Social Media Skip Tracing, Why I Love My Job, Where Is William Tyrrell?, Questions For Your Lawyer,

In this episode we cover topics such as:-

1- Using social media for Skip Tracing;

2- Why we love being Private Investigators;

3- What happened to William Tyrrell?;

4- Top 5 questions to ask your potential Lawyer;

Got a question for our podcast or do you need to contact Simon and the Down Under Investigations team? Simply email info@downunderinvestigations.com or call 1300849007 or check out www.downunderinvestigations.com

Transcript

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Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Down Under Investigations the Truth. Our host, Simon, has over 20 years experience in the private investigation industry and he leads the team at down under investigations who pride themselves on their professionalism, integrity, and ability to get results. This podcast will open up the world of private investigations, discussing real life cases, latest news, surveillance, and skip tracing techniques, legal issues and support. Let's jump in and join Simon. Now,

Speaker 2 0:34

Are you active on social media? Do you have a Facebook, Instagram, TikTok , MySpace? And what sort of information do you put on your social media? I hope you're aware that private investigators can and do utilize social media in order to find information and to find people. There's been some ticks lately, mainly in America where they are using people's information to find their address, to find where they live. And it's become a little bit of a trend where people will say, Oh , I bet you can't find me, but you can't find me. And then there's certain people who are quite expert at using information and putting things together. I don't think they're licensed private investigators, but they definitely have an eye for detail and know how to do the proper searches to find information about people. And then they'll say, Well, here's a photo of the front of your house. And they'll talk you through how they found it and they'll go through the photo that they used or the information that was on the social media site or uh , how they put that information together to find an address. Here's an example of how one of those searches do their work. Have a listen to this.

Speaker 3 1:43

Here's an example of a bunch of things you should not post if you would like your identity to be safe on the internet. First of all, here's your house. Let me show you how I found it. Never have your business linked to your real address. Don't post a picture of your neighbor's house. Don't post your city when showing what you're buying. Don't post your electric valve . Don't post an up close ultrasound.

