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48 Strange Things People Discovered When They Hired A Private Investigator
Interview With Expert
I’ve never had any interest in being in law enforcement, but after watching about a hundred true crime documentaries, I have gained an immense appreciation for those who devote their lives to solving cases.
And if you’re as curious about the mysterious lives of detectives and private investigators as I am, you’ve come to the right place, pandas. One Reddit user invited PIs and detectives to recall some of their strangest cases, so we’ve gathered their most fascinating stories below. Enjoy scrolling through these tales that sound like they could be plots of television shows, and keep reading to find a conversation with full-time private investigator Tony Smith!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
FINALLY! A question I can answer! Been a P.I. For a going on a year now and the strangest case I had was of a woman asking us to find out if her husband was cheating on her. She said there was something off in the house as if feeling something and she wanted to know what it was. So she suspected her husband of cheating.
So I show up and install Nanny Cam's in her house for the weekend upon her approval and where to place them. She works all weekend and this was the best route. Well 3 days go by and I collect the footage and come to find out the husband was "touching" his 8 year old step daughter. After seeing that I rushed to the court house with a copy of the footage and got a court order for the police to go and get him.
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#2
Not a PI here, but someone who was confronted by one and told it was the weirdest thing he's had to do.
A roommate I had in college was a strange guy. This guy came from the other side of the country (I'm US). He went out at all hours of the night, never showed up for class, slept during the day, and drank more energy drinks than is healthy. His parents were worried about him, apparently, and hired a PI to trail him.
Now, living in a college dorm in a part of campus where only freshman live makes an adult who isn't janitorial staff stick out like a sore thumb. So, I picked up fairly quickly that this guy was hanging around the dorms. Thought he was just cruising for some freshman, and didn't bother him.
A few weeks later, I was walking back from the dining hall, and he approached me (it was a public place) asking if we could talk somewhere private. I was weirded out and told him we could talk right here.
He told me he was a PI hired by my roommates parents to trail him because his parents were concerned, and he wanted to ask me about my roommate's dorm habits. We then left to the coffee shop to talk about my roommate.
My roommate apparently liked to go walk on the beach at night for stupid amounts of time, hang out at Steak and Shake playing game on his phone and Nintendo DS for hours on end, and cruise thrift shops for some reason. I told the guy that the dude just slept and didn't even have any personal affects in the room besides his clothes.
The PI and I both realized that this kid pretty much had no direction or motivation in life, and his parents usually pushed him to do everything. He said that this kid's behavior was the most bizarre pattern of activity he's pretty much seen.
To explain the kid's actions, college was the first alone time he's ever had, and he was savoring it doing whatever he wanted. I ended up feeling for the guy and reached out to him. He changed majors from engineering to a psychology degree because he wanted to learn how the mind worked, and he suddenly became super-interested in college. Ended up being a cool guy once he realized he was not in his parent's grasp anymore.
Sara Frazer 6 months ago (edited)
Walking the beach, drinking milkshakes, thrift-shopping and playing games sounds like a great time, tho ....
#3
Someone wanted to know what their cat was up to when they were working. Paid me to tail it. I don't like wasting my time but the works not always busy as a PI. Turns out the cat just walks around the streets, licks itself and climbs trees....
To learn more about what it's like to be a detective, we reached out to Tony Smith, a full-time private investigator, Operations Director at Insight Investigations, and Chairman of the World Association of Professional Investigators. Tony was kind enough to have a chat with Bored Panda and share some of his own experiences working in the field.
"I am a full-time private investigator and have been so since 1978. During that time, I have come across many varying matters requiring Investigation, both in the UK and overseas," he noted. "Being a ‘full service’ 24-hour agency, Insight Investigations undertakes enquiries ranging from the tracing of missing people to major Criminal Defense investigations and most anything in between."
#4
I got hired to follow another investigator who, turns out, was hired to follow me
#5
Was hired to follow a woman who claimed she was completely blind (collecting insurance money of course). Spent the day following her around as she DROVE from store to store in a church van.
#6
I was asked by a lady to investigate her husband because he might be cheating on her. He used to come back late at night with smell of woman's perfume. Turns out he was taking dancing classes and he didn't tell his wife
First, we wanted to know what a typical day on the job looks like for a private investigator. "An average day usually starts with the checking of emails and responding to what is required," Tony shared. "This is followed by the examination of the current files to ascertain what is required to be tasked that day."
