A Story of a Botched Background Check

We’ve written about different facets of conducting background checks here on Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes.  One thing we stress is that to retrieve a true criminal history on someone, the background professional (sometimes, it’s a PI) must go the courthouse in the county where the individual worked, lived or attended school.  Why?  The most current and complete criminal histories are maintained by county courts.

That bears repeating: The most current and complete criminal histories are maintained by county courts.

(Note: federal courts also house federal criminal histories, but for this post, we’ll keep the discussion to county courts)

Imagine being told you have to prove you’re not a criminal who has your same name!

So imagine our surprise this past week when a family member who’s been job hunting was turned down by a company because they “discovered” that the family member had a felony conviction in another state.  The family member came to us and said, “Yes, I lived in that state, but I’ve never been charged with a crime, must less convicted!  And I’m being denied a job because they think I’m some felon who has the same name as me!”

He contacted the company and said their background check was wrong–they said if he could prove it was wrong, they’d keep the job open for him.  Imagine: You apply for a job, they conduct a background check that says you’re a convicted felon and you must prove your innocence in order to get the job.

We knew right away what the “background professional” who conducted this check did: They ran our family member’s name in some online database that promises national criminal histories for $19.95.  As we’ve warned numerous times in this blog: Don’t purchase criminal histories/records from any online sites that advertise “national criminal histories” because there is no such thing as a national repository of criminal records.

So we did what should have been done for our family member–we made arrangement for his criminal history to be pulled from the

We made arrangements for court files to be pulled from the courthouse where the person lived.

courthouse in the county where he had lived.  Because this is in another state, we contacted a professional private investigator in that state and asked for him to 1-Pull any criminal history for our family member, and 2-Pull the criminal history for the individual with the same name who has the felony conviction.  The PI did, and we received the documentation from the courthouse that 1-Our family member has no criminal history in that county, and 2-The guy with the same name who has the felony conviction has a different middle name, is ten years older than our family member, is 5 inches shorter than our family member, and other differentiating facts.

We then forwarded this documentation to our family member, who presented it to the company.  They hired him.

Great.  But the work we did (retrieving the criminal history from the court) should have been done by whoever conducted the background check to begin with.  ”Must have been someone in the office who doesn’t really know how to conduct a background check,” we guessed.  No.  That incorrect information was provided by a professional background check company who specializes in employment background checks.

Unfortunately, that “professional” background check company is still in business conducting screenings for other companies!

So there you have a basic, important lesson about obtaining criminal histories: Go to the source (the courthouse).

Below are links to other articles we’ve written about background checks.

Have a great weekend, Writing PIs

Employment Background Checks: Know What’s on Yours BEFORE the Interview by Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes

How to Order Criminal Records by Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes

Related articles

• Supreme Court to Decide Employee Background Checks (blogs.lawyers.com)
• Penn State Introduces New Background Check for Final Job Approval (gantdaily.com)

Hot Research Sites, Tips from a Lawyer and Support for a Fellow PI

Today we have some educational and heartfelt tid-bits to share, from hot research sites to tips from a lawyer to a fellow PI who’s undergoing a bone marrow transplant and needs our support.

Hot Research Sites

This past week, one of the Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes’s authors, Colleen Collins, was a guest blogger at Jersey Girl Book Reviews, run by book reviewer Kathleen Anderson.  Colleen’s article “Be Your Own Investigator: Four Free Online Resources” is excerpted below–click on the link at the end of the excerpt to read the entire article.

Be Your Own Investigator: Four Free Online Resources
by Colleen Collins

Besides being a multi-published author, for the last nine years I’ve also co-owned a detective agency with my husband (probably no surprise my current book, The Zen Man, features a private eye man-and-woman team).  As a private investigator, I’ve discovered dozens of online research sites that are handy for such tasks as locating people, digging up historical data and finding owners of cell phone numbers. For my guest blog at Jersey Girl Book Reviews, I thought readers might enjoy learning about four of these online resources for their own use. Best of all, most of these resources are free!

Search the deep web with 123people.com: With more than 50 million searches each month, 123people.com claims to be the largest real-time people search engine in the world. It’s also what is known as a “deep web” search engine, which means it often finds data not indexed by more traditional search engines. Search results might include images, network profiles, blog entries, documents, e-mails, addresses and phone numbers.

