Tag Archive for: investigation
Scratching the Surface: Due Diligence and Public Record Searches
What does it really mean when an investigator says that they are going to do a background search on a person and track down all the relevant documents "on the public record"? Well, let's start with what it doesn't mean: bank documents and cell phone records are not public record. Any investigator who tells you he can track these down for you is ostensibly promising to break more than a couple of laws to get you that information. In addition, given that he's acting as your agent, odds are it could get you in a heap of trouble as well.
So what can you expect instead? Below is a list of the various public documents that you should expect from your investigator when investigating a person. Future blog posts will detail similar lists for background research on companies and for asset searches.
The Key to a Good Interview is Silence
We wrote in our pieces "What Greg Smith and Goldman Sachs Tell Us About Investigations" and "Hiring Due Diligence Should Include an Attitude Check" about how indispensable it is to talk to people during an investigation. No matter how thorough…
JPM, Feynman and Investigations
A superb column over the weekend by the personal investing columnist in the Wall Street Journal, Jason Zweig, "Polishing the Dimon Principle," struck a chord or two with us because of what it said about human knowledge and the occasional lack…
Prevent Corporate Identity Theft: A Consumer’s Checklist
A report on National Public Radio written up here outlines the problem: legitimate businesses are increasingly subject to identity theft. Businesses find imposters are misusing their credit ratings, while there’s serious risk that people…
The Putin Plot and Investigative Timelines
We tell every new client the same thing: when we report on a person we investigate, chronology is critical. Take the New York Times story this week with the headline, “Plot to Kill Putin is Uncovered.” We rushed to read this because…
Fire your accountant, financial advisor and lawyer too?
A thought-provoking column in the Wall Street Journal here that argues in favor of routine changes of auditors got me thinking. If we should change our auditors on the grounds that they get too close to us and are afraid to displease us for…
Talk Isn’t Cheap Even When Offline
A quick reflection on the executive at Allstate, who according to the Wall Street Journal lost his job in part because of profanity-laced comments about a superior to colleagues in a bar. How did the Journal get the story? Not by crawling around…
Flashback: Can you get me someone’s phone records? Hell no!
Following is an entry from our firm's website originally published in September 2009 and, we think, timely.
Plenty of people - even sophisticated lawyers - sometimes ask us in the course of an investigation: “Can you get me his phone or…