"It could be an ongoing romance scam that requires further work to locate the individual behind the scam, or it could be the continuing search for a missing person, a Criminal Defense case that may require interviewing witnesses or one of the many other cases that require attention in varying ways," he explained.
"Whilst a fair amount of a PI’s work is office-based, the requirement for ‘field work’ remains, and this, in addition to the management of other Agents out on the road undertaking various tasks, makes for a full day which is rarely 9 to 5," the expert says.
#7
Client wanted to know why her dog was getting fat.
Turns out the dog was getting fed by almost every stranger it encountered while wandering around outside during the day.
#8
Did surveillance on a nurse. She was supposedly so disabled that she couldn't work. They suspected she was working. Easiest surveillance I ever did. I arrived. She got in her car 10 minutes later. Followed her, with no complication, to a strip club where she went in and began doing her thing.
Club had a posted prohibition on video. So I had to go in and watch her dance so that I could testify that I saw her dancing when it went to court. Over the next few days I followed her to three other strip clubs and did the same.
That month I turned in the sketchiest expense report of my life.
Eventually it went before the WC Board. When the judge asked why she was stripping she just shrugged and said she made twice as much money than when she was nursing.
Benefits got yanked. Insurance company was happy. But the company lawyer gave me the nickname "Detective Tits" which, most regrettably, stuck and spread to all of the other lawyers I dealt with.
Worse night of my life, man.
LaserBrain 6 months ago
I went to a strip club once. It was just kind of sad, I know they make good money doing that but it left me uncomfortable.
#9
I've been a P.I. for about 3 years - mostly for disability fraud, no cheating wives or anything. Coolest/strangest thing I observed was a low level criminal (who was supposed to be disabled), who would spend all day going from Walmart to Walmart.
In each Walmart, he would fill the shopping cart full to the brim with energy drinks (Monster I think), walk briskly out the door without paying, throw them in his trunk, and take off like a bat out of hell.
At the end of the day he sold a trunk-load of energy drinks to a corner store and I video taped him walking out with a wad of cash.
Definitely not as exciting as the movies, but it was a fun day for me.
Tony also opened up about one of his most memorable cases. It included the identification and subsequent arrest of an individual who was stalking his ex-partner with the intent of doing her and her family serious harm.
"He was met on a high-end dating site and quickly moved in with his partner, and all seemed well. Unfortunately, the mother thought something wasn’t quite right and asked me to investigate this individual's background," Tony shared. "I eventually established that he had lied to gain entry to the UK and obtain very prestigious employment. He also had considerable criminal history in his native country."
#10
A couple was divorcing and the wife was sure her husband was sticking random items of hers up his a**. He was.
"The relationship ended, but subsequently, he went on to terrorize the family and, amongst other things, burn their house to the ground," Tony continued. "The family were moved to a safe house with round-the-clock protection. He was eventually arrested with a weapon and impersonating a member of staff at the place his ex partner worked, intent on doing her harm. He was eventually jailed for 6 years and deported on release. This became the subject of a TV Documentary."
#11
Cases where older people get a phone call from the "IRS" and get tens of thousands of dollars on prepaid credit cards and read the numbers off the back to the guy on the phone with the Indian accent to pay their tax debt.
This happens a lot actually. It's just weird that otherwise intelligent people can be talked into doing stuff this dumb.
Please talk to your grandparents. Make sure they know this is a common scam and their are many, many variants of this scam. No reputable business or organization takes payments by I-tunes gift cards. Their grandchild did not get locked up in Mexico, they aren't overdue on their electric bill and their power is about to be shut off, the police don't have an old warrant that they'll dismiss for a small fee.
A lot of these victims are so sold on the lie, that store clerks will stop them in the middle of purchasing $3k in moneypak cards, TELL them that they are being scammed, and these victims will argue with them that they need to pay the guy on the phone.
Thee8thsense 6 months ago
Anyone who steals from others is pitiful, but the reprobates who victimize elderly people are lower than scum of the earth.
Remi (He/Him) 6 months ago
They keep trying my parents with all kinds of things as they're the right age. Mom likes to tear them a new one, but it's disgusting how these scum keep targeting them.
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Gustav Gallifrey 6 months ago (edited)
We get that scam in Australia. I have fun with them. I ask them which section of the income tax law this debt was raised under. I ask them for the proper name of the income tax act (which i know). I ask them to confirm to me what my tax file number is (which they, if they're legit, should know). I ask them the name of the current Commissioner for Taxation. They quickly admit that they're frauds by ending the call.
