Has anyone ever used a Private Investigator?

[EnglishRain]

If so, are there any dos and dont's?

Did it cost more than you expected?

Did you get the result you wanted?

yes, no I didn't get the information I wanted, didn't get any information I couldn't have got for myself

Yes this week actually. I got an address that I needed, it was quick and cost £152.

My now ex ils hired one to see if I had been cheating on their ds and that was why I filed for divorce... Couldn't possibly be due to him drink driving and nearly killing us...
As time went on their 'employee' did see me have a man round. And saw we had a very civilised take away. They dug some dirt on him and if they had cared a jot about their dgc they would surely have showed me? They didn't and I fell from one bad man to another after the divorce..

If you want to know where someone is when they're not with you then just put a tracker on their car its a lot cheaper than a PI.

Oh this is exactly why I need!!

Conscious it may sound really shady. I only had a phone number and an email contact for a family member. The phone doesn't work and I am not getting replies to emails, but I know their spouse was in charge of emails and suspect they may delete ones from me.

Did you do all you could to find the address, and did the PI have access to stuff you couldn't?

Dont do this. It happened to me and it traumatised me.

Sorry you had no luck @Nimbostratus100 

Gosh that's awful @Bunnyishotandcross I don't think I could be a PI doing things like that!

@Chowtime @Hotvimto3 I just want to find somebody and send them a letter with my contact details saying I would like contact, nothing sinister.

This si exactly why you hire one. Thy know what is legal and what isn't!

There are also two things I really want to tell this person that I know they wanted to know. And I want to be sure that they do know.

@Bunnyishotandcross

That's dispicable. I've often wondered if my in laws would to do this or even hire a hit man but they are too tight.

If it had come from a place of concern for our small dc then fair enough but they just wanted me to take the blame for our divorce...
Karma sadly came when ex tried to punch his own dm in the face on her own doorstep..

Yes. Didn't find out anything more than we already knew about my siblings very dodgy boss. The boss was hiding his assets so we hired a private investigator to try and follow him, to see what he owned and if he was running another business.
He basically got away with murder

There is a key point here. Since 2018 GDPR has become a game changer.

Before then, it would have been possible to access a wider range of info including professional risks, qualifications and health data which could be a 'full package' bought for about £2,500. One would wait about 6-10 weeks and the results would be given in a phone call. Never in writing. The information could always be corroborated because the PI would have such a range of info at least one or two sundry pieces the payer would already know, eg 'Sarah had a hernia operation in 2002'. This would then add some credence to the rest of the info. A good PI if they found nothing would not dwell and add 2 plus 2 to make 5. They would simply say "Sarah is clean. No disciplinary. No sackings. No STDs. Only one divorce, got £400k. And the hernia."

But GDPR has changed all this and the inside info (yes the info was bought from insiders in the NHS and the IR) has dried up. With physical monitoring, the costs could easily reach £30,000 every three months. People on rotas, but that is at the rich end.

These days, forget paying £152 for an address. You can get that for less online. Anything deeper, well the organisation that holds that data risks losing everything if there is a systematic 'breach' of data. The GDPR fines can be enormous and if it is systematic then it is a criminal offence to allow data to be leaked. Waste of money engaging a PI, likely a scam. You can find simple stuff on SM.

@Zuffe do you mean social media by SM? This person doesn't have it. There are not easy means for a normal person to trace them, trust me I have tried.

I have considered reporting them as a missing person. They are a vulnerable adult but do not view themselves as such. There was one person linking us but they have died, and the one phone number I had doesn't work.

I am being dense as overtired, I meant requesting a welfare check. Not reporting as missing!

No, I almost did but then I paid for ancestry and 192 or whatever and discovered the woman stalking me isn't a member of the aristocracy at all. She's likely an escort from a rough part of my home town.

Material difference? No. For the lols? Yes.

as an aside, I discovered her mother is a ROLLERCOASTER.

Cant wait to share this with the police. It's been utterly hilarious.

Yes I tried weeks of internet/Facebook sleuthing. Companies house, planning applications etc. Usual stalker tactics, I needed it for litigation.

@MrsMorton , you speak in riddles

Oh dear. Yes I see that!

Im being stalked by a woman who claims to be an aristocrat. Fortunately, she's an absolute hound for attention and has an unusual first name. Found her in the local paper, subsequently on ancestry.co.uk and on 192.com which revealed her mother is a dominatrix (another press article), she is a glamour model (old social media posts) and the big house she posts on instagram is somewhere she lived for a year over a decade ago. Hopefully the police will take me seriously now I can show she's not the daughter of a duke.

Who needs private investigators.

Her mother is a "Rollercoaster"??????

Reading about her mother is a rollercoaster ride. Very colourful life. Definitely not an aristocrat

No, but I have worked as a honey trap which isn't too dissimilar!