Infidelity: Nine Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before Hiring a Private Eye to Spy
You think your spouse is cheating and you want to hire a private investigator to find out. Before you do, here are nine questions you should consider before hiring someone to follow your spouse.
1. What does your lawyer think?
The number one reason people go to private investigators is suspicion a spouse is cheating. But, do so with the full knowledge of your lawyer. You certainly don’t want to hire a P. I. to do surveillance, conduct covert activities of any kind or take videotape footage of someone, even in a public place, without first consulting your counselor. “To do so outside the advice of your lawyer might prove disastrous to your interests in the case,” said James M. Larson, president of Beacon Investigative Services in Marshfield, Massachusetts.
2. Are they licensed?
Most states license and regulate private investigators through a state agency, such as the Secretary of State, the Department of Justice or the Department of Consumer Affairs. Requirements vary widely. In California, private investigators have to show proof of 6,000 hours of employed experience and pass an exam. In Washington DC, all they have to do is submit the paperwork, pay their fees, and pass a background check”no prior experience required. There is no P.I. licensing requirement in Alaska, although some cities, such as Fairbanks, have their own licensing requirements and a state business license is required to operate any business in Alaska. Colorado, Idaho, and Mississippi do not require licenses. In South Dakota, there is no P. I. license but a business license through the Department of Revenue is required. Wyoming regulates its private investigators by local jurisdictions. Locate the agency that regulates Private Investigators in your area.
3. What experience do they have investigating infidelity?
This is your marriage, don’t trust it to a rookie. Ask what specific training or experience they’ve had.
4.Will the investigation be conducted using only legal surveillance methods?
A gumshoe trespassing on private property and peeking through windows is the stuff of Hollywood. Ethical investigators will not break or even bend the law to obtain evidence illegally. It’s generally illegal to obtain account information from financial institutions without the owner’s permission. Depending on the state, it may be illegal to tape conversations without permission of the other party. It’s important to make sure that your private eye will engage in only legal activities because you could be liable for a lawsuit from your soon-to-be ex or her paramour if an investigator engages in illegal practices on your behalf. This site gives surveillance laws for all 50 states.
5. Exactly what do I want to know?
The type of information you want gathered will determine the length and scope of the surveillance as well as its cost. While proving that a spouse has had an affair may be a bargaining chip at the divorce table, most states have moved away from fault” in determining divorce settlements. Even in those states where adultery and other marital misconduct can have an impact on the financial settlement, the impact is often less than people think. “If you imagine your divorce as a hypothetical 55/45 split, for example, maybe rock solid evidence of an affair would shift the financial settlement by 10-15 percent,” said Lee Borden, a lawyer and divorce mediator based in Birmingham, Ala. So, it may not be necessary to torture yourself with detailed (and expensive) information such as names of the little weasels, all the addresses where the dirty deeds took place, the amount of money he spent on her that he should have spent on you, videotapes, audiotapes, etc. It may be enough just to determine whether your spouse is cheating. If so, a stake-out with photos of the louse hanging all over the home wrecker or entering a room at the no-tell-motel with her draped on his arm may give you all the evidence you need.
6. What kind of evidence will I be given?
This is closely related to question three. Evidence can include video and audiotapes, photographs, copies of documents and receipts. Find out if videotapes and photographs will be time and date stamped. Also, private investigators must provide their clients with written or verbal case reports once payment has been made. Get the details of what will be provided in writing.
7. Do they provide forensic data recovery services?
“The single most important step you can take if you suspect your spouse is having an affair is to protect the data on his or her personal computer(s),” said Borden. That computer is a treasure trove of information about websites visited, messages sent and received, files downloaded, and chat rooms entered. “If you suspect the behavior is ongoing, you may consider installing some kind of keylogging software that will capture every keystroke your spouse types,” said Borden. “This may be the only way to preserve instant messages and it may be the only way to hold onto e-mails that are stored on services like Yahoo!, Hotmail, and Gmail, because they don’t exist on the hard drive, only on the remote server. Before you do, however, make sure you visit with your attorney to confirm that the steps you’re taking are legal. Installing the software may be illegal in several states, especially if you’re not the owner of the computer.” Smart cheaters know you can trace their activity, so they delete their history and hide email activity. Enter a forensic sleuth who can collect and preserve data that has been cleaned and develop an accurate audit trail to protect the chain of custody. If you are planning on using the information gathered as evidence, the recovery process must follow the Federal Rules of Evidence. This involves developing a tracking system and legal log that includes the investigator’s name, signature, date, and detailed description of exactly what was done.
8. What services are billable?
You can be billed for phone calls, making copies, office consultations, and stand-by time while the P.I. is waiting for an event to occur. Sometimes, more than one investigator will be part of the surveillance. Make sure your contract spells out what’s billable and what the hourly charges are. In most instances, fees range from $60 to $150/hour and most investigators have a minimum, say 6-10 hours. If you’re on a budget, ask for periodic updates on the tab so you don’t have big, expensive surprises.
9. Can I live with disappointing results?
“Surveillance work may not turn up anything. If that’s because nothing was going on, that’s good news. On the other hand, it may be because it’s going to take way more time and money than you have to catch the cheater. Either way, you still have to pay the P. I. for their services. So, you could spend thousands of dollars and have very little to show for it. To minimize your costs and give the private investigator information that only someone close to the cheater would know, you might want to do your own investigation, first. Unless you’re a person who is overly suspicious, paranoid, or has been cheated on before and therefore is distrustful, you should be able to gather a lot of information in about two weeks,” Houston said. What you’re looking for is clusters of behavior in 21 different categories such as changes in appearance, work habits, sexual practices, and personality and behavior changes. It may be that the results of your own investigation are so conclusive that you don’t need to hire a P. I. If you do decide to go ahead, the information you’ve gathered will give the investigator a jump-start.
RESOURCES TO HELP
Electronic Surveillance involves the traditional laws on wiretapping — any interception of a telephone transmission by accessing the telephone signal itself — and eavesdropping — listening in on conversations without the consent of the parties. This site gives surveillance laws for all 50 states.
Ruth Houston, author of Is He Cheating On You? 829 Telltale Signs, provides many tips sheets to help suspicious spouses at infidelityadvice.com.
ACI Association of Christian Investigators
CIPI Certified Investigative Professionals, Inc
KAALD Korean-American Association of Licensed Detective e-mail
NACI National Association of Certified Investigators Associations e-mail
NAPS National Association of Process Servers
USAPI United States Association of Professional Investigators
