People Search: When to Hire a Private Investigator

Posted by Pamela S. on Monday, September 10th, 2012

There are dozens of websites that offer a free or paid option called “People search”. We’ve all used them, often to look up a friend or relative when we’ve lost touch. Private investigators use those sites too, but we have access to many more resourc

es. If you seriously need to find someone and your own search turns up empty, hire a private investigator.

It seems that as soon as you meet someone these days, you go home and “google” him or her. We google our own names and people we know, just for fun. If you seriously need to locate an individual, you have probably checked Google, Facebook, Twitter and every other social media site you can think of. You’ve probably accessed online telephone and reverse directories, people search sites like pipl, and maybe you’ve still come up empty.

Many people no longer have land lines. Believe it or not, there are those rare individuals who aren’t

playing Farmville on Facebook, posting uplifting quotes on their wall or pinning their favorite recipe on Pinterest. These people don’t have blogs, or spend hours on the Internet. Yes, there are people who are like ghosts where the Internet is concerned; they have no online presence.

Finding these people, especially if they have an exceedingly common name, such as John Smith, can be almost impossible if you don’t have the resources and contacts. Let’s say John Smith is 75 years old, and doesn’t own a computer, or know how to use one. He lives in a trailer park without a real address and doesn’t have a phone. His former landlord has no idea where he is, because he did a midnight move. If John needs to make a call, he uses the trailer park office phone or the one remaining pay phone at the gate. Smith can’t drive because he lost his licence when his eyesight deteriorated. John Smith never had any children, he has alienated his few remaining relatives, and he has few friends. How do you find someone like that?

Why would you need to find John Smith?

Maybe before he moved to the trailer park, you were involved in a car accident in front of his apartment, and he was the only witness who gave the police a statement.

Perhaps you found out that John Smith is your biological father, and he doesn’t even know he had a child because your biological mother never told him after he left her for another woman.

You felt sorry for John because he was down on his luck and gave him a loan, now you need the money and you can’t find him.

John’s sister died and even though they had been estranged, he was named in the will and has some money coming, and you are the trustee.

Whatever the reason, you have run out of options and you may run out of time. John lives in poverty and his health is declining. If it takes months to find him, you’ll be out of luck. The Internet is a valuable resource, but you are never going to find John Smith there. When he dies, there probably won’t even be an obituary to mark his passing.

Hire a private investigator. We go beyond the digital world to locate someone. If you really need to locate an individual, and you’ve explored every online avenue, it is worth the investment.

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.