Skip Trace Systems, QOTD, Debt Collection Advice, Being Safe On Social Media, Why Are We Private Investigators?

In this episode we cover topics such as:-

1- How We Conduct A Skip Trace;

2- Question Of The Day;

3- What Is The Best Way To Collect A Debt?;

4- Social Media Safety Advice;

5- Why We Are Private Investigators;

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

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to season three and another episode of Down Under Investigations, the Truth You Are About to Hear From Simon, our host, who has well over 20 years experience in the private investigation industry. Simon leads the team at down under investigations who are committed to professionalism, integrity, and their ability to get results for their clients. Our podcast will open up the truth about the world of private investigation, discussing real life case studies, the latest news, cutting edge surveillance, and skip tracing techniques, plus legal issues and support. So stay with us as we join Simon. Now, skip

Speaker 2: 0:36

Tracing is something I'm desperately passionate about. It's um, I guess in my DNA I've been doing it such a long time and I really enjoy finding someone, especially when you find someone who you might have tried to maybe serve papers on them and , uh, they don't live at the address you're at and say you give them a call and they say, nah , not helping you , you'll never catch me, you'll never find me. They're the ones that really , uh, get under my skin and , um, make me more passionate about what I do. And , uh, I love it when they say that because it's always a challenge. I love a challenge and love trying to locate someone who doesn't wanna be found. So I've got a , an approach that I wanted to share , uh, quickly about how we go about skip tracing and how we go about finding someone. Because the truth is not all investigations are the same. There's no one size fits all when it comes to a private investigation job. Um, there's different investigators who use different techniques. There's different databases both free and , uh, that we pay for that we can undertake. Um , we also make phone calls, field visits, conduct surveillance and that sort of thing. There's a whole range, a wide range of ways and means that we follow and do to find the location of someone, to find someone who , uh, has either gone missing or doesn't wanna be found. So my approach personally is it comes under the five Cs. So all these things start with AC. So the first one is collect I, I make sure on my files that I've got all the available information from a client. So ask the client, is there anything more that you haven't given us? Do, do you have his , uh, email address? Do you have his spouse's name or her her spouse's name? Do you have their family details? Do you have any details about children? Do you have any details about parents, about work addresses? I want to know everything about this person that I'm trying to look for. I want to know what I can , uh, dates of birth , um, even old details, old addresses, old phone numbers, previous work addresses, things that are now no longer because they can be lines of inquiry for us in the future. I always ask for copies of licenses and identification, copies of any credit applications if the client has those as much as possible from the client, because that always helps a lot. The second c the next step for me is , uh, to correct. So what I work about doing is making sure that all the information that we've been given is actually correct, that the spelling of the name, the date of birth, the old addresses, the old mobile numbers, the old landline numbers, the email addresses , uh, names of family, all those sorts of things, old business addresses that it's all correct. We want correct information because that gives us a good base to work from. Sometimes what we do when we working on their whole correct phase is we actually find that they go by different names. We they go by a nickname or a shortened name or they change spelling of their first or surname or both. That happens all the time. Um, in this day and age when someone's trying to be evasive. So we confirm the spellings, we check alternatives and nicknames. We run searches of , of accurate databases to see what names they actually have used in the past and continue to use. Third step starting with C again, is to collaborate, which for me is running searches. So basically with all this extra information that we've found to do with the spouse to do with kids, to do with parents to do with mobile numbers, addresses, I'll run that through a whole series of searches. Um , if we're, if we've been to an address and they , uh, not found to have ever lived at that address, what we can find is that maybe we've been given the wrong street number. So we'll run a street search , uh, we'll run a reverse search on the numbers, on the phone numbers provided and just simply on the name. Um, and that's a great way to find a result. <laugh> , it's happened on occasion where someone's been in a car accident, for example, and they have taken a photo of the front of the license and you know, these licenses these days, they're a bit clear and you can sort of see through them a bit and then you see, ah , there's a sticker on the back. They've obviously moved from the address. I hope they took a photo of the back of the license as well. Not always the case of course. So we have to go about running searches to find the current address and we get hits very often. The good thing is when people, people are creatures of habit, they don't generally move from a long distance. Some do, some we find interstate, some we find have moved overseas. Some we find have moved five minutes away just around the corner. So we collaborate, we run searches, we run searches, not just on that individual that we're looking for, but if we know they've got a spouse, if we know that they've got parents and kids, we like to run searches on them as well if we can't get a hit on the individual themselves. And that's a great way to locate someone. Obviously if they're still with their spouse, they're gonna be living in the same property in the same house and uh , likely in the same area. So yeah. And then what we do is we confirm once we've got some addresses or an address, we'd like to confirm it via , uh, cross-referencing the address. So let's say the the address pops up on a certain search. What we'll