Excerpt from How to Write a Dick: Loss Prevention/Industrial Security

Excerpt from How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths, available on Kindle and Nook

Basically, loss prevention refers to people hired to prevent theft and fraud in a retail establishment. An investigator who specializes in loss prevention might handle the following types of cases:

• Credit frauds
• Employee thefts (for example theft of money or merchandise)
• Theft by store customers (for example, shoplifting, credit card scams, auto thefts)
• Staged accidents.

A Deeper Look Into Employee Theft

The majority of bankruptcies in the United States are filed by organizations and are attributable to employee theft.  One study shows that the company loss per customer shoplifting incident is $207.18 whereas the loss per employee theft incident is $1,341.02!  Employee theft causes bonuses, promotions and raises to decrease as profits shrink and the company losses increase. This means there’s a big incentive for an organization to hire an in-house investigator or an outside investigator who specializes in investigation of embezzlement, staged robberies, “shrinkage” and computer frauds.  A ripe specialization for your fictional PI!

What signs of employee theft (specifically, cash money) might your fictional PI encounter?

• No sales at register
• Fictitious refunds and voided sales
• Income from medical appointments paid with cash
• Failure to record sales
• Abundance of collections and donations
• Passing to friends
• Sales prior to opening the business
• Refunds/Voids after the business closes
• Questionable coupon redemption
• Robbery with scanty identification information.

Signs of employee non-cash money theft:

• Questionable credit card refunds
• Phantom payroll
• Fictitious vendor accounts
• Bogus travel expenses
• Kickback schemes
• Credit card fraud with friends.

Signs of employee merchandise theft:

• Direct theft
• Fictitious mail order
• Fraudulent receipts (free merchandise)
• Fraudulent computer entries.

As of the writing of this book, the online Loss Prevention magazine is free and offers access to past issues as well.  Great resource for researching topics such as asset protection technology, shoplifting cases, retail investigations and more.

Writer’s Slant: If Your PI Specializes in Loss Prevention, Think About

• His background — is he a former thief, or more likely, a former police officer?
• How did she get her skills in developing and documenting a case against a target?  (Many times a PI must present a completed case file ready for prosecution to a Deputy D.A. or to a company official who can then legally fire an employee.)
• What ambivalences might your PI have about going after someone without benefit of the tools that law enforcement agents have, such as search warrants and intelligence data?
• On the other hand, your fictional PI also has an easier job than a police officer in this investigative field because employees in the workplace might waive many constitutional rights to privacy, the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney’s presence when questioning takes place (steps the average police officer must respect).
• The relationship between this job and the kind of work done by other, similar investigators who assemble cases for submission to insurance companies so that a claim for loss is paid. After all, loss prevention investigators are frequently making a case for money from an insurance company, which is not all that different from how personal injury investigators work.

Praise for How to Write a Dick:

“If you want authenticity in creating a fictional private investigator for your stories, then this is a must-have reference book. Its authors, Colleen and Shaun, are living breathing PIs with years of actual experience in the PI game.” ~ R.T. Lawton, 25 years on the street as a federal special agent and author of 4 series in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

“What every wanna-be sleuth needs: a revolver, a bottle of scotch, a trusty sidekick, and this book.” ~ Mario Acevedo, author of Werewolf Smackdown

“How to Write a Dick is a gift to crime fiction authors everywhere, a comprehensive and no-nonsense compendium of information, analysis and thought-provoking writing prompts that will help you create your own 21st century shamus with confidence and class. An absolute must for the library of any PI writer!” ~ Kelli Stanley, critically acclaimed author of City of Dragons and the Miranda Corbie series

Related articles

• 2011 Theft Approaches 2 Billion at Christmas (manolith.com)
• Shoplifting suspects found with almost $4,500 worth of Victoria’s Secret merchandise in Indian River County (tcpalm.com)
• Shop insurance news: Theft the biggest crime facing retailers (premierlinedirect.co.uk)

