International Women’s Day: Honoring Female Investigators

International Women’s Day has been observed since the early 1900s. On this day, thousands of events occur around the world to celebrate women and their accomplishments.

For International Women’s Day, I’m honoring female PIs through articles written about them to radio shows hosted by them. This post isn’t meant to be all-inclusive by any means, just a cross-section of outstanding female investigators, including their fictional counterparts.

Radio Shows: New and Old

Below are two radio shows, one hosted by a contemporary female PI, the other about an old-time radio female private eye.

PI’s Declassified

California PI Francie Kohler hosts this weekly Internet radio show where she interviews private investigators and other professionals in associated fields. The show airs every Thursday at 9 a.m. Pacific Time: PI’s Declassified.

Old-Time Radio: Candy Matson Yukon 2-8209

This old-time radio show kicked off in 1949. Every show opened with a ringing telephone with a female answering, “Candy Matson, YU 2-8209,” after which the theme song “Candy” played.

According to the Internet Archive, Old Time Radio (OTR) researchers view this radio show as the best of the female private eyes. It ran until 1951. Listen to single episodes here: Candy Matson YUkon 2-8209.

Articles About Real-Life Female Private Investigators

Q&A: Norma Tillman–Right and Wrong (Pursuit Magazine)

3 Amazing Female Detectives You’ve Never Heard of (Fishwrap)

This Private Investigator is One of the Few Jersey Women Working as Sleuths (NJ.com)

Articles About Fictional Female Private Eyes

There are many entertaining female “eyes” in literature, going back to the mid 1800s. Below are a few articles:

Female Private Eyes in Fiction: From Lady Detectives to Hard-Boiled Dames (by Guns, Gams & Gumshoes’s Colleen for Festivale magazine)

Sara Paretsky Interview: “I start each VI Warshawski book convinced I can’t do it” (interview with Sara Paretsky in The Guardian. By the way, Paretsky does do it, and beautifully, every time she starts a new VI Warshawski novel.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Click on cover to go to Amazon page

“As an experienced private detective and a skilled storyteller, Colleen Collins is the perfect person to offer a glimpse into the lives of real female P.I.s”
~ Kim Green, managing editor of Pursuit Magazine: The Magazine of Professional Investigators

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All rights reserved by Colleen Collins. Any use of the content requires specific, written authority.

Favorite PI Blogs, Websites, Online Magazines

One of the Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes’s writers, Colleen, just released the second edition of How Do Private Eyes Do That?, which contains 70 percent new content. Below is an excerpt from the book, “Favorite Blogs, Websites, Magazines,” which is a sampling of favorites among the many wonderful investigative resources online.

Book Excerpt: Favorite Blogs, Websites, and Online Magazines

Below are a few favorite blogs, websites, and online magazines, some authored by real-life PIs, others written about private eyes in films and books, while others are by experts in associated fields.

The sites are listed alphabetically. To visit a site, click on its name.

Cold Case Squad: A blog by Joseph L. Giacalone, retired NYPD Detective Sergeant, former Commanding Officer of the Bronx Cold Case Homicide Squad, and author of The Criminal Investigative Function. His blog covers such topics as forensics, law enforcement’s use of social media, police body cams, and more.

Defrosting Cold Cases: A resource blog about cold cases, authored by former human rights lawyer, cold case blogger, and crime fiction author Alice de Sturler. Defrosting Cold Cases has placed #1, category criminal justice, in the American Bar Association’s Top 100 Blawgs for 2013, 2014, and 2015.

Diligentia: A blog by New York private investigator Brian Willingham, CFE – President, who specializes in background investigations, due diligence, and legal investigations.

eInvestigator: A resource website for private investigators, police officers, crime scene investigators, security specialists, legal professionals, and those researching the internet for people and information. This site has it all: PI specializations (including ghost hunting services for haunted facilities), spy gear, research books and tools, even a “List of Lists” page with lists such as US airports and their official codes, all US Presidents, criminal competencies and corresponding court cases, list of US insurance companies, and more.

Kevin’s Security Scrapbook: Spy News from New York: A blog by Kevin D. Murray, an independent security consultant who specializes in surveillance detection, security, and privacy problems.

