Most assignments fall within one or more of the following categories, the most common of which will be covered more extensively in specialist modules accompanying this course.

Accident Reporting

This is a major feature of some investigators’ roles and there are some who specialize entirely in reporting the facts about accidents, normally road traffic accidents, to establish who bears the brunt of the blame and, most importantly, whose insurance company gets to pay out to injured parties.

An enquiring mind is essential and, taking notes and photographs, sometimes making detailed sketches of accident scenes are major features of the task.

Debt Collection

Debt collection is perhaps the most common feature of the average investigator’s day, as well as being a specialist area requiring essential characteristics of tact, diplomacy and the ability to defend oneself when things go wrong.  

Huge sums of money can be involved, hence this being one time a percentage of the recovery money might be considered in preference to a set hourly rate. 

As always, weigh time and cost against the chance of recovering the money, before deciding whether to accept a set fee, a proportion of money recovered, or a combination of both.  On the plus side there is a huge and growing demand for investigators to chase unpaid debts such as loans and bounced cheques, or to repossess property on which the borrower has defaulted. 

Bailiff work is another major specialty linked to debt collection which can also occupy much of the specialist investigator’s time, along with collecting matrimonial and child support payments which could find you working full-time for courts and government departments. 

As for most aspects of the job there are advantages to specialising, primarily those of becoming an acknowledged expert meaning you can charge higher fees than non-specialist colleagues and develop an extensive database of clients.

Repossessions

Closely linked to collecting debts is the actual repossessing of property, usually but not always, for repayment of debts.

This is a very lucrative area for private investigators and one that requires special skills and abilities, not least of all the need to protect oneself against individuals not wanting to give up their possessions!

Process Serving

Another specialist area for which ongoing work will almost certainly be available to the skilled investigator, the job involves delivering (called ‘serving’) legal documents such as writs, statutory demands, bankruptcy papers and notices to quit premises or repay a debt. 

Solicitors, courts and lending companies, including banks and building societies, are your most likely clients. 

Posting, even by recorded or registered delivery, is not an option.  A reluctant addressee can refuse to accept or sign for his post.  But all you have to do is take the papers, locate the person entitled to them, and just touch that person with the papers to constitute a legal serve after which you make a sworn statement (affidavit) confirming delivery.

These will rarely be the kind of letters people want to receive and many will refuse them, or run away from you, maybe they will fight hard and you could be hurt.  So never push too hard in the face of real danger and always weigh the chance of being hurt against that of actually serving the document.

Matrimonial and Domestic Matters

Often just another feature of everyday surveillance, but one requiring special skills of tact and sympathy, your role will usually be gathering information on behalf of one partner to a relationship against the other. 

Your client will probably be a solicitor who asks you to follow a partner to prove infidelity or support his client’s position in divorce proceedings or for claiming property, children and monies from the relationship.

Lawyers might ask you to check that information provided by their client’s former partner is accurate, such as value of assets belonging to the partnership, or to establish facts about the other party to prove him or her an unfit guardian for children to the relationship. 

Again, this is another area for which demand is growing fast, in line with more marriages failing than ever before, meaning regular work for anyone specialising in matrimonial and domestic matters.

Missing Persons

Some investigators specialize in tracing missing persons as well as others whose whereabouts need to be established for various purposes. 

This latter area includes beneficiaries to a will who are unaware of their entitlement, birth parents of children adopted at birth or soon after, friends and relatives with whom the client has simply lost touch over the years.

Missing Persons is a generic term covering most people whose whereabouts are unknown, including those who willingly abscond, such as debtors, runaways, and such.

Security

Security covers various different tasks from simply guarding valuables to transporting money, minding celebrities and vulnerable clients, inspecting security at locations shortly to host major gatherings, or handling various security matters for clients large and small.

A colleague, himself a private investigator based in London, tells me the majority of his work involves acting as bodyguard to rich and famous individuals. 

Regular, uniquely well-paid work is a virtual certainty, he says, for anyone able to balance the task of safeguarding an individual’s well being against the need to be totally discreet and confidential at all times.

“Get on a client’s good side, get that person to trust and like you”, he says, “and you could find yourself working almost entirely for a handful of celebrities.  Most will recommend you to fellow celebrities so your diary could well be jam-packed with assignments in exciting locations.”

On the down side, he says, this particular work is highly competitive and can also be extremely harrowing and sometimes very dangerous, too.  But if you find your place in this particular field, it’s a job you will enjoy and one that will reward you well.

Inevitably the investigator will sometimes think himself little more than a security guard carrying money between businesses and banks and vice versa.  But as for most aspects of the investigator’s role, prove yourself honest and efficient and most assignments can come from a tiny handful of regular, repeat clients. 

More often, your role will be to monitor employees suspected of pilfering or engaging in dishonest or criminal practices, such as stealing, passing trade secrets to competing companies, planning crimes against the company, and so on. 

Another common feature of the role is checking the background of potential or actual employees as a means of preventing or establishing suitability for employment or promotion.

I recall when working with a motorway services catering company, we suffered a spate of unexplained small fires behind the food storage block.  A private investigator, masquerading as a kitchen porter, found the perpetrator was a disgruntled security guard who had previously served a prison sentence for arson!

Status Reporting

Also called ‘means reporting’, this involves collecting information about a particular subject, individual or group, private or public, with a view to determining their financial situation. 

For example, an insurance company might ask you to assess the economic well-being of a business whose owner is applying for a massive increase in fire cover but whose profits have declined in recent years.  Doubtless you understand the company’s grounds for suspicion?

Surveillance

Surveillence, involving keeping a close eye on another person’s activities, is a task often assigned by insurance companies and government departments, who may ask you to assess the truth of someone’s claim to be unfit for work as a result of a road or work accident. 

For example, a recent television programme featured an investigator following a woman who was claiming many thousands of pounds in damages for back injuries resulting from an accident at work.   Her employer’s suspicions of foul play were confirmed by the investigator’s video film of the lady working part-time  -  as a nightclub belly dancer!

Surveillance also covers the likes of investigating suspicions of employee pilfering, gambling in unlicenced premises, tip-offs relating to drug pushing and badger baiting. 

Most of the time, the investigator’s role is to see without being seen and to gather sufficient facts to prove or disprove a client’s suspicions without alerting the suspect.

Tracing

Tracing involves locating the whereabouts of animate and inanimate objects, more often missing persons and absconding debtors and money fraudsters. 

On the domestic front, you might be asked to trace children who have run away from home or been abducted by kidnappers or members of their own family.

Bear in mind many missing persons and runaways don’t want to be found and will work hard to keep their whereabouts secret.  This makes your job hard and many a hot lead may suddenly turn cold when the absconder realises it’s time to move on.

All the more interesting, however, are people you might be asked to find, who don’t know they are missing, such as heirs to fortunes they know nothing about and the biological parents of children passed for adoption.

Missing persons represents an enormous investigative field, explaining why some operators tackle this area exclusively. 

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