Note: Some advertisers, such as peoplefinders.com, promote pay-for people search services on 123people.com. The problem with such pay-for services is that there’s no guarantee how relevant or current the information is, and there’s no live source to interpret the results. My advice: Don’t waste your money. If you’re tempted to pay money to one of these online services, you’re better off hiring a professional private investigator.

Research multiple social networking sites at SocialMention.com: According to Silicon.com, there are nearly 4.5 billion active social networking and other online accounts! Therefore, it can be beneficial to conduct a search in a social media search engine, such as Socialmention, that concurrently checks dozens of social networking sites. Search results include blogs, networks, images and news.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Tips from a Lawyer

Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes’s author Shaun Kaufman is the managing partner at Shaun Kaufman Law. On his site, he’s been writing articles with tips on such topics as what to say (or not say) to a police officer, how to not be a victim of copyright trolling, mistakes people make when representing themselves at a DMV hearing and more.

Below are links to several of these articles — to read an article, click on the link:

Should You Lie or Not Talk to the Police?

Meet the First Amendment Free Speech Guarantee

Do It Yourself DUI/DMV Representation: Three Top Mistakes People Make

How to Say No to a Vehicle Search

Copyright Trolling: Don’t Be a Victim

Support for Steven Brown

Steven Brown, a well-respected private investigator and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating is undergoing a bone marrow transplant. Steve has been a guest here at Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes, and his informative and interesting articles on private investigations are included below, as well as links to his blogs about the current transplant experience.  The operation is expensive (half a million dollars) — here at Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes we’ve donated to help out Steve. If you’d like to also donate (ever bit counts), a donate button is on the left side of his website, Handcuffed to the Ocean.

To read Steve’s blogs about his bone marrow transplant, click here.

To order his book “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating” click here.

Links to Steve’s guest posts at Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes (click on link to read article):

Interview with Steven Brown, author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating”

Part 2: Interview with Steven Brown, author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating”

Congratulations to The Three Winners of Our Third-Anniversary Giveaway!

This month Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes celebrated its third blog anniversary. Congrats to B.V., J.C. and Guillaume, who each won a copy of How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths.

Have a wonderful weekend, Writing PIs

Related articles

• Happy 3-Year Anniversary Guns, Gams and Gumshoes! (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Top Mistakes Writers Make at Crime Scenes (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Private Eye Stories That Get It Right (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Story Foibles in Private Eye Fiction (writingpis.wordpress.com)

Did Google Maps Steer You Wrong? Try a Crowdsourced Map!

Have you ever followed instructions from Google Maps or another electronic map service that tells you to turn right on the next street…but there’s no street to turn down?

Some map services, like Waze, have incorporated people’s feedback (“Hey, just wanted you to know there’s no road where the map told me to turn”) to correct and add mapping in their utilities. The result? Crowdsourced maps! A huge benefit of these services is that these traffic and mapping services are more consistently reflecting the real-time landscape.

Check out these crowd-sourced mapping services, all of which are free:

Waze: This community-based map and traffic service began as Freemap in Tel Aviv in 2006. It now claims more than 14 million drivers worldwide. Waze claims that 45,000 of its users are dedicated map editors and 5,000 are regional managers who ensure maps’ accuracy. Download to your iPhone, Android, Blackberry or Nokia. Site shows latest user reports that show traffic jams, accidents, even where law enforcement has set up speed traps.

OpenStreetMap: This service more closely follows the Wikipedia model, and in fact calls itself the “free Wiki world map.” Anyone can use the maps, and anyone can create and edit the maps.

INRIX: Another service whose ad claims it puts “the power of the world’s largest driving community into the palm of your hand with real-time alerts, traffic forecasting, information about accidents, police and other events.”

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Related articles

• Crowds create Wikipedia-style maps of the world (seattlepi.com)
• Get turn-by-turn directions and crowdsourced traffic information with Waze [Daily Freeware] (redferret.net)
• The Online Map Wars (technologyreview.in)
• Google Maps Losing Market Share (rev2.org)
• Apple Tells Google Maps To Take A Hike (googleexposed.wordpress.com)

Researching Your Family History? Check Out These Genealogical Websites

Genealogy is the exploration and tracing of family lineages and chronicles. If you’re researching a family history, the following websites specialize in genealogical research (most offer fact-finding tips and other resources, too):

Ancestry.com: Although this is a subscription service, you can sign up for a free 14-day trial. Genealogical records include census records, immigration records, history records and U.S. vital records. There’s also a link to a 1-800 number that connects you to a family history consultant.