Becky Samuel 6 months ago
I had a call a couple of weeks ago (UK) claiming to be from Her Majesty's Revenue Service. I laughed so hard and they couldn't understand why. (Hint: we haven't had a queen in a while).
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Avoidance_Panda 6 months ago
That's actually happened to my grandad.... Unfortunately he's too unwilling to admit wrong doing, or that there may be something wrong. But stupid enough to send 10k to someone thought western union.... Took the thought of loosing their house for nan to step up and make him go see the doc.... Store clerks should have some training like the OP said....
Becky Samuel 6 months ago
Store clerks are trained in this, and there are limits in place (in most areas) as to how many cards can be sold in a single transaction. People just won't listen.
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Eroe Infinito 6 months ago
The worst part to me is the lack of punishment. No laws are put in place against it and it's literally people from a foreign country. Luckily we have saintly YouTubers like "Scammer Payback" and his team. Who track them down and expose them for the entire world to see.
TheBlueBitterfly 6 months ago
This happened at work to my older (60s) coworker. She was alone at the store as the manager was out sick. Guy with thick Indian accent calls, says he's the "head boss" and she unwittingly says "Bob?" (Which is the "American" nickname he goes by. Now we've only met Bob a handful of times, but I doubt any if us would be able to recognize his voice on the phone.) Well, wrong move on her part, as the scammer takes this and runs with it. He tells her to gather up ALL the available cash in the store and send it Western Union to... some place in Mexico I think? Says it's to pay some bill or thr store will get shut down. Panicked because he's yelling at her, she does as told, locks the store up and drives to 4 different stores trying to send it. Every place refuses and tells her "No, this is a scam." Finally she convinces someone to do it. Boss and manager have to spend the next week trying to sort the mess out. They were able to stop the money transfer, thankfully.
TheBlueBitterfly 6 months ago
Sorry didn't realize how long I rambled on there. Coworker didn't get fired, bosses implemented passwords if they ever called. We've started using family "passwords" after someone called hub's grandmother pretending to be our 15 yr old son, claiming he wrecked our car in another state. She almost fell for it. (She's in her 80s.)
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Beak Hookage 6 months ago
Supermarkets around here have warning signs next to the iTunes etc cards now.
Huddo's sister 6 months ago
We have warnings about them over the loudspeaker/radio in supermarkets in Australia too
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WhatEvenIsLife 6 months ago
Crypto scams are also extremely common and older people are often targeted. People lose their entire life savings thinking they're investing in a great opportunity. And infuriatingly, a lot of times the crypto exchanges themselves aren't doing basic, industry-standard, and often legally required due diligence to prevent scams they are literally aware of, and/or basically blowing customers off when they reach out for help trying to get their funds back.
Maartje 6 months ago
THIS. My husband decided (without checking with the more informed family members) to invest in a Crypto scheme which turned out to be a scam. This just happened. We lost 6K. Nothing you can do, it seems. If anyone knows of a way to get back to scammers like that (it is not even enough for crypto lawyers to post the website involved as a scam site, wtf, are they waiting for someone to lose their life savings?) I would love to hear it. Any time you get scammed with crypto it is like , forget it, you are not getting it back. Banks are safer. Credit cards are safer. For a currency that wants to be the best new thing, they need to do better.
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Kylie 6 months ago
You would THINK people would know if they were at risk of owing tax dollars etc?
David Paterson 6 months ago
No. Tax laws change from year to year and it gets awfully complicated. If the tax department genuinely told me that I need to pay more money (and it happened to me one year), I'd pay it.
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Brazen 6 months ago
Our landlady just fell for this, but it was her "bank" calling. They got her to cut up her cards without ruining the numbers, put it in an envelope and hand it to someone who came to her home to take them away. She was in such a panic that she didn't even listen to her friend that was in her home at the time and told her that it sounded fishy. They got over 25,000 off her, and she is heartbroken and feeling pretty dumb about it. It makes me sad for her and angry at the men that did this to her. Like why? Get a real job.
Connie Hirsch 6 months ago
Some of these scams are well-organized, with teams assigned to each step in the process, including faked-up websites indistinguishable from the real thing, and "closers" who keep the victim on the phone. Please educate everyone in your life, from teenagers (yes, 'porn' scams) on up.
