Friday, July 21, 2006

One Persons View of What A Private Investigator Must Be to be Legit?


Today we received a copy of a post that was made on a YAHOO board that is designed to serve the Private Investigation Community, of which we belong as a company.

This is not our view, but the view of the individual, that we thought you might find "intriguing"

Hello Professionals,

For Your Information: "Private detective " means a person who conducts a private business with or without the assistance of an employee. "Private detective business" means the business of : (A) making for hire or reward, investigation or investigations for the purpose of obtaining information with reference to: (i) a crime against the state or wrongs done or threatened; (ii) the habits, conduct, movements, whereabouts, association, transactions, reputation, or character of a person; (iii) credibility of witnesses or other persons; (iv) the location or recovery of lost or stolen property; (v) the causes, origin, or responsibilty for fires or accidents or injuries to real or personal property; or (vi) the truth or falsity of a statement or representation; (B) securing, for hire or rewards, evidence to be used for authorized investigation committees or boards of award or arbitration or in the trial of civil or criminal cases; or (C) furnishing, for hire or reward, a guard or guards or other persons to protect persons or property or to prevent the misappropriation or concealment of goods, wares and merchandise, money, bonds, stocks, choses in action, notes, or other valuable documents or papers. Necessity of license It shall unlawful for a person, partnership or corporation to engage in the business of private dectective, or to solicit or advertise for business as a private detective, or represent or hold the person, partnership, or corporation out to be a private detective unless the person, partnership, or corporation is licensed under this chapter (IC 25-30-1-3) and complies with this chapter and rules adopted under this chapter.

There are exceptions of perons not needing to be licensed - A law enforcement officer, a licensed collection agency, a person primarily engaged in the business of furnishing information for:
(B) insurance purposes; including a consumer reporting agency as defined by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. There are many more exceptions but too numerous to include.

The term "collection agency" means and includes all persons engaging directly or indirectly and as a primary or secondary object, business, or pursuit, in SOLICITING claims for collection, or in the collection of claims owed or due or asserted to be owed or due to ANOTHER, including child support arrearages.

IC 25-11-1-1 Unlawful acts: It is unlawful for any person to conduct, within this state a collection agency without first having applied for and obtained a license under the provisions of this chapter. IC 25-11-1-7 Sec. 7. (a) Many persons are in the business of judgment recovery without a license to collect. They are led to believe that they do not need one because the judgment is assigned to them. But they actually SOLICIT (to approach with a request or plea) to aquire the judgment.

And then pay the former judgement holder a percentage of what is recovered. If you are operating a business without a license, go get one. If you can't get one, get out of the business. It is a matter of ethics (the discipline dealing with what is good and bad and with moral duty and obligation). Don't let the $ dollar bill rule you.

For the private investigators and information sellers that are afraid to stand up for the abilty to utilize tools to conduct business. You can't let your fears control you. Even if you are guilty of misconduct. Did the Mexican community in the US let fear stop them from rallying for what they wanted? NO. And the illegals were not arrested."

It's a pleasure to serve you.

Name Witheld at Investigators Request as of 7-21-2006

Your Comments and Feedback are Welcome

Robert Paisola, CEO, Western Capital

robert@mycollector.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For all of the group subscribers on this and the many other lists
that have been following the recent postings regarding our need to
take a stand and speak out about the many changes that will be
occurring in the future that will severely impact our profession as a
whole, there is a "grass-roots" movement being supported by members
of these very same lists that have expressed their concerns about
where these future changes are going to go and how they will greatly
affect this profession in the future. The groups of concerned
individuals are not those that have a reputation of being "rouge"
or "renegade" investigators and they operate very legitimate and
reputable investigative businesses and they are willing to step up
and have their voices heard.

Therefore, it is time for everyone to not only look to the future of
your business but imagine what it would be like to not be able to
help your client's when all else fails them due to the lack of
insufficient resources. If you're in agreement with at least having
your voice heard, then I must encourage all of you to get involved.

I am not a "rouge" or "renegade" investigator and very seldom do I
even post to the many lists that I subscribe to and I do not usually
make it a point to get involved in any of the politics, but this is
something that not only myself but others are very concerned with and
have been throughout the years. Essentially, we will all be required
to maintain our licenses and pay those fee's, pay for our bonds and
required to pay for our insurance coverage's and yet, we will have no
additional resources available to us than the average public
citizen. So if we do not stand together and make some sort of
attempt at preserving some access to records that inevitably allow us
to continue helping our client's, we will be nothing more than the
typical public citizen except we'll be paying for the privilege of
being treated no differently.

This is about all that I can say in my attempt to get all of you
involved. At least if we let our voices be heard and nothing changes
the decision process, we can at least look back and say that we tried
rather than we should have tried to do something. Because if these
changes are put into effect without all of us at least trying to
possibly convince those on the committee empowered to do so, we will
never be successful at getting these changes reversed in the future.

Sincerely,

John R. Spencer
President/ Investigator

John R. Spencer Investigations
CALPI, NCISS, NAIS, CIPI, CIDA, PIConnect, Board of
Directors - Investigator's of America

Connecticut's Premier Investigative Services -
Providing Investigative Services Throughout the State

"We Aren't in Competition, We Are the Competition"

CT License I-1086

Office: (800) 873-8884
Fax: (860) 429-8559

Email: ctprivateye@charter.net
Web Site: http://www.ctprivateye.com

Anonymous said...

John:
There is a link below posted that includes all of the members of the energy & commerce committee. Thanks, David for researching and presenting that info.
Lori Wilkins, LPI
Southeastern Research & Investigations, LLC
3820 East Britt David Rd.
Columbus, GA 31909
PDE046353
(706) 653-5397
seirs@bellsouth.net
www.seripi.com
----- Original Message -----
From: David Branch
To: tracer@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 4:05 PM
Subject: RE: [tracer] Phone Records - Response Part 2


I called and spoke with Lori before making this post as I believe what
she was saying is correct and personally feel we must make a united
stand against Congress and laws limiting our tools and abilities as
legitimate business people. I too, have researched, and found no pending
talk nor push for a bill restricting this issue. I have a close friend
who was one of those severed a subpoena by a US Marshall to "appear and
produce" his records for the last five years. When he took the time to
go to DC, as demanded, he was held in an office for 2 hours, copies were
made of his info and he was told to leave the Rayburn House. When he
pushed the issue to speak to someone on the committee, he was escorted
out by the Capitol Police.

Back to the issue... Several others, Lori and I believe that now is the
time for us, as a group, let Congress know what our positions are and
why we do what we do. I suggest we get four members to draft a generic
form that we can all print and email and snail mail every member of the
E&C Commission.
HERE IS A LIST OF ALL MEMBERS: www.repospotter.com/conmem.htm that we
need to send these letters to.

Let's get four members to draft the letter and then flood the powers
that be with these letters to show the difference between our profession
and those that just might be "stalkers, home breakers, journalists or
worse."

I volunteer to be the first of the four.


David James Branch
Branch and Associates
2600 Price Acres Rd.
Reidsville, NC 27320
336-342-7515 Office
530-348-7587 Fax/Data