Speaker 2 2:07

We actually had a case recently where social media was the key to finding this person's address. We went to serve documents on a person and they had literally just moved out of the property. They had moved out just in the last few days. The new tenant knew nothing. The real estate agent didn't want to give us any , any information. They were happy to keep that close to their chest. So we had to do a bit of searching. We found this person was a little bit of a , uh, let's just say a social media influencer. He had put up a certain video that we found only in the last 24 hours of him sitting in a cafe with his girlfriend shaking keys and saying, Hey look, here's the keys to our new property. So we keenly watched the video. He said, Well, what we're gonna do now after we have lunch together, we're gonna walk through the property. So he took us through the property on video, on social media for the world to see. You see the front of the house, you see him walk through each room and describe the layout of the property and the backyard and the front yard and all sorts of things. He even sells you what suburb they'd move to making life just so much easier. <laugh> also in that video, he actually disclosed the name of the cafe they were sitting at. So what did we do? We looked for that cafe and it wasn't hard to find cuz most cafes do advertise themselves online. Found that cafe found the real estate company that he had got the keys from because you know what? It was next door . So we searched their website for leases in a certain suburb that he'd mentioned. Now there was no leases on their website for that suburb, so we jumped on their Facebook and the company real estate. Facebook had listings and they don't remove those listings. They stay there forever. So what we did is we went back backtracked a couple of weeks and we found a listing in that suburb. Then we compared the photos of that listing to the video that we'd seen of this person that we were looking for. And it was an identical match. We knew exactly the address that this person had moved to. We had a description of the property to a very nice, well written real estate description of the property. And within hours we're at that address. We were serving him with these papers. He would have no idea how we found that address and we're not gonna tell him either. <laugh> , It's now time for our question of the day. This one comes from Sam in Brisbane via email. Thanks for sending through your questions, Sam. Sam writes, You sound like you love being a private investigator. What's your favorite parts of your job? Look, Sam, every day's different. Being a private investigator, we dunno what we're gonna get, what files we're gonna work on, or sometimes we've got an idea or a plan, but we need to be spontaneous and ready to jump at an opportunity or move quickly when evidence presents itself or there's a file that really has a a time essence to it. So we need to be flexible and I think we love that about the job. That gives you a bit of an adrenaline rush. Every day is different. Some days we're skip tracing. Some days it's surveillance, some days it's process serving and it's often a combination of those things. We also do debt collection, we repossess vehicles. Uh , there's so much to what we do. So there's a lot of variety and there's a lot of opportunity to be creative, especially in your skip tracing. Come up with creative ways and means of finding people and finding their new address, their phone number, their email, those sorts of things. So you've gotta be able to think on your feet and also think outside the box. Every day's different. And we love that about our job. The passion behind what we do is truly to help people, to help people get a reliable outcome, whether that's through the courts assisting their lawyers with process serving , finding witnesses, finding defendants, finding a debtor, finding a respondent through skip tracing and having 'em with papers or whether that's through the debt recovery that we do, recovering a debt on someone's behalf because the , the worst thing in the world is when you are a business owner and you do a job for someone and they don't pay, and then you've gotta spend time and stress and sometimes money after chasing a debt. So for us, we get satisfaction out of that skip tracing when it's a missing person. When someone has gone , uh, missing just simply through circumstance. Their lives have drifted apart. They've lost contact, they've lost phone numbers, they've changed address, changed details, and we are reuniting people. We love what we do simply because of that, because we get to help people. Surveillance when that's someone needing to find closure or just the truth in what's happening in their relationship. It's all about helping people. That's why we do what we do and we love what we do. One other reason why we love what we do is because of the amazing people that we work for and that we meet, whether they're lawyers or business owners or individuals, we meet so many different great clients and colleagues and getting to know them, getting involved in in their world, in their business, in their life, and offering 'em solutions. That's what we do and that's why we love what we do. So Sam, thanks for your question. Great question. That's our question of the day prize is coming out to you. Thanks very much.

Speaker 1 7:36

Got a question for Simon and down under investigations, we are running a questions of the month competition. If your question gets answered by Simon, we will send you a prize valued at a hundred dollars. To ask your question, simply use the contact page on our website at www.downunderinvestigations.comoremailpodcastsdownunderinvestigations.com .

Speaker 2 8:05

It was just over eight years ago that William Terell was last seen at his Foster grandmother's home in the town of Candle in New South Wales. On September 12th, 2014 , William visited his foster grandmother's house on Benon Drive in Kendall. He and his sister were playing hide and seek outside it is believed the title disappeared from the property between 10:00 AM and 10:25 AM. Hundreds of volunteers joined the search William , which was carried out over nine days. There was assistance from the rural Fire Service New South Wales police and state emergency services and this was greatly appreciated by the family. In 2015, the foster parents of William stated that they believed that the little boy had been abducted. They also hoped that he was feeling loved and being looked after. Over the years, various large scale searches have been carried out. During these instances, over 700 people of interest were identified. More than 4,000 pieces of evidence were recovered. Detective Inspector Gary Dublin stated in 2015 that the case was still considered as if William was still alive. In 2021, Detective superintendent Darren Bennett said it was highly unlikely that the remains of William would be found. He stated that they were looking for the boy's body being that he wouldn't be found alive in 2022, the foster parents of William were charged with giving false and misleading information to the New South Wales Crime Commission. They were later found not guilty. They've always denied any involvement in William's disappearance. He's William's Foster mother outside court.

Speaker 4 9:40

Your Honor, he's given a detailed judgment today about the circumstances surrounding this charge being brought against me. She's found not guilty of lying to the crime commission.