Excerpt from How to Write a Dick: Catching the Cheater

How to Write a Dick: A Guide to Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths, available on Kindle

Infidelity Investigations: Catching the Cheater

When we accept an infidelity case, we request:

• Information about the suspected cheater’s habits, work schedule, days off and so forth.
• Photographs of the suspected cheater (and the suspected girlfriend/boyfriend, if available)
• Addresses and phone numbers (for the suspected cheater’s home, businesses, other places of note as well as the addresses/phone numbers for suspected girlfriend/boyfriend, if known)
• Any known routes suspected cheater takes on way to work, home, to exercise gym and so forth
• Vehicle descriptions, license plate numbers for suspected cheater (and suspected girlfriend/boyfriend)
• Contact information for client, preferred times to call, private numbers person can be reached at, preferred means of contact (work email, cell phone).
• Any other pertinent information.

As with any other case, we then devise an investigative strategy.  Sometimes the client will call and inform us if the suspected cheater has changed his/her work schedule, is taking off for a surprise appointment or other event.  We can’t always comply with last-minute schedule changes (which we’ve made clear to the client up front) but if time permits, we do.

Part of our contract is that we’ll provide reports on either a biweekly or monthly basis.  However, we’ll work with the client on a different report scheme as long as it’s appropriate, workable and legal.  For example, we’ve had clients who like to call periodically and discuss the case.  We don’t mind discussing the current progress on a case as long as the client remains professional and courteous.  Sometimes a client might request an email update the morning after an evening surveillance, and we’re happy to comply.

The most difficult thing we’re ever had to do was tell a client that we had garnered photographic evidence that her husband was being unfaithful.  It had been a lengthy investigation (several months) and the husband (who had a background in military investigations) had covered his tracks exceptionally well, so well we believed her suspicions were unfounded.  We had scheduled one last surveillance, which she asked us to continue doing, and after that we mutually agreed to terminate the investigations.

It was during that very last surveillance that we saw, and photographed, his infidelity.  The wife’s suspicions of his infidelity had been right on — he was involved with her best friend.  We finished the surveillance, did a wrap-up meeting where we discussed how to present the evidence to the client, then we made the call.  The client immediately wanted to know if her husband and her girlfriend were still at the location where they’d been photographed. We explained the husband and girlfriend had already left the scene, but we had photographic evidence that we would forward in a report.

We’ve since talked to this client and learned that after being confronted with the evidence, he admitted to the affair, and they are now in marriage counseling.  This was a happy ending.  More often, a client’s next call to us is requesting a recommendation for a good divorce lawyer.

PI Wise:  Except in only a few cases, a PI shouldn’t contact a client while the investigation is in process.  Especially in a cheating spouse case, a PI never tells a client, in real time, where her/his spouse is in flagrante delicto.  Remember the woman who ran over her philandering husband three times in the Texas parking lot?  That’s because the PI she’d hired to follow her husband called from the hotel where he was rendezvousing with his mistress and reported the infidelity in real time.  Wifey, enraged, drove over and…let’s just say if the PI hadn’t made that call, wifey might not now be spending years behind bars.

Related articles

• One of the best articles I’ve read on the psychology of infidelity … (ladycheeky.wordpress.com)
• Top 10 Ways to Tell if Your Wife is Cheating on You (blogs.lawyers.com)

Excerpt HOW TO WRITE A DICK: Real-life PIs’ Pet Peeves About Fictional Ones

How to Write a Dick: A Guide to Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths, available on Kindle.

Real Life PIs’ Pet Peeves About Fictional PIs

A group of PIs were asked what misconceptions they’d like to correct in representations of PIs in novels, movies and TV.  Below are some of their responses:

Staying Legal: At least 80% of the PIs surveyed brought this up as their number one pet peeve.  Fictional PIs are often shown doing illegal things when, in actuality, real-life PIs abide by the laws.  Because if they don’t, they could lose their business and license — a risk no PI wants to take. If a PI doesn’t know his legal rights, he knows how to look up the statute or he has a lawyer buddy/client he’ll call for advice.  No smart PI goes into a legally-murky situation without knowing exactly what actions are lawful.  Slip-ups and missteps muddy a PI’s reputation, which is perhaps his most critical asset because it reflects both his ethics and skill.