do is we'll just do a search on that address just to see when it was sold last, when it was rented last, and if that address would be current. We like to do that simply to make sure that we're not telling the client, Hey, we've found their address and they moved out six months ago, or they moved out a year ago, the house has been sold recently. Things like that. The other way we confirm is not just from cross-referencing, but actually going to an address and making inquiries there. So that's a great way to confirm if someone lives there or turn up and speak to potentially neighbors. If we know we've got a registration on a vehicle, look for that vehicle. Um, sometimes vehicle registrations change , look for a make and model and that sort of thing. And then the final stage starting with C is we compile like to compile all the evidence together, put it into a report, tell our client, Hey, here you go, we've found this person for you. And they can then take their next step, whether it be through the debt recovery process or contacting lawyers or generally we do work for a lot of lawyers. They will then redirect us to maybe serve documents or they wanna send a letter of demand or, or send the sheriff or , uh, send the police to arrest the person. Depends on what the case is. Um, they take the next step . So that's , uh, that's uh , five steps on how to find someone. So we collect information, we correct the information, we collaborate the information, we confirm the information, and finally we compile the information. And that's how we get great results with our skip tracing. We have a really good question here from Phil. He's in Broad Meadows in Victoria and he says, I'm a business owner and I'm having trouble collecting debts from people I do work for and that our business supplies our products to . I'm wondering what's the best way to go about collecting my debts? Well, Phil, there's three basic ways you can go about this. You can either do it yourself, which is the DIY method. So you'll be making phone calls, sending letters, going to their address, that sort of thing. You can get a debt recovery company slash debt collection investigators like ourselves to collect the debt for you charging a commission. Some agencies charge a fee on top of that. Um, and that's the next option. And the third option is to get a lawyer involved or a debt collection, litigation type lawyer who can do what needs to be done through the courts to collect the debt. Now what are the pros and cons of each? Well do it yourself is likely the cheapest option , uh, where you're not paying money out from your debt. However, your time is valuable. So you'll be spending time making phone calls, sending letters, sending emails, whatever it takes to collect the debt. You'll be the one that's under stress trying to get in touch with the debtor, trying to get the money recovered. It can really stress a person out to be collecting their own debts. Plus you want the backup of someone else, a third party involved 'cause that can add some more credibility. It can also put the debtor in a position where they feel like they have to act once you've escalated the matter to either a lawyer or a debt recovery company. So using a debt recovery company is a great way to recover debt. Generally when it's a more simple debt, a more straightforward debt that is owed, say an invoice where it's not disputed or something along those lines where the contracts are very simple, basic but watertight. So they , that's when you get a debt collector involved , uh, debt investigator, a debt collection agency, all under the same banner and they will go about collecting the debt for you. Generally you'll get , uh, quite regular updates if there's something to report, if there's a negotiation happening, they'll contact you to say, well, the debt is offered to pay a certain amount per week or per month or , um, they're waiting until a settlement and on such and such a date and then they'll pay your debt in full. How do you wanna proceed? So there is that avenue using a debt collection agency generally, again, like I said, working on commission basis so you will lose part of that debt when it's recovered. Um, that is the basics of using a debt collection agency. Um, you don't lose the time, you don't lose your sleep if you've got someone else involved as a third party collecting the debt for you. Generally a debt collecting agency will have the ability to handle the straightforward debts. They've got the ability to do skip trace if required to find your debtor, to find where they work, to find their assets, to find where they can be served with letters of demand. And they can negotiate face-to-face, turn up at their doorstep, which a lot of debtors do not appreciate. However, this does force sometimes a good result as long as they use the right uh, mode method tactics as far as the law's concerned. And the other option is to use a litigation lawyer. Most lawyers you pay upfront , you have to pay a certain set fee. It might be a fixed cost that you pay and they will send a letter, they will take it through the courts, you'll know exactly what you are up for and you'll pay that upfront . They will have the legal knowledge on what's needed to take the matter through the courts and they'll also know the enforcement options once a judgment is in your favor. A lawyer's good when a matter is complex, where there is disputes over contracts, there's disputes over works performed or products provided. So that's where you'd like to get a lawyer involved. We've got a great success rate at down under investigations when it comes to debt recovery on recovery . However, there is times where it gets to the point where we just know our services and what we provide is not going to shake funds or a payment from that debtor and therefore we refer onto litigation onto a lawyer. When you are referred to a lawyer, you sign a new agreement with them as well and they can go about working through the courts and using all legal avenues to get your debt recovered. We've got some great lawyers we work with very regularly. We're always happy to refer. If you've got any questions, if you'd like to know more, maybe get in touch with us, send us an email, check out the contact page on our website, we'd be happy to get involved. Thanks Phil for that question. You are our question of the day winner. We're shooting a prize out to you very shortly. Keep an eye out for it.