Kusic and Kusic: Private investigations firm headquartered in Vancouver, BC. They specialize in video surveillance, litigation support, online investigations, executive protection, and more.

PIBuzz: A blog by California private investigator Tamara Thompson, well known for her expertise in internet data gathering, genealogical and adoption research, witness background development, and locating people.

PI Magazine: A trade magazine for professional private investigators. You can read articles via a subscription or by ordering an individual issue. The website also provides links to podcasts by professional PIs, US PI organizations and conferences, a bookstore, and spygear shop.

PINow: An online directory of pre-screened, professional private investigators. Click on Investigator Center at top of screen to read articles written by PIs on a variety of investigative topics.

Private Eye Confidential: A blog by California private investigator Mike Spencer of Spencer Elrod Services, Inc.  Mike has been a private investigator for nearly two decades, in the course of which he worked with legendary Hollywood private eye John Nazarian. Mike writes interesting, relevant, and sometimes downright entertaining articles about the profession.

Pursuit Magazine: An online community of professional sleuths that “opens a door to a world of mystery and intrigue, a behind-the-scenes glimpse into the lives of real spies and PIs.” This site is a rich source of research with dozens of articles by experts in the fields of private investigations, security, bail enforcement, skip tracing, and more. No subscription fees—all articles available for public viewing.

The Rap Sheet: A blog by J. Kingston Pierce, author,  senior editor of January Magazine, and the lead crime fiction blogger for Kirkus Reviews. The Rap Sheet dishes the news in the world of crime fiction, both recent and vintage, and lists links to several hundred (at least) crime fiction blogs and author sites.

The Thrilling Detective: Everything you ever wanted to know about private eyes in books, radio, movies, television, even the real world. Founded by author/editor Kevin Burton Smith.

-End of Excerpt-

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman. Please do not copy/distribute any articles without written permission from Colleen Collins and/or Shaun Kaufman. Do not copy/distribute or otherwise use any mages noted as copyrighted or licensed. Images noted as in the public domain are copyright-free and yours to steal.

#WriteTip Free Online Magazines for Researching PIs, Bounty Hunters, Law Enforcement Officers

PI taking surveillance footage (image licensed by Colleen Collins)

There’s some great online magazines that contain informative articles for professionals—they’re also excellent resources for writers crafting private investigators, police officers, bounty hunters, CSI experts, and more.

Check out some of these online magazines:

Tickle the Wire: Tapping Into the Latest News in Federal Law Enforcement.

Evidence Technology Magazine: Focused exclusively on evidence collection, processing, and preservation, with topics covering the CSI effect, fingerprint technology, computer forensics, forensic DNA, and much more.

Pursuit Magazine: The magazine of professional investigators.

Collateral: A bail industry magazine that focuses on the bail bond industry, bail bond agents, sureties and the way they conduct business.

American Police Beat: A magazine and forum where law enforcement officers speak out about the issues affecting their personal and professional lives.

Serve Now: Not a magazine, but a handy resource for learning about process servers and their work.

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Available August 1, 2016

 

All rights reserved by Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman. Please do not copy/distribute any images noted as copyrighted or licensed. Images noted as in the public domain are copyright-free and yours to steal.

Answering Writer’s Question: Finding Someone’s New, Bogus Online ID

A writer asked, “I’m trying to figure out how a PI would discover the identity of someone who has intentionally (but not through legal channels) ditched a previous identity and assumed a new one. This person claims to be an immigrant from IT but is American.”

It appears this writer would like a PI character to detect the new identity based on the old one. We have a few ideas. But first, a few caveats:

We’re limiting this search to a possible new online ID.  After all, assuming a new ID in a broader context — new home address, new driver’s license, and so on — is a large topic, one entire books have been written about. We’re not recommending any of the following books, just noting they exist: How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trials, and Vanish Without a Trace by Frank Ahern; How to Be Invisible: Protect Your Home, Your Children, Your Assets, and Your Life by J.J. Luna.

As to the individual claiming he’s an immigrant from IT: We’ll assume for this post that IT = Italy. While a PI is conducting his/her search on the new ID, they would keep an eye out for any Italian references, names and so forth in the results. Of course, based on the writer’s scenario, the guy isn’t really from Italy, but if he’s pretending he is, such a reference might pop up.