Being Prepared: Columbo, the detective from the ‘70s’ TV series with the same name, always came back again (and again and again) to the witness, before he finally asked the zinger question.  He never seemed to have a plan how to obtain information efficiently.

A real-life PI typically has one shot, and one shot only, at interviewing a witness. There’s no bumbling around — he must get to the point.  That means being prepared.  When a PI first makes contact with a witness, the PI needs to know the purpose of his questioning as well as the questions themselves.  Sometimes legal investigators (PIs who work for attorneys) will come armed with police reports or past statements by the witness.  For example, sometimes a prior witness statement reveals to the investigator, in the course of the interview, that the witness’s statement has inconsistencies — such conflicts in a person’s story indicate the witness is unreliable.

Surveillance fantasies: Seasoned PIs scoff at the notion that a solitary PI can effortlessly pull off a successful mobile surveillance (meaning, following someone in a vehicle) for hours and hours.  Mobile surveillances typically require at least two PIs in two vehicles — and even then the success rate, per one PI’s statistics, is 50 percent.  And yet time and again one will read about or see in a movie a PI who magically follows someone who’s weaving in and out of traffic, turning, speeding, zipping through intersections for an entire day!  Try following one of your friends in traffic (especially when you do not know their destination) and see how easy it is to lose their car.

Business savvy: Too many PI stories ignore that a PI runs a business that entails negotiating and writing contracts, managing money and sometimes subordinate PIs, buying/upgrading office equipment, writing reports and so on.  First and foremost, a PI has a business relationship with her client that includes all the legal ramifications that come with any customer situation.

Violence: Real PIs don’t hit people first, even if they are mad. In fact, they don’t engage in violence anymore than they engage in burglary or theft. The debate is ongoing within the PI community as to whether to carry guns or other self-defense weapons.

Goin’ It Alone:  Real-life PIs frequently work alone, without Sam Spade’s ubiquitous gal Friday or Jim Rockford’s wise, ex-trucker father.  In fact, many PIs work out of their homes, with their websites functioning as their virtual offices.

Make It a Whiskey, Neat:  Real-life PIs don’t all drink like Phillip Marlowe or Sam Spade, and if they were to be slipped a mickey or hit with a sap, they’d be ashamed of their lack of planning.  Most real-life PIs wouldn’t chance dulling their senses as this could be used to denigrate them should they have to testify in court about their observations.

This is a good place to also note things a real-life PI would never do.  If a writer chooses to have her fictional PI do any of these acts, she’s setting up the PI character to be in some deep you-know-what (although, this might also be what you, as the writer, want for your PI—better to know than to write something that’s manifestly illegal and not know, right?):

A PI who wants to keep his job/license/career/reputation would never:

• Knowingly assist a criminal in a criminal act
• Get involved with jury/witness tampering (threaten a witness/juror so as to change testimony or a verdict)
• Wiretap (place a listening device on a telephone)
• Place a surveillance camera or microphone in a private place without the target’s knowledge
• Commit a burglary
• Slap a GPS device on a vehicle not registered to the client
• Eavesdrop in a private place
• Use violence or the threat of violence to get information
• Pretend they have evidence that they don’t — the possibility exists that they are going to be asked to produce it by a lawyer or cop
• Commit any other knowingly illegal act
• Impersonate a peace officer.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Related articles

• Private Eye Fiction Groaners (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• How Dangerous Is It to Be a Female Private Eye? (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Can a PI Get Romantically Involved with a Client? (writingpis.wordpress.com)
• Answering Writer’s Question: Are PIs and Cops Compatible? (writingpis.wordpress.com)