background checking/stalking

lexxi

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Someone has been investigating my character, finding out as much as she can about him without asking him directly.

She has made internet searches, talked to at least one of his old friends, broken into his personnel file at work which means she knows his social security number, etc. (He's American -- she isn't, but is currently in the US for the summer.)

What else can she do that will leave a trace?

If she runs a credit check on him, will he be notified?
 

Vaguely Piratical

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You need someone's permission, in writing, to run a credit check. But you have to produce it upfront for reputable providers. They don't contact the person after on the theory they know about.

If you want her to be caught the friend can mention it.
 

PinkAmy

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You need someone's permission, in writing, to run a credit check. But you have to produce it upfront for reputable providers. They don't contact the person after on the theory they know about.

If you want her to be caught the friend can mention it.

Actually this isn't accurate. You can do a credit for someone else online if you've got the right information, like social security number by just claiming to be the person. It's not legal, but neither is stalking :D. You just have to use your address or a PO box. But, this is high risk because the victim can find out by doing their own credit check and finding out they've used up their free checks or that they have credit checks that are dragging down their score.
 

lexxi

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She does have his SSN and other info, so she could do that.

But he's not going to be checking his own credit immediately, so he wouldn't know, which doesn't serve my purpose.

Basically, what I want is a hint that someone is investigating/stalking him.

And she's not trying to steal his identity or his money or anything like that. She just wants to know enough about him to know whether she wants to initiate a relationship (no, not that kind).

So what else could she do that will leave traces?
 

Steve Collins

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How about surveillance that goes wrong and he knows he is being watched? As far as the credit check there are companies out there that monitor your identity security and will inform you should an unauthorised check be made.
 

lexxi

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As far as the credit check there are companies out there that monitor your identity security and will inform you should an unauthorised check be made.

So I need to figure out why he would have signed up for such a service. He's been mostly unemployed for 3 years and his only asset is half ownership in a desirable apartment that he rents out for income.
 

Puma

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Does he travel? Has he by any chance missed a flight or not shown up when he was expected? In other words, could she check with an airline to make sure he had a ticket when he didn't show up? She'd have to know a bit about him like birthdate and home address. (And before you tell me it's impossible to do this, it's not. You have to be glib and have a reasonable reason for doing it.)

But, with something like this you'd have security cameras at the airport that would record her; or, if she checked by phone, I'd imagine phone calls are recorded. Puma
 

glutton

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If she hacks into his email account and reads some of his newer emails, he would notice them being marked as "read" even though he never read them. It would be kind of a stupid mistake on her part though. Also, I'm not sure if any email providers still let you do this, but in the old days you could get into someone's account by knowing the answer to their secret question and saying you forgot the password... this would change their password though so they would likely figure out they got hacked. Nowadays I sometimes see friends posting on facebook that another friend of theirs hacked their account, so I guess similar things are still possible on some sites? Or she could get caught communicating with the guy using a fake account pretending to be someone he knows...
 

Vaguely Piratical

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Actually this isn't accurate. You can do a credit for someone else online if you've got the right information, like social security number by just claiming to be the person. It's not legal, but neither is stalking :D. You just have to use your address or a PO box. But, this is high risk because the victim can find out by doing their own credit check and finding out they've used up their free checks or that they have credit checks that are dragging down their score.

Yes, you can pretend to be the person and get a credit report online. Normally you need to be able to answer a couple more questions than just social (former legal residences, first car registered in their name) that are part of public record, but obscure to get a first person credit check.

I didn't think that was the question. To get a company to run a third party credit check, you need written permission. They don't inform that person after.

or that they have credit checks that are dragging down their score.

First person credit checks are soft inquiries. They don't effect your score.
 
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Steve Collins

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How about he opens up a Facebook account and his old friend that was approached by her is on there. They get talking and he lets it drop that she was asking about him?
 

Rowan

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So I need to figure out why he would have signed up for such a service. He's been mostly unemployed for 3 years and his only asset is half ownership in a desirable apartment that he rents out for income.

That should be fairly easy. A couple of years ago, I received notification from a company working on behalf of (Company) student loans advising me that personal information had been compromised. (And this was for a loan I had ages ago!) Everyone received a free year of credit monitoring. So, if he's been to college and incurred student loans, you could use this example. If not, use any credit line he has and tweak it to suit your purposes. I received e-mail alerts when anyone ran my credit (I sold and bought a house during that time period and that resulted in a lot of queries)!

Best of luck! :)
 
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sonyablue

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Someone has been investigating my character, finding out as much as she can about him without asking him directly.

She has made internet searches, talked to at least one of his old friends, broken into his personnel file at work which means she knows his social security number, etc. (He's American -- she isn't, but is currently in the US for the summer.)

What else can she do that will leave a trace?

If she runs a credit check on him, will he be notified?

If she has hacked into his Facebook, for example, it would show his friends that he is online at a particular time when in fact maybe he's working or sleeping or something. That's one thought.
 

Ray H

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Someone has been investigating my character, finding out as much as she can about him without asking him directly.

She has made internet searches, talked to at least one of his old friends, broken into his personnel file at work which means she knows his social security number, etc. (He's American -- she isn't, but is currently in the US for the summer.)

What else can she do that will leave a trace?

If she runs a credit check on him, will he be notified?

If your MC uses gmail, then he could see that his email is being opened in another location. In gmail, they have that security feature to show where your email is being opened. This would alert him that someone was looking into his email from a different computer.
 

glutton

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If she has hacked into his Facebook, for example, it would show his friends that he is online at a particular time when in fact maybe he's working or sleeping or something. That's one thought.

You can hide yourself from your friends while online on Facebook though, and any smart stalker would... :D
 

Anaximander

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Deep-web searches like pipl and peekyou will find social networking sites, and from there you can monitor activity to see what they're up to, who they're talking to etc. Another possibility would be to make an account on something like Facebook under a false name and add a bunch of the person's friends, maybe say you're a friend of a friend or some obscure friend's sibling or something, and then you can see a little more because you fall into Facebook's "friends of friends" category rather than just being shown the "visible to everyone" stuff. The person in question wouldn't know because you haven't added them as a friend, just their friends, so there won't be any suspicious names in their friends list.

Depending on how tech-savvy your stalker is, there are also more advanced methods that involve snooping on their internet connection. If the target uses a wireless internet connection, that connection can be broken into (how easy this is depends on how well they've set up the security; could take anything from minutes to weeks) and your stalker can watch more or less everything the target does online with what's known as a man-in-the-middle attack. Basically, the stalker tricks the target's computer into sending everything to the stalker's computer, instead of to the wireless access point they'd normally use. The stalker then sets his computer to pass it on to the wireless access point so that neither the access point nor the target notice, and vice versa, everything from the access point goes to the stalker, who passes it on to the target. On the way through, though, everything is copied onto the stalker's computer, so the stalker can decode it and read through to see everything the target is doing online. This kind of attack usually goes after logins and bank details, but it can be used to find anything in the target's internet usage that interests you.

If the target is on a wired connection, it's somewhat harder, but it's still possible to grab their internet traffic - it just involves messing about with any switches and routers they're connected to so that their traffic gets forwarded to somewhere that the stalker can see it and take copies.