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Sat 3 May, 2003 11:37 am
A friend needs to do a background check on someone. She does not want to get into the expense of hiring a private detective, and has thought about downloading a detective software program.
I had heard that most of them were a rip-off, offering nothing more than what could be accessed without the program on the net (if you know where to look).
Have any of you used any internet detective programs? Did they deliver what they had promised?
I am curious about this also. A friend just took a course (3 hours) for bounty hunting. He got his badge for perhaps $50, but, to take any cases he would have to have two years of law, plus do a number of things, like get insurance, bonded - totalling perhaps $10,000. Being a poor man, he gave up.
I don't know, Phoenix. If they work as indicated, it would be worth a few bucks. They are basically selling knowledge, which is marketable, so it depends on price and whether the usability is up to the advertising.
Know what you mean, Edgar. For roughly the same price you used to be able to get a piece of paper proclaiming yourself to be a bishop in the church of universal life, or something like that. A few optimists bought into it, donated their entire salary to the church and claimed a zero tax liability. We had one in our town who was successfully prosecuted for tax fraud, which is a criminal violation, of course.
They are a waste. They'll toss in a traceroute or something and make people feel clever when they do a whois on some IP.
They basically just search the net for the person, many times you can just Google the name with better results.
The name and address of the person is known. The information that is needed is criminal background, if any, liens, judgments, etc. Any ideas?
Save your money to buy the record. I think it's about $30 bucks. I'm not sure if getting someone else's credit report is legal but I bet it is easy.
Phoenix, it's a waste.
A friend of mine bought the Net Detective, and what it does is give you the same information you can find yourself on the net, such as, resources, names and addresses of licensing bureaus and other official addresses. If you enter a phone number, it will give you "reverse phone number" information, which you can get anywhere.
What they are selling is the name and address of the place you can write to for the information you are seeking.
If you request criminal information on someone, it will supply you with the name and address of the courthouse in the city where the individual lives.
There's no such thing as a free lunch!
I think that I get the picture. It is exactly what I had thought. I am going to tell the person that she has to hire a private eye if she wants to get the info. that she needs. Thanks, everybody!
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