Private Investigation again!

Location? Era? Skill level of the investigator?

Yes, time and place are necessary. Things have changed a little in the last few decades.

Foolonthehill said:

Which means would they generally use to track someone down?

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Skip tracing. Google it.

Jeff

Is the PI going to break the law?

There is a lot they can do with strictly legal means and some of the older techniques, such as trying to access that person's info under false pretenses, are now illegal under many jurisdictions.

If it's just a "run of the mill" case, is your PI willing to risk his license or criminal charges by breaking the law in the investigation?

Decide how ethical your PI is and how concerned they are with the law. That's something you should probably know about their character anyway.

As to accessing phone records, etc., is there anyone else on those accounts, like a spouse or parent, who can legally grant access?

Who hired the PI and does that person have access to the missing person's stuff? If it's like, a wife looking for her husband and his computer is in the house, then that's an easy - 'here, can you find anything from this?'

If it's someone looking for someone for whom they have no access to the person's things, or the cops have the things for some reason, that's an entirely different story.

Also, in general, read some Spenser - he's been looking for missing people for 30-odd years, and changed his approaches with technology, though good, old-fashioned footwork always wins in the end.

Foolonthehill said:

Ok, so I have this private investigator looking into a missing person/s case. Which means would they generally use to track someone down? To look into their pasts? Would they be able to somehow hack into the missing person's computer and bank movements and phone printouts even if this is a police case as well?
Any tips and tricks?
I have a hacker on the side which might come in useful.
Thanks!

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These days PI's use the internet tools that are available. I don't know what people searches are available for Italy, but there are phone look-ups, cell phone directories, and plain people finders, such as radaris.com. The best information requires payment, and I would expect that PI's would shell out for the information.

Getting phone and bank records would mean that the PI had a friend with the phone company and the bank respectively; such companies are not ready to give information,because they could be sued for doing so, and I believe that Itlay has good privacy laws.

If you want to have a hacker hack into some records, then do that, because the police wouldn't gibve anything away. But I think that old "former lover working for the phone company" works as well as anything, and it is believable.

The current phone hacking scandal is all about journalists finding the PIN number to unlock the answerphone messages on someone's mobile phone, and their friends' phones.