Seadog 5 months ago
Look at how many people fall for scam emails. All you have to do is look at the senders email address and you know right away it's not legit. People have been told this since the day after email became a thing and yet people still continue to respond. And now it's spreading to to text messages. Sad that people refuse to comprehend NOTHING IS FREE, except of course the money the scammers are receiving from these ignoramuses.
Jude Laskowski 5 months ago
My ex-bf (both retired cops) was scammed when he opened a martial arts dojo. He received a call stating that the electricity would be shut off if he didn't send the money via a prepaid debit card. He bought a card for $1500 and sent them the information. He later found out he'd been scammed. The funny part is that he was a narcissist who thought he was smarter than everyone else.
Rebecca Surette 5 months ago
As an older woman, I have gotten several of these calls. I ask if they are in the Washington, DC office, and OF COURSE they are. I tell them to go to the 12th floor and speak with Mr. (insert whatever name here) in the Fraud Department, that he is my son, and handles my taxes for me. They can't get off of the phone fast enough! I THINK I'll be forgiven for the lie!
Celtic Pirate Queen 6 months ago
It just galls me that in this day & age people still fall for this sh*t.
Alicia M 6 months ago (edited)
There's some kind of scam going on in the USA with USPS packages. This doesn't have anything to do with the United States Post System. It's obviously a scam. Every time I order a something that has to be delivered via usps, I get a text saying my package cannot be delivered because of an incomplete address, and I need to click on a link to provide updated information so my package can get delivered. This happens every time I'm expecting something delivered through usps. It's never the actual company. I don't know what the scammers are trying to obtain other than information, but I report it every single time. Watch out if it happens to you.
Alicia M 6 months ago
Also, every time I get the text that says they can't deliver my package due to an incomplete address, I never click on the link to correct anything, and I always receive my packages without any problems.
Load More Replies... Maartje 6 months ago
My husband decided (without checking with the more informed family members) to invest in a Crypto scheme which turned out to be a scam. This just happened. We lost 6K. Nothing you can do, it seems. If anyone knows of a way to get back to scammers like that (it is not even enough for crypto lawyers to post the website involved as a scam site, wtf, are they waiting for someone to lose their life savings?) I would love to hear it.
Andy Frobig 6 months ago
I've never understood how the people with the most life experience are the most trusting
Angrykitten 6 months ago
I work for a bank and credit cards. I begged a customer to stop that I was confident the transfer they were sending was not legit and they were being scammed. They insisted they knew what they were doing. No one wants to believe they could fall for a scam.
Steve Hall 6 months ago
I am elderly and I just don't understand how anybody can fall for that.
Starwhisper Nighthush 6 months ago
My mom told me that someone try the granddaughter had a bad car accident & killed soneone. Was told that the granddaughter needed $9000 for the court appointed lawyer. She asked me first if my daughter was OK and told me about the call. I told her that 1) my kid doesn't drive; 2) she was fine; 3) court appointed lawyers are paid by the state not by defendant. The only thing that really saved my mom was the fact that she doesn't have that kind of money.
BookFanatic 6 months ago
A friend's grandma got hit by something similar. She went to the bank to withdraw about $10,000 in cash for her grandson who was stranded...someplace or another. The teller kept asking her questions and finally got the police involved. The best/worst part? Grandma doesn't have a grandson...just granddaughters.
Angela C 6 months ago
My old (as in we're no longer neighbors as I've long since moved and she's long since passed but also she was elderly)next door neighbor almost fell for one of those. She was at the service desk at the grocery store and the lady working figured she was being scammed and told her to call her grandkid that was allegedly locked up. Spoiler alert, he was perfectly fine.
KnightOwl 6 months ago (edited)
I had a favourite uncle as a kid who was the nicest, kindest funniest guy, I loved spending time with my aunt and uncle. He would often disappear for long periods of time which I thought was strange but didn't question, eventually I found out he'd been in and out of prison, though noone would tell me why. I still loved spending time at their house and thought he was amazing until I was a teenager and discovered that he had scammed hundreds of elderly people out if hundreds of thousands of pounds. I instantly lost all respect for him and his wife (my dad's sister) who supported him and often lied for him. He's in his 80's now and they're still together, he's still a very charming/likeable guy but I can't look past his awful crimes and avoid spending time with his family because of it.