We’re providing these ideas for the sake of a story. However, in real life we’d recommend a person retain the services of a professional PI who specializes in locating people (AKA skip tracers). To find a skip tracer, contact your local state professional private investigator association: Private Investigator Associations by State (PINow). For example, a PI can run a person’s SSN in a proprietary database and learn a lot about the individual no matter what online IDs this person is juggling.

Now let’s look at three free online ways a fictional PI (or even a non-PI) might try to discover the identity of someone’s new online ID based on their old (ditched) one. For our example, we’ll call the old ID “Joe Smithy.”

1. What phone number did Joe Smithy use?

We once had a case where a man had been operating as multiple IDs on different dating sites, often ditching one ID and creating another to fit his needs. Except he kept the same phone numbers! Which we discovered when we ran a single reverse on a number he had provided our client (before he “disappeared” online) — and we discovered he was still using that old number.

Yes, from a single reverse phone number search on Google, we got a listing of his interactions & IDs on different dating sites. Our poor client was devastated — she had never heard of a reverse phone number search before…but after learning how easy it is to run one, she saw for herself how busy this guy had been elsewhere. For more info on reverse number searches: How to Reverse Search Phone Numbers.

2. Did Joe Smithy have a photo?

Google has a comprehensive reverse photo search option where anyone can plug in the photo and run a search on it…it’s possible Joe Smithy’s photo is appearing under his new ID. To learn more about running a reverse image search on Google: Fast and Easy Google Search Tips (scroll to Trick #2: Use images to search for photographs, illustrations and other graphics). Another free reverse photo search engine is TinEye.

3. Know Smithy’s hobbies, nicknames, etc.?

Run them in a social media search engine and see what pops up. For example if Joe Smithy was an avid online poker player, run “Joe Smithy poker” and see if a new ID is popping up on sites where Joe’s used to. We wrote about these search engines here: Free Social Media Search Engines.

Related Articles

“When Your Lover Is a Liar” by Philip A. Becnel (Pursuit Magazine). Excellent article by a private investigator on relationship fraud and bogus IDs.

Made in China: Fake IDs (New York Times). According to this 2015 article, the number of U.S. counterfeit IDs from China is on the rise.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

(As the Writing PIs are currently working other cases, as well as completing writing projects, we are unable to accept any new questions at this time. Thank you for your understanding.)

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All rights reserved by Colleen Collins and Shaun Kaufman. Any use of the content (including images owned by Colleen Collins and/or Shaun Kaufman) requires specific, written authority. 

Ten Favorite Private Investigator Blogs in 2013

We like to kick off the each new year with a list of some of our favorite P.I. and P.I.-related blogs. Not claiming these are the top or the best because there’s a lot of informative to entertaining blogs out there, so view this as a sampling of Internet stops we like to make.

Some Favorite Blogs

In no particular order, these blogs (plus a few online magazines) offer information about numerous facets of investigations, from fraud to cold case to catching cheaters.

PIBuzz.com, edited by Tamara Thompson, is a well-known California private investigator, speaker and blogger known for her expertise in Internet data gathering, genealogical and adoption research, witness background development and locating people. Her blog provides such information as research how-to-articles, lists of resources and private investigator research links. Twitter handle: @PIbuzz

Diligentia Group is a boutique investigative firm that provides services to law firms, financial institutions, and decision makers who require comprehensive background and due diligence investigations.  Brian Willingham, CFE and president, has been a private investigator since 2001. He blogs almost daily, most of which fit into one of the following categories: Background Investigations, Due Diligence and Legal Investigation. For a sampling of readers’ favorite posts on his site, check out this post: “The Top Ten: 2013’s Most Popular Posts from Diligentia Group.” Follow @b_willingham on Twitter.

