Fine Lines...

I am often asked how I stay on the right side of an investigation and it is usually a hard thing to do. While working in this business you are sure to run across some people that definitely are not using the information uncovered from your investigation for positive goals. I have seen drug dealers calling for bug sweeps, mentally challenged individuals that insist that they are being bugged and wives that were certain their husbands were cheating even though we did not find evidence of it during our investigation.

When you hire a PI you are really just hiring us to observe and report. As an individual you cannot do this because you could be charged with stalking or loitering. PI's have a fine set of rules that they must follow to stay on the right side of the law. Any PI that ventures over that line is subjecting themselves to legal heartache and the possibility of losing their PI license.

Part of being a PI is having a good sense of what is going on around you and picking up on things that others may miss or not see the first time that it presents itself. I have worked fraud cases in the millions of dollars and cases as small as a single day of surveillance for barely peanuts and what I have learned is that in PI work there is a fine line between working and surviving. I get ask all the time why my rates are so high. The response is usually something to the order of do you realize how expensive being in this business and being successful really cost? It cost plenty in time away from home, long hours in hot vehicles, and the list goes on and on. There is also that line between working too much and not spending time with family that can be hard (and may end your marriage).

Everything in this business is a fine line and one or two steps too many and things are out of balance. Remember that lady earlier in the post? She was right. Her husband was cheating on her but it did not turn out as she expected...