Hiring a private investigator is a serious decision, almost always made during challenging or stressful times. When you want to ensure that the investigator you hire is capable of delivering reliable and admissible evidence. However, something we see many investigators talking about, but very few NON-investigators talking about, is whats the client’s job once a PI has been hired. So! Today we’re going to have a quick chat about what roles the client has to play after hiring a PI.
1. Avoid Confronting The Subject Of The Investigation
As already stated, those in search of a private investigator are typically already under a significant amount of stress. This is particularly true for those needing help with a personal matter. With emotions charged and so much happening at once, it can be hard to plan your next steps. Unfortunately, one of the paths we see people take the most often is the path of confrontation. Oftentimes, the Need-To-Know combines with the hope that there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation for what’s been discovered. On the positive side, we have client’s who will approach the issue head on eager to hear a simple explanation to ease their minds. More negatively, a client may already be sure they know what’s going on and confront immediately, demanding an explanation.
More than once, we’ve even had clients tell us that they threatened the second subject with hiring a PI who would get proof that someone was lying! Here’s the thing; and we can’t stress this enough…don’t do this. Even though the urge to confront can feel overwhelming, it is and almost always will be, self harming. When a client gives in to the urge to confront, more often than not what we see is any evidence that was there to find, suddenly disappears. Many refer to this as “going-underground”. Simply put, a subject that would have been fairly oblivious and easy to investigate, is now aware they’re being investigated and is actively taking pains to hide their activities.
2. Avoid Drawing Unnecessary Attention
Discretion is key in private investigation. This goes for both the investigator AND the client. While you don’t want to directly confront the subject of your investigation, if possible, also avoid withdrawing. Obviously, this can be quite difficult, and for some situations and people more than others. But ideally, during the course of the investigation clients should strive to keep their cards as close to the vest as possible. Maintain your regular habits and activities or, if that’s not possible, have a solid excuse for why you can’t.
3. Avoid Engaging In Illegal Activities
This is one of the best possible reasons to hire a private investigator. Over the course of any investigation, you’ll almost inevitably run up against an idea or a plan which may run afoul of the law. Placing a tracker on a vehicle for example, is an easy enough activity that may very well get some answers. Why hire a PI when an Apple Airtag costs less than a tank of gas and can be purchased on Amazon? Because more often than not, use of an Airtag, or any other tracker used like this, is illegal.
The best case scenario is that your evidence will be tossed out. The worst case scenario may end with you facing significant legal consequences. And this trend continues across virtually all avenues of an investigation. The average person, no matter how intelligent, may run afoul of the law when they choose to investigate independently.
4. Avoid Making Assumptions
Solid evidence is king, not assumptions or guesses. Anyone, either an investigator or a client, jumping to conclusions without corroborating their findings, can lead to incorrect or biased reports. Make sure your investigation is thorough and bases conclusions on verified information.
5. Avoid Relying on a Single Source
Relying solely on one source of information may provide incomplete or misleading results. A reliable investigator will cross-check details from multiple sources to ensure accuracy, giving you a more comprehensive understanding of the situation. As a client, hiring a PI will give you one additional unbiased source to find or confirm information, who in turn has even more information sources of their own.
6. Avoid Sharing the Secret
Confidentiality is critical in private investigations, the more people who know what is happening, the greater the odds that the subject being investigated finds out they’ve been caught. People who know they’re caught become unpredictable and tend to being hiding or destroying valuable evidence. Benjamin Franklin famously said, “Three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead”. He was right.
8. Avoid Interfering with the Investigation
Perhaps the best part of hiring a PI is you now have a professional to do the heavy lifting for you. Put differently, the investigator is now going to do most or all of the work. Emphasis on the most or all part. We once realized a client had hired us to surveil a subject, which was perfect, we were eager to help. We later also realized that same client had shown up on site in secret and was also following the subject in question, then asking what the investigators were doing or not doing certain things. This is less perfect….much less perfect.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the right private investigator is essential to getting the evidence you need while protecting your interests. Letting the investigator do the job you’ve hired them to do is just as essential. Waiting for an investigation to conclude can be as difficult as it is essential. However, by letting the investigation play out in it’s own time and cooperating with the investigator, you can ensure the highest odds of getting a successful outcome for your case.