tell you how many clients I have worked with who said that they didn’t have a telephone number for the subject, or another address when the provided information didn’t pan out. This became a locate. After we found a new location for the subject, the client often found that he or she had the information in a file. The same goes for photographs. It is much easier to start

surveillance if we have a photo of the subject. Many clients have access to photographs, but don’t provide them when the file is opened. Without a photograph, we will have to find one online and try to identify the subject. These extra searches add to your costs, because we need to be sure that we have the correct individual in our sights.

Don’t try to direct the investigation. We know what we are doing. Unless you have specific information, such as the subject is active on a certain day, or has an appointment, we know when to start surveillance or how to go about it.

Sometimes an investigation can be more effective, and we can obtain the information faster if we put two investigators on a surveillance. Many clients don’t want to pay for two investigators, but they end up paying in the long run.

Let’s say that your subject resides in a house typical to some cities where there is an alleyway in the back, and the garage exits to that alleyway. If an investigator watches the front door, the subject could come out and walk away, or they could go to the back and drive away. You just don’t know. Sometimes you can set up in a way that you can see the front door and cars exiting from the alley, but that isn’t always the case.

If someone drives erratically and at high speeds, we can lose them. It is easy to get cut off in heavy traffic and circumstances can be out of our control in these instances.

Subjects who are surveillance conscious know the routine, and they will be looking out for anyone following them. This is another occasion when two investigators can be much more effective.

Sometimes things go wrong. We understand how upsetting that is, because we are probably just as upset. Clients who are familiar with surveillance understand that we occasionally lose a subject, or in the worst case scenario, the investigator gets “burnt”, meaning that the subject has discovered that they are under surveillance. All is not lost. If you are patient and wait a few days we can assign another investigator, or two, to take over. We can recover and obtain the evidence you need.

Former FBI Assistant Director Tom Sheer has recruited the best from the FBI, DEA, IRS and Secret Service to build a formidable team at Sheer Investigations. Our private investigators have the sensitivity and experience to handle the most delicate investigations.