Speaker 1: 12:36

Do you have a question for Simon and the team at Down under investigations, we are running a questions of the day competition. If your question gets answered by Simon on the podcast, we will send you a prize value at a hundred dollars to send in your question, simply use the contact page on our website at www.downunderinvestigations.comoremailinfoatdownunderinvestigations.com.

Speaker 2: 13:03

One thing we'd talk about often on this show is how to keep your self safe, whether it's online or to prevent your identity being stolen. And you know what? 'cause there's always a rise , 'cause there's always a rise in identity theft. There's always ways that the scammers are getting around things and getting your information. And today I just wanted to talk about five quick ways that we can keep ourselves safe on social media. Here's the top five ways to keep yourself safe when you're using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok , all of the above. One first thing, you need to make all your accounts private and only add friends you actually know that's just just a given. Adding random people, you don't know who they are , you dunno who's behind the screen, you don't know what their intentions are. And I see it so often. People with thousands, thousands of friends and followers and connections online and they're posting all their own personal information. You don't know how many of those people are fake accounts, bot accounts, scammers, people who are gonna take advantage of you, limit the amount of people that have access to your account, limit the amount of friends that you have on there to people you actually interact with and know people you know in real life. That's the best way. Sometimes people even follow these fake celebrity accounts thinking, oh yeah, I just wanna see photos of Taylor Swift for example. You know what? They're created also often, very often, not just by fans but by scammers. Because once you add them as a friend or once you've got a connection with them, they can see everything you are doing online as well. So be very careful who you add and keep your accounts private and only are people in your real life you actually know. And just to hint on that, sometimes you'll get a friend request from someone and you'll think, I'm already friends with that person. Why don't you contact that person via other means and just say, Hey, did you send me a friend request? And often you'll find that the account, their account may have been hacked. There may be a hacker who has replicated their account and is using their account to then contact people and make contact with their friends and their friends list in order to either extort money or get further information about a person. Number two, use different passwords for each account. When you've got different social media accounts, use different passwords. Make sure your passwords change regularly. I know it's hard. I know getting the prompts for the three questions you need to answer and that sort of thing. And changing passwords can be really hard, but it needs to be done. You need to keep changing your passwords because you know what? If they get access to one account through one password, they're gonna try all your social media accounts with that same password. And the other thing is get two-factor identification. So often you'll get a text message saying, you know that you've tried to log in and or you'll get a text message with a code saying into this code. And if you haven't actually accessed that website, then you may wonder why you are getting this message and someone's actually trying to use your account and get access to your account so you can put a stop to it. The third thing, be aware of the photos that you're posting. I see it every day . We see it all the time. People that post so many things. And you know what, as a private investigator, to be honest, I love it and I really shouldn't be saying this, but if I'm looking for someone and they're posting certain things about their house or their car or the other details about where they live or where they go regularly, gee, it's so much easier to find them. It's so much easier to conduct a skip trace. And I'm doing it for legitimately reasons. And our company, we all do it for legitimate reasons, but there's plenty of people who will use those photos to find you, to find where you work, find where you live, find where your kids go to school. Oh , you see people posting their kids in school uniforms where you can easily see the logo. You can easily see their school bag with the school name right across it. Don't post those things online. Don't use those ways of