Mike Spencer of Spencer Elrod Services, Inc. has been a private investigator for nearly two decades, in the course of which he worked with legendary Hollywood private eye John Nazarian. Mike writes interesting, relevant and sometimes downright entertaining articles about the profession at his blog Private Eye Confidential. He’s also in the process of publishing a nonfiction book titled Private Eye Confidential, and we can’t wait to buy a copy. Here are some book excerpts from Mike’s blog:

Private Eye Confidential: Introduction

Private Eye Confidential: I Was a Florida Night Cops Reporter

Follow him on Twitter at @SpencerPI

Kevin’s Security Scrapbook – Spy News from New York. Kevin D. Murray is an independent security consultant who specializes in surveillance detection services, and solving security and privacy problems, as well as being the author of Is My Cell Phone Bugged?. He’s a prolific blogger, with the majority of his posts focused on his area of expertise, surveillance, as well as P.I. news and trends, and the occasional fun post (Trending TV: Spies are Hot, Again).  His Twitter handle: @spybusters

 

Fraud Magazine. Not a blog, but a worthy addition on current white-collar crime and fraud examination techniques. Of particular interest to investigators is an entire section devoted to case studies, which includes investigations of immigration officials selling green cards, horse-racing fraud, humanitarian fraud, employee embezzlement, and much more.

PINow.com articles: PINow.com is an advertising site for private investigators that also includes a section on investigative articles. Some are written by professional PIs, others are links to articles about investigations. PINow.com also does annual listings of top P.I.s on Twitter:

PINow.com also does an annual ranking of Top Private Investigator Blogs:

PINow.com’s Twitter handle: @PInow

Pursuit Magazine: This has become one of our favorite stops on the Internet. It’s more than a blog — it’s an online magazine that was revamped last year, and the result is fantastic: A splashy new look, a wider breadth of articles that includes interviews with acclaimed authors such as Maria Konnikova who wrote Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, industry news and more. Follow on Twitter: @PursuitMag

Defrosting Cold Cases is owned by Alice de Sturler, a former human rights lawyer and current cold case investigator. Besides being the official blogger for The American Investigative Society of Cold Cases, her blog Defrosting Cold Cases won first place this year in the American Bar Association Journal’s top 100 blogs, Criminal Justice category. Alice also hosts a Twitter chat (#crimechat) each month on crime and related topics. To check the #crimechat schedule for 2014, click here (it’s in the middle of the page). Her Twitter handle: @Vidocq_CC

As we said at the beginning of this post, there’s other P.I. blogs that offer great content. Here’s a few: Denver Private Investigator Blog, Handcuffed to the Ocean, The Background Investigator, Kusic and Kusic Ltd.

Some Fun Blogs

Invisible Privacy |Online Privacy

How can you resist a blog with this introduction:

JJ Luna’s personal privacy blog. In 1959 he moved to Spain’s Canary Islands to begin a then-illegal educational work that included secret meetings in remote mountain forests. Although pursued by General Franco’s Secret Police, he maintained his privacy via a false identity and was never caught. When the Spanish dictator moderated Spain’s harsh laws in 1970, Luna was free to come in from the cold. However, he remains in the shadows to this day. He is currently an international privacy consultant.

Unfortunately, J.J. Luna’s last post was December 25, 2013, in which he explained why he hadn’t been able to blog in several months (he and his wife are dealing with health issues) so it’s possible he’ll not be blogging regularly in the future.

Bitter Lawyer

Lawyers can be funny.  Really.  This blog offers an irreverent look at the profession of law, which features — quote — “lawyer jokes, news, and celebrity lawyer interviews from a team of prominent (and sometimes anonymous) writers.”  A recent blog was titled “Best Ways to Serve Booze in the Office” — need we say more?

Check Out the Writing PIs’ Other Sites

TheColoradoCriminalDefense.com: Shaun Kaufman’s criminal defense blog.

ShaunKaufmanLaw.com: Shaun’s legal blog on topics ranging from Gmail tips for lawyers to preventing legal disputes with neighbors.

ColleenCollinsBooks.com: Colleen’s book news, with an occasional article on writing or investigations.

Colleen’s Facebook Page: Mostly book news, with some fun stuff thrown in.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Pretexting: Okay for Jim Rockford, But Not Always for Real-Life P.I.s

We own the complete DVD set of the The Rockford Files TV show that ran from 1974-1980.  Love James Garner in that show as the droll, I’d-rather-be-fishing private eye Jim Rockford.  He kept his gun in a cookie jar and carried around a printing device so he could quickly imprint a business card with a bogus ID whenever necessary.

