Have you ever hired a private detective?

uh oh, has mr. b been a naughty boy

Yes. There are effective. Wether it's for personal or business affairs. The costs are considerable. But--if trying to find if an employee is defrauding you, the cost will even out.

Did this when I worked in insurance but I don't recall much about details. I knew a gal who used to go to homes and pretend to be the Avon Lady as her cover.

Now there's a book idea..


Adds to Boomer, I've no experience with that, except from reading the odd procedural type book or two or a thousand. This is my way of saying I'll follow this thread.

If you happen to have a regular lawyer, he/she should be a good source for a referral. If you do engage a detective, make it clear that you want detailed reports, sent to you, and no one else.

Mr. B has not been naughty!

I think I mentioned on another thread that I recently found out that Mo has a half brother and I'm thinking of trying to find out about him. I know his father's full name, his mother's first name, the kid's first name, his approximate age, and maybe where he was born. I'm thinking that would be a lot of information for someone to start with.

I thought about just trying to find them myself but I'd kind of like some background info on them first -- something more than I could dig up on my own. It seems the child's mother will not allow the father or his family any contact so they are really in the dark. Even if I found them, and found out about them, I'm not at all certain that I would try to contact them. I might just file the info away to give to Mo at some later date and let him decide what he wants to do with it.

I've been thinking about it a lot over the last few days because we really had a Mo's bio-family Christmas this year. He's really thriving with having all of these people back in his life, especially his half sisters -- seeing their relationship blossom kind of makes me want to find out about the half-brother.

I'm just tossing around the idea right now but wondering what I'd be getting into by hiring a detective.

What do you deem "considerable"? $500? $1,000? $5,000?

We hired a private investigator on one occasion. When our son was a senior in high school, his car was vandalized for two days in a row in the student parking lot. We hired a private investigator for a day to "stake out" the parking lot, thinking it would happen a third time. It didn't. We were livid, so it was worth the $500 cost. We called a company that hired retired police officers as investigators.

I'm so sorry that happened to your son. People can be so awful. Did you ever find out who was responsible for messing with his car?

It was $500 for watching the parking lot for one day? That seems really expensive.

I think they generally expect a retainer and add up charges depending on level of difficulty. Costs vary from agency to agency. The best thing to do is hire an agency which lists this particular service....more experience would produce likely results. How old is Mo? When going to the initial interview hand them a typed record of everything you know.

Mo will be 14 in a couple of weeks.

Is the initial consultation typically free? Would they give me an estimate of fees? Are the estimates usually close to what the actual cost ends up being?

Not officially, boomerang, but we had made an educated guess before we hired him and were hoping for confirmation.

Eight hours for $500, so a little over $60 an hour. Not overpriced, I don't think, for that kind of thing.

Social services or an adoption agency might help you find the right type
of private detective. I am sure there are tons of adoptees or bio parents asking for such services on a daily basis.

yes...it's typically free and they'll promise you the moon...but--have a couple of thousand to spare....