showing off your kids like I , I mean, it's great. Celebrate your family, celebrate what they're doing and that's exciting. But putting that information out there like your car registration and make and model and things like that, not cool, not cool. Those things can be used against you and they will be used against you by a scammer. Don't put your work locations up there. Don't put places you frequently visit all the time because if someone wants to find out where you live, they're gonna turn up at your workplace and follow you or they're gonna turn up at the local restaurant that you're always eating at or getting your coffee at every day . So be be aware when you're posting things, what information you're putting out there in those posts, especially photos and that sort of thing. Another thing which is quite obvious, don't post personal details to Messenger or WhatsApp. Even if you know the person, don't post your bank details. Don't post your receipts on there, don't post your documents the amount of times we see people send photos of parcels and you can clearly see their address, their phone number. So when you, we order from these websites and the the tracking , uh, sticker is right on the label and people show that. It's like we know exactly where you live, we know exactly what your phone number is, what your email address is, and there's people out there, like I said, scammers and hackers who will use that information and they will defraud you. They'll use it against you. So don't post personal information, especially when you're doing it publicly. But even when you're doing it privately, you don't know that it's the , your friend of yours on the other end of Messenger or WhatsApp. You don't know who it is. So just be very careful with that sort of thing . And the fifth thing I would suggest is don't have your name and or date of birth in your email address. It makes it very easy for someone to track you down when you've got your full name in your email address. When you are creating a social media account, why don't you create a new email address that has nothing to do with your name, your suburb, where you were born, when you were born, anything to do with you, and use that email address. That's the best way you can keep safe. These are the five best ways you can keep safe on social media. I mean, there's number six, which is avoid avoidable at all costs, <laugh> . But I'm not gonna say that because in today's day and age, social media is a great place for people to feel connected, feel loved, keep in touch with family and friends. So I'm not all anti-social media, but I believe it's about being wise with your social media and hopefully using these top five tips can keep you safe. Now, I spoke earlier in this episode about how we go about skip tracing and locating someone. I just thought I'd mention why we do it. We do it for many reasons, mainly to seek justice because I don't believe that someone should get away with not paying their debts or not holding up to their end of responsibilities. If someone's had a car accident and they're at fault, they shouldn't be able to just run and hide or use false information to get away with not responding to the person that they've hit and doing the right thing. Sometimes it's about serving papers to do with family law , family law documents. It's all about getting someone before the courts so that they can have their side heard so that they can be represented and they can have justice served on them. So that's why we love skip tracing. We love reuniting people too, which is a huge reason why we skip trace . We find people who haven't been found for years and years. Maybe it's an adopted child or an adoptive parent, a natural parent who wants to reconnect after years and years . Obviously we do it in such a manner that we're not gonna harm anyone, but sometimes that's why we do what we do because we want to see lives changed . And that's exactly what we're all about. So if you need us , skip tracing services. Make sure you get in touch with us. We've got our email address, we've got our website. There's a um, contact page on there. Plenty of ways to get in touch with us and we'd love to help.

Speaker 1: 21:31

We would really appreciate if you would take the time to subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Please also check out our social media on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. If you'd like to get in touch with Simon and the down under investigation team for any reason, please check out our website at www.downunderinvestigations.com or call 1 3 8 4 9 0 0 7 or email info at down under investigations com . Thanks for listening.