Familysearch.org: This is a service provided by the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it’s free (including research courses and discussion forums).

GenealogyBank.com: This subscription services provides access to online materials such as modern obituaries, historical newspapers, military documents and government papers.

Newspaperarchive.com: Another subscription service that lets users browse online newspapers by locations in the U.S., regional maps, dates, countries and titles.

Happy researching, Writing PIs

A Couple of Private Eyes Are Guests This Week at Tyrus Books & Defrosting Cold Cases

The authors of Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes are guests this week at two of their favorite sites: Tyrus Books and Defrosting Cold Cases. Click on links below to read the posts:

Tyrus Books The Guest House: Colleen talks about some of her favorite Tyrus Books’ authors and books, how she became a PI, and chats about her newest nonfiction eBook How Do Private Eyes Do That?

Defrosting Cold Cases: Colleen & Shaun offer a condensed version of one of their online classes about various tools and techniques private investigators use to research the Internet.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Excerpt from HOW DO PRIVATE EYES DO THAT?

Never Sleep with Anyone Whose Troubles Are Worse than Your Own

-Lew Archer in Black Money by Ross Macdonald (attributed to Nelson Algrin)

Originally published in NINK, newsletter for Novelists, Inc. April 2011

A common misconception is that a PI’s work mostly involves surveilling cheating spouses. Actually, there are dozens of investigative specialties that PIs practice, from accident reconstruction to insurance investigations to pet detection. Infidelity investigations, aka chasing cheaters, is one of those specialized fields.

Infidelity Investigations: An Investigative Specialty

Chuck Chambers, PI and author of The Private Investigator’s Handbook, specializes in infidelity investigations. He offers this interesting statistic: 98 percent of his female clients who suspect their husbands of cheating are correct, and 50 percent of his male clients who suspect their wives are correct.

At our agency, we specialize in legal investigations (trial preparation/investigations), but occasionally we get the “I think my husband/wife is cheating” call. We’re hesitant to take these cases because they’re fraught with emotion, from tears to homicidal rage. Tears we don’t mind, but that latter passion makes the work potentially dangerous. Remember the woman in Texas who ran over her philandering husband three times in the motel parking lot? Know how she learned her husband’s location? The PI she’d hired to follow her husband called her, explained her husband had just entered a hotel with another woman, and gave her the motel name and address. That PI’s firm was later sued for gross negligence and will ultimately pay the children of the deceased philander millions of dollars.

Chasing Cheaters: Adding Danger (or Humor) to a Story

Infidelity investigations being fraught with danger might be undesirable in reality, but it’s great for fiction. Maybe your sleuth/PI takes a cheating-spouse case thinking it’ll be an easy way to make a few bucks, but before the sleuth has time to focus her camera, she becomes a witness to a murder. The Texas PI mentioned earlier actually filmed the murder as it took place and then provided testimony to convict the spurned client. What if the infidelity case was just a ruse, and actually the betrayed-wife pretext lures the PI into solving another crime (think Chinatown).

Chasing cheaters can also add humor to a story.  We know a PI who ended up marrying his client’s divorce attorney. And – true story – we once followed a suspected philandering husband who the wife said also “appeared to be involved in some kind of new business.”  We learned what that new business was…a brothel.

What steps might a PI follow in a cheating-spouse case?

Catching the Cheater

When we accept an infidelity case, we request:

• Information about the suspected cheater’s habits, work schedule, days off, etc.
• Photographs of the suspected cheater (and the suspected girlfriend/boyfriend, if available)
• Addresses and phone numbers (suspected cheater’s home, businesses, etc. as well as addresses/phone for suspected girlfriend/boyfriend)
• Any known routes suspected cheater takes on way to work, home, to exercise gym, etc.
• Vehicle descriptions, license plate numbers for suspected cheater (and suspected girlfriend/boyfriend)

What About Attaching a GPS Device to the Suspected Cheater’s Vehicle?

Unless the spouse’s name is registered on the suspected spouse’s vehicle (and it’s surprising how many spouses think their names are, but they aren’t), this is a big no-no. We’re talking felony. Not counting the possibility of extraordinarily bad publicity.