Kevin Sutton 6 months ago
Yeah, my mum called on our landline, because "I" had lost my phone and desperately needed money. She was checking with my wife that "my" bank details or something were right. Didn't try my phone, didn't try my work phone sat in the same pocket. It was only because I'm famously bad with banking she wanted to check with my wife that "I" gave her the right details.
Bell-icose 6 months ago
My dad is a retired police detective. He cleared a lot of big cases in my city before retiring. He got caught up in one of these scams this year. Smart, suspicious people get old and trusting. Keep an eye on your parents and loved ones if you can. Speak to them about the scams that are being run. Don’t assume they watch the same news you do.
Vinny DaPooh 6 months ago
After 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq we have plenty of highly trained special forces operators with very little to do currently. Why not send them hunting for these fraudsters.
#12
Currently studying Criminal behavior analysis.
A woman in her midlife, presumably between 45 to 50, was found dead behind a dumpster around a local bar in the middle of December.
She was wearing a skirt that was pulled up to her waist, and leggings that were pulled down, and torn in multiple spots.
She also had abrasion around her buttocks, the heels, thigh, and wrists.
At first, the cops are thinking that they have a sexual abuse or a possible rape case on their hands.
However, certain things were not adding up. Even though it was mid December, that particular bar was fairly populated, and thus, someonr should have reported at least hearing a woman in distress as the dumpster was near the parkinglot of the bar.
Also, the abrasions on her buttocks were rather strange, as if someone had dragged her across the cement floor. Some state that it is possibly due to livor mortis ("marks" caused by setteling of the blood).
After some investigation, they found no traces of physical proofs that suggested neither sexual abuse nor rape. No semen, saliva, or hair, was found.
Later it was revealed that due to loneliness of losing her husband and daughters (husband through divorce and daughters simply grew up and started their own lives), this woman went to the bar to meet potentially a new partner but have gotten carried away drinking.
Once outside in the freezing cold, she wants to take a leak and hides herself behind the dumpster. While doing so, she is slowly suffering from hypothermia due to the cold winter wind and lowered body temperature caused by the alcohol. She begins feeling hot (due to paradoxical undressing, caused by hypothermia), she presumably stripes off her jacket, and other pieces of clothing. At this point, the hypothermia is really getting to her and she begins slowly losing conciousness.
While laying on the freezing ground, skirt pulled up and leggings down, she begins convulsing which leaves abrasions on her body. Leaving behind a curious scene that appeared as if she had been taken advantage of.
#13
I had a case referred to me by an attorney I worked for involving a woman who was convinced that her condo maintenance man was going into her home while she was gone and moving things around. She had bought the condo from him originally. (In other words, it was his former condo).
I met her to discuss the case and she seemed rational, she was an attractive older woman, the guy would obviously be familiar with the condo layout and would have access, and hell, I've seen weirder things. So we proceeded. She agreed to let me install a hidden camera setup with a motion detector. She was to call me if anything happened to make her think he'd been there. A couple of days go by and she calls. I go by and get the tape (this was before digital recording) and check it out. There's nothing on it but her. I meet her to tell her this and she says, " He must have some machine that makes him invisible. He's a space alien, after all." She had not previously mentioned this vital tidbit of information.
I told her that that level of technology was beyond my ability to deal with and that we should talk it over with her attorney to determine the best course of action going forward. I called the attorney to let him know that our client had some issues, and we were able to get her some psychological help.
But most importantly, her check was good.
We also asked the expert what he believes makes a great PI. "That’s a difficult one. Attention to detail is a must," Tony says. "There are those that specialize in surveillance, interviewing, research, IT forensics and the like and as such can combine with others to create a ‘team’ that accomplishes most things, and one need never be stuck with a task, as someone somewhere will have the required skill to solve it. Rarely has there been a profession where the saying 'Standing On The Shoulders of Giants' can sometimes be more apt."
#14
Ah, finally something I can share!
A few years back I accidently became the owner of a detective agency. I intended to just be an investment partner, but the owner and actual PI died shortly after I made my investment and lo - I now owned an detective agency.