Ah, those bogus IDs.  Along with bogus stories.  The stuff of private eye fiction.

But when it comes to real-life private investigators, fabricating bogus IDs and stories can get the P.I. into a lot of trouble.   Below is an excerpt from “P.I.s, Pretexting, and the Law: Tips for Crime Writers,” an article by one of the Guns, Gams and Gumshoes’s authors, Colleen, for Pursuit Magazine.  It outlines some illegal investigative pretexts, and gives tips to crime writers crafting P.I. characters who might use this technique.

“To Tell the Truth, I Lied a Little”
~Private eye Jake Gittes in Chinatown

by Colleen Collins

The private eye genre has long been a favorite for writers, from the novel The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett to the current hard-boiled hoax by J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, who secretly penned a private-eye novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

Besides having owned my own private detective agency for a decade, I’m also a multi-published fiction author. For the past three years I’ve also been a judge for the Private Eye Writers of America, in which capacity I’ve read over two hundred hardcover private eye novels. Sometimes writers have done their research and compose compellingly realistic investigative scenarios, from conducting witness interviews to what it’s like working for a defense attorney.

And sometimes, writers being writers, they make stuff up. Stuff that no real-world private investigator would do unless he or she liked the word “felon” tarnishing their reputation and deep-sixing their P.I. career.

In this article, I discuss the investigative practice of pretexting, with tips for writers on how their private eye characters can come across as realistic, not ridiculous, when using it.

What Is Pretexting?

Pretexting is, basically, using a phony script to obtain information from someone, often playing on people’s natural desire to talk and be helpful. The pretexter might pretend to be someone else, tell a white lie, or create some other deception to acquire this information. Although in recent years pretexting has gotten a bad rap, when used legally and with good judgment, it can be an indispensable investigative technique.

Private investigators might pretext via an email

Often a P.I. will pretext over the phone, although it can also be done in person, by mail, email or phishing. However, fabricating stories to obtain information isn’t typically the first avenue of approach for an investigator. Often, the information a P.I. needs can be found in public records as well as through Internet and database searches. Sometimes, a P.I. can get the information you want by simply asking for it.

Whether a P.I. chooses to pretext, or a writer crafts a scene using this tactic, keep in mind that in certain situations, pretexting is against the law. I’ve outlined three of these situations below:

Illegal: Impersonating a Police Officer, Lawyer, or Doctor

A private investigator must never impersonate a police officer, lawyer, or doctor. Doing so sets the stage for the P.I. spending some quality time behind bars. In our state a few years ago, a P.I. was nailed for not only impersonating an officer, but threatening the subject with a firearm while assaulting the subject. (And this was for a process service!) The subject, after learning the guy wasn’t a law enforcement officer but a P.I., hired an attorney—who filed a lawsuit against the private investigator.

In your story, the fictional P.I. might pretend he’s an officer knowing full well he’s courting a felony charge by doing so (which cranks up the tension). But if your character does this without a second thought, as though pretending to be a cop or lawyer has no possible repercussions, your P.I character could look amateur at best, or just plain dumb.

To read the full article, click here.

Have a great weekend, Writing PIs

Some of Our Favorite 2010 Private Eye Links

As 2010 come to an end, lots of people post their favorite top-10 somethings (favorite 10 books, movies, whatever).  We’d like to post 10 of our favorite, and best of all free, 2010 private eye links because we can’t decide which of the many we use and like are actually the best of the bunch.  So here goes…

Some of Our Favorite, and Free!, 2010 Private Eye Links

An excellent, informative private investigations blog from McEachin & Associates, Ltd. : The Confidential Resource

It’s still the most comprehensive public search engine around, our first “go to” place to do a quick look-up: Google

We love to read about fictional PIs, too.  This site is a grand journey into the world of fictional PIs, from Victorian England to the mean streets of New York: The Thrilling Detective

Great source for investigation articles by PIs, as well as the latest investigation news from around the world: PINow.com Investigation News

PI’s Declassified Internet radio show: PI’s DeClassified

Online trade journal for private investigators, legal professionals, and protective services industries: Pursuit Magazine

Have a safe, happy holiday, Writing PIs