But again, what’s bad in reality can be great for fiction. What if your PI knows he’s courting a felony, but attaches the GPS device anyway, gets caught, and ends up in jail. We know a PI who this happened to. He knew his client’s name wasn’t on the spouse’s vehicle registration, but attached the GPS anyway. A woman in an adjacent parking lot saw him crawl underneath the vehicle with an object, then reappear empty-handed. She called the police and said, “I think a guy just attached a bomb to a car.”

Next thing the PI knew, police, fire trucks, and bomb squads arrived, and he was in handcuffs. Nearby schools, homes, and businesses were evacuated. News stations picked up on the story, reported the bomb threat. It took him nearly two years and $8,000 in legal fees to salvage his investigations business.

Think about how to use infidelity investigations with your fictional PI As in the story above, it could be an expensive, comic subplot. Or maybe a seemingly distraught client hires a PI to watch his/her spouse, when the real reason for the investigation is something much darker.

——————————————————–

How Do Private Eyes Do That? is a compilation of articles about private investigations written by Colleen Collins, a professional private investigator (and one of the Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes blog authors). Its topics are geared to readers interested in the world of PIs, including fiction writers, researchers, investigators and those simply curious about the profession.

“If you’re looking for the lowdown on private investigations, this is it. Packed with details and insights. A must-have for anybody writing private-eye fiction and for anybody who’s curious about what being a private-eye is really like.”
- Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series and many other novels in multiple genres

“A must have for any writer serious about crafting authentic private eyes. Collins knows her stuff.”
- Lori Wilde, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author

How Do Private Eyes Do That? on Kindle: Click here

How to Remove Your Name Being Tagged on the Internet

You idly looked up your name on Google, curious what links and images display — and surprise! There’s an article or photo linked to your name and you have no idea why. Maybe you check out the article/photo, see nothing unusual, and let it go. But what if the article is on a topic that’s embarrassing or humiliating to you? Or a photo associated to your name is one from your past, one you never agreed could be published? Or what if the photo is of someone you broke ties with long ago — or worse, a stalker — and that person has ensured your name is now linked with him/her on the Internet?

You’ve been tagged without your permission. Meaning, your name has been inserted as a tag to that computer item.

What do we mean by “tag”?  A tag is a keyword or term (such as your full name) assigned to a piece of information, such as a computer file or digital image. Basically, the purpose of tags is twofold: they help describe an item and they allow others to find that item (such as a blog, article or photo) by using that keyword or term in searches. Tags are generally inserted by the item’s creator.

Unless you are the subject of the article or photo, why would a person use your name as a tag? Maybe it’s a mistake or an oversight. Maybe you have a significant following on the Internet and that person is trying to take advantage of searches on your name, which is a cheap tactic at best. Or the person’s intentions could be darker.

So how can you go about getting rid of your name as an unwanted tag? Below are a few tips:

1. To delete a name tag in Picasa, Picasa Web Albums, or Google+, click here

2. To delete a name in a photo tag in Facebook, check here

3. Contact the organization directly. For example, if your photo is tagged in a website, contact the website developer/owner (whose contact information is typically on the home page, often at the bottom of the page), explain your name has been incorrectly used as a tag, provide the link or reference, and insist the tag be removed immediately.

4. Contact the individual. If you know the person who created the tag (such as the writer of an article), contact that person and request your name be removed. Often, writers’ contact information is at the bottom of their articles. If there is no contact information, contact the publisher directly.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

How to Find Someone: Free Online Research Tips

Updated April 4, 2012

There are various free online resources that specialize in people searches. Some resources offer comprehensive searches in dozens of online sources, including blogs, news archives, personal profiles, photographs, videos and publications. Other resources offer deep web searches, which means their web crawlers find indexes and links to databases that more traditional web crawlers miss. There are also business databases and search engines that offer business information associated to a person’s name.

Research the name using 123.people.com. This online people search engine lets you search globally as well as country-specific (currently, its services include 12 counties and 10 languages). Some search results take you directly to a paid-for service (read the Pipl entry at the bottom of this page about paying for such services…in a word, don’t). But other results are free and potentially useful, such as Bing search results, blog links, website links, microblogs, tag links and more.

Look up the name in Yasni.com. This people search engine looks up the name worldwide, and provides links to online sources that include that name, such as business or network profiles, education, interests, personal websites and obituary listings. The “Advanced Search” option lets you fine tune your search via keywords, name, location and company.

