What Private Investigators DON’T Do
As we’ve posted recently, L.A. private investigators offer a wide array of services from secret shopping a business to searching for missing persons or investigating a wrongful death. Sometimes, however, it’s just as important to understand what California private investigators DON’T do. Unfortunately, there are “services” that Los Angeles detective agencies cannot offer for legal logistical, or ethical reasons. And while we DO have an impressive amount of training and tools, it’s important to keep in mind, we’re not mind-readers, magicians, or accessories for circumventing the legitimate ways that law-abiding people protect themselves and their privacy. Take some of the following examples.
A Woman Who Doesn’t Give Her Number is NOT a “Missing Person” in Los Angeles
Recently, we’ve gotten a lot of inquiries from people hoping we can help them find someone they only met once and can’t really give us any identifiable information about. The conversation might go something like this:
Caller: Hi, I was wondering if you could help me find someone. I met a woman at a club a few nights ago. She told me she was visiting the U.S. for the first time. We met up the day after, and I took her out to dinner. I bought her flowers and a necklace from a sidewalk stand. I spent a lot of money, and I thought we had a great time, but she never gave me her number, and she hasn’t called.
Kinsey Investigations: What’s her name?
Caller: Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know if she was honest with me. She told me her name was Mai Ling. I’m not sure if that’s “Mai” spelled M-A-I or M-E-I. Come to think of it, I also don’t know if Ling is her last name or part of her first name.
Kinsey Investigations: How old was she?
Caller: She said she was 29, but she looked younger. I’m bad at guessing ages. She probably could’ve been anywhere between 23 and 33.
Kinsey Investigations: What country did she say she was visiting from?
Caller: China, I think, or was it Taiwan? I’m really hoping to find her before she leaves. Can you help me?
Kinsey Investigations: No, You don’t know her name. You don’t know her age. She may or may not be a U.S. citizen, and if not, you’re not sure what country she’s from.
It will come as no surprise that in cases like these, nearly all the callers are men. Let us solve this one for all you gentlemen, once and for all: If a woman doesn’t call you, it’s NOT because she wants you to hire a detective to find her. As our female private investigators know from the same life experiences that most women have, when a woman doesn’t call you, it’s because she doesn’t want to see you again. Kinsey Investigations is also not in the business of assisting anyone with illegal stalking. Of course, it’s not only those who’ve been ghosted who come to Los Angeles County investigators with so little information that we cannot help them.
We also get a lot of calls about cell phone forensics that, for legal and/or logistical reasons, we cannot offer meaningful help. A caller may ask if we can trace a text or call they received from an unknown number or even worse from a Google Voice number. Unfortunately, the days of easily tracing phone calls are decades in the past. Scammers, telemarketers, and even average, everyday people who just want to keep their contact information private have many easy avenues (some more legal than others) for withholding, masking, or otherwise concealing their real number.
Another common inquiry about cell phones involves parents or people who suspect their spouse of cheating who are hoping we can extract data from a phone or other digital device without physically accessing it. Unfortunately, without access to the device itself, there’s very little, if anything, a California private investigator can do. Our state’s strict privacy laws mean we also must be very mindful about confiscating devices. It depends on many specific factors of the case as to whether we’re legally able to do so.
Don’t Wait; Call the Best Los Angeles Investigator
Finally, and sometimes most unfortunately, we cannot make up for lost time. We get calls of all kinds from people who have waited to call a Los Angeles private detective agency or have begun working with one of our competitors. By the time they call us, precious days or weeks in their case have already gone by. From delayed process service of legal documents pushing back their court dates to cases of persons missing for days or weeks already, these sometimes turn into the cases that tug the hardest on our heartstrings. A person who’s already been missing for several days or longer is almost certainly more endangered than when they first disappeared. We give these cases our best efforts, and we have our fair share of success stories and happy (if overdue) endings for them. Sadly, no private investigator has the ability to turn back time, and the days, weeks, or more that you wait to call us will almost certainly make it more complicated for us to deliver the outcome you’re hoping for.
Call Kinsey Investigations when you need the best private detective in L.A. Call us as soon as you realize you need private investigations services, and call us first!