Speaker 2 9:52

The New South Wales police force have declared they are still committed to finding out what happened to the little boy. Every effort is and should be channeled towards finding William Terell New South Wales police homicide squad commander, Detective superintendent Danny Dooty said. He also said that investigators from Strikeforce Roseanne are currently preparing a brief for the coroner regarding what happened on September 12th, 2014 . Our investigation is very much active and ongoing. And while I won't go into specifics, I can assure the community that various activities, including those under coronial orders, are being undertaken every single day. We are working with a large volume of information and it is necessary to methodically explore and exhaust every line of inquiry. And that is a protracted process. He went on to say that this is all for William. And if it takes time and effort to get it right, then it's worth it. Such a sad story. Eight years ago, William Terell disappearing. Can you imagine the grief of the family? Someone knows what's happened to William, someone knows where he is. Police have offered a million dollar reward for information leading to binding him, providing information that leads to an arrest or finding his body. Do you know something? Speak up. We are very privileged to work for many great law firms throughout Australia in all states and territories. We've worked for some of the best. And what we wanna do right now is share the top five questions you should ask your lawyer because you wanna get the best outta your lawyer. You wanna hire the best lawyer that's specific to your case. So the first question we ask is, do you have experience working on a case like mine? You wanna find out if the lawyer that you are intending to hire has experience working in cases like yours and have they worked specific cases or generally because you don't want a criminal lawyer when you're doing a civil case, for example, when you're doing a litigation, you don't need a family lawyer, You need someone who specializes in litigation. You wanna find the best lawyer who has experience working in a case that you've got. Second question to ask a lawyer, What are my chance of winning the case? You want to be sure of the expectations that you and the lawyer both have when you're coming to them with a case. Are you prepared to win? Are you prepared to lose? Do you know what the consequences could be? Either way, you want to have a lawyer who is gonna give you fair, reasonable, straight truthful advice and not just tell you what you want to hear, but tell you what you need to hear. The third question and what probably one of the most important is ask your lawyer what their costs are going to be. Most lawyers will provide you with a cost disclosure agreement where you sign to say, Yes, this is the exact amount or this is the hourly rate and you'll know exactly what you're gonna be up for. Beware of a lawyer that just gives you a massive ballpark figure and just says, Put all your money in our trust account and, and we will let you know at the end how much it all costs . What you wanna know is how much you're gonna be up for and when are you expected to make those payments. Fourth, great question to ask your lawyer is, How do I get in contact with you? When's a reasonable time to get in contact? Is it during business hours? Do they , are they happy with a late night call or an email? Um , what's the best way to contact them? Is it via text? Is it via email? Do they want you to call them? Do they want you to come to their office? Do they wanna make an appointment or can you just come when you're in the area? Most lawyers will like an appointment and they will like to know exactly when you're gonna be there so they can be prepared and they can be prepared to answer your questions and be ready for you. Ask them when they're gonna give you updates on the file. Do you expect an update regularly, like weekly or fortnightly? Some lawyers will keep you updated , uh, every couple of days or just when there's movement on the case, others not so much. Um , when there's big things that come up, that's when they'll be in contact. So you've gotta manage that expectation and ask that question, How do I get in contact with you? What's the best method when and will you be in contact with me with updates? And the fifth question to ask your lawyer is, What do you need from me? You need to know what they expect from you as far as evidence, as far as witnesses, paperwork and time , the things that you need to provide to them. So you need to find out what you need, what you need to bring, what you need to be prepared for. Do you need to provide them with phone numbers of different people for them to contact? Uh , who's gonna be taking witness statements and things like that. Do you have bank statements if they're needed? Do you have all sorts of evidence that they might require? It's good to know straight up what they're gonna require from you so you've got time to prepare those things. So they're the best five questions to ask your lawyer. You wanna get the best outta your lawyer and if you need to get in contact with a great lawyer, we'd love to hear from you. We

Speaker 5 14:49

Would love if

Speaker 1 14:50

You would would review and subscribe to this podcast and also check out our social media. If you would like to get in touch with Simon and the down under investigation team for any reason, please check out our website at www.downunderinvestigations.comorcallonethreehundredeightfournineohsevenoremailinfodownunderinvestigations.com . Thanks for listening.