Conduct a deep-web name search by adding the words “database” or “search” (without the quotation marks) to your browser query. According to Marcus P. Zillman, executive director of the Virtual Private Library, in 2006, the deep web consisted of 900 billion pages of information that more traditional search engines either could not find or had difficulty accessing.

Use a social media search engine. According to Silicon.com, there are currently almost 4.5 billion active social networking and other online accounts. Therefore, it’s beneficial to conduct a name search in a social media search engine, such as Socialmention, that concurrently checks dozens of social networking sites.

Check out Biznar. This was previously advertised as a deep web business search engine; however, it now appears to be a more general, yet comprehensive, deep web people search engine. One thing we like about it is the immediacy of the results. Awesome advanced search options, too — you can select search categories such as blogs and social networks, advertising and marketing, finance and economics, government and more.

Search for a name in a business database. Linkedin lists more than 100 million professionals and their contact information.

Searches that were omitted from this list since it was first published:

Pipl. Once upon a time, this people search engine researched the deep web, with results including such online sources as public records, personal profiles, professional and business sites, publications, news articles, blog posts and more. We once found someone who’d seemingly fallen off the earth through a Pipl search.

Unfortunately, Pipl isn’t what it used to be. It still claims to “dive into the deep web” but our recent searches show it pulls up a lot of  links to “sponsored” paid-for search engines, such as peoplefinders.com, where — if you want more data on the person — you must pay $$. The problem with online people search services is that there’s no guarantee how relevant or current the information is, and there’s no live source to interpret the results. If you’re tempted to pay money to one of these online services, you’re better off hiring a professional private investigator.

Surchur. This used to be a real-time social media search engine, but now it’s an aggregate of articles about celebrities, including a disparate listing of items for sale whose only unifying thread is the word “celebrity.” Odd. We’re sorry Surchur bit the search dust.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Related articles

• The Deep Web – CompletePlanet (sincitygirl73.wordpress.com)
• 10 search engines for the hidden web (disclose.tv)
• 9 Awesome Search Engines That Aren’t Named Google (hubspot.com)

Free Online Resources for Backgrounds, Phone Numbers, Professional Licensure and Real-Time Social Media

Updated June 16, 2012

Here’s a few, free online look-ups for background information, reverse phone number look-ups, professional licensure and real-time social media.

Find online information about a person. Because currently the most comprehensive, public search engine is Google, use it to find online information about an individual. Type the person’s name and any other identifying information, such as “Sally Smith watercolor artist”, in the Google browser, press the “Search” button and view the results, which show blogs, websites and other online sources in which that name and information displays.

Conduct a reverse phone number search. If an unknown phone number shows up on your caller ID, it’s easy to run a free reverse phone number search using Google. Enter the phone number in the format 123-456-5555 in the Google browser, and press the “Search” button. Google displays all online sources that contain that phone number, such as in blogs, websites, online resumes and online ads.

Verify someone’s professional license. BRB Publications offers a free online database to verify professional licenses by state. Go to Verifyprolicense.com, select a state, select the agency and follow the instructions.

Conduct a real-time social media search. Socialmention is a real-time search engine that examines online social media such as blogs, events, images, news, video and social networking sites. Conduct a search with any identifier, such as a name, phone number, email address, username.

Have a great weekend, Writing PIs

Related articles

• The Uses Of Reverse Phone Lookup On The Net. (boldstate.com)

Four Do-It-Yourself Private Investigation Articles

Updated May 17 2012

With some ingenuity, perseverance, and know-how, there’s some investigative tasks you can do on your own, such as learning upfront what information might show up on you employment background check and protecting your personal information from appearing on the Internet. Below are a few articles with some sleuthing tips–just click on the article title to read it.

“How to Know Ahead of Time What’s On an Employment Background Check”

“How to Protect Your Home Address So Others Don’t Find It”

“How to Find a Cell Phone Number from an Email Address”

“How to Find Someone: Free Online Research Tips”

Have a great day, Writing PIs

Related articles

• New Trend – Renters Running Background Checks on Landlords (prweb.com)
• Background Checks Aren’t for Everyone (employers-lawyer.com)
• Private Investigators: News, Resources and Some Fun Stuff (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Story Foibles in Private Eye Fiction (writingpis.wordpress.com)