After quickly getting the various legal licenses, etc., I just started taking cases. The entirety of what I knew about how to be a PI was from various TV shows, movies, and books. For cases, I would just rely on random people whose life has become so bad that they decide calling a PI is the next logical step. Much later I learned that normal PIs never take these so-called "domestic" cases because they are always a huge mess. Real PIs get almost all of the work from lawyers and hire off-duty cops to do all of the leg work. As a result, I had a TON of crazy cases. Several TV seasons worth. Here are a few classics:
- Guy calls me to help catch his neighbor who is knocking over his trashcans at night. We set up a small night vision camera to catch the guy. Watch the video the next day - it is the wind. The client freaks out, says that his neighbor could have had an invisibility field or could have been moving too fast (like the Flash) to show up on camera. Wants to pay us thousands of dollars to rent a heat-seeking camera or one that can shoot thousands of frames per second... Turns out lots of crazy people call PIs to investigate the TV controlling them, alien abduction, etc.
- Seventh Day Adventist lady in an abusive relationship who wants to divorce her husband but apparently needs the husband's permission, which he won't give her. So she wants us to hire a prostitute to seduce him, get it on video, and then mail that to the church leaders to show the marriage is broken.
- Criminal who is serving 20 years in jail for hiring a hit man (who happened to be an undercover cop) to kill his friend. In prison he came into some money and hired us to prove he was innocent. His plan to do this was to have us tell his friend that he better recant his testimony or else our client would use his new money to hire a hitman to kill him "for real this time." This criminal genius told us this plan on a recorded phone call from jail.
- Get hired by a wife to see if her husband is sleeping with his secretary. We follow them, recording them going into his single-bed hotel room at 10:20pm after a nice dinner and leaving together the next morning at 8am. She says it proves nothing, that they could have just been working late...
- Guy calls to ask for Paddy, my late partner. We tell him he is dead. Conversation that follows goes like this:
Bob: Dead? Tell him its Bob.
Davevr: Bob - Paddy is dead.
B: sure, ok, whatever. Who's this?
D: This is Dave. How can I help you?
B: Dave huh? Dave... yeah, Dave, I think Paddy mentioned you.
D: I doubt it, but go ahead. How can we help?
B: I was just calling to make sure the thing is still on for Friday?
D: What thing?
B: The thing, you know...
D: I don't know, Bob. What?
B: Well yeah, I know you don't "know", but is it on?
D: Bob, I have no idea what you are talking about.
B: Ok, I get it. Of course you don't know. But - all I'm saying is, we're good, right?
D: We are not good Bob. I don't know what you are talking about.
B: Of course. Got it. No idea. Great. Friday?
D: Bob, Paddy is dead so whatever you think is happening on Friday is not happening. Understand?
B: Perfectly. Tell him I will see him then.
- Different call, also asking for Paddy. Conversation goes like this:
Guy: I was told to ask for Paddy.
Davevr: Paddy's dead. This is Dave, how can I help?
G: Hmm, I was told to ask for Paddy.
D: You did that, I told you he was dead, so can I help or not?
G: Well, OK. I need to disappear.
D: What do you mean, disappear? Like, from your girlfriend or from the Feds? (I literally had no idea what he meant)
G: Really disappear. Like, dead.
D: I don't know what movies you have watched, but there is no way to disappear unless you have a ton of money and a body. (I made this line up on the spot btw just to shut the guy up).
G: I have 3 million in cash. Body is no problem. Can you help or not?
D: .... I can't talk about this on a cell phone. *click*
Never called back. Later found (from tracing the # that called me) it belong to a real estate investor who was being sued for millions in back taxes from the government who died in a private plane crash about a week after that call...
The list goes on and on...
In case you are wondering, I am no longer in this business and the business itself no longer exists.
#15
There once was this dude who had his emails leaked. I had to sift through many of them and there was countless of weird instances where words for various food was used in conexts that didn't make sense. I realized it had to be code for something and after further research I realized the words where most likely code for young children and I was dealing with p*****iles. I ended up getting help from the public and the case started trending on twitter. Turns out we were uncovering a major network of businesses that are used or have been used as human trafficking fronts. He hasn't been arrested yet though.
RagDollLali 6 months ago
Pedophiles shouldn't be allowed to be alive long enough to make it to prison, although from what I understand they have a hell of a welcome party waiting for them there when they do
#16
All right, here goes. After I got out of the Navy, I worked for one of the top PI firms in Houston. Because of my electronics background, I'd usually go along on the jobs where were were checking for bugs and hidden surveillance devices.
We got a call from a client who was sure that his office was bugged because his client knew everything that he was doing before he did it. His office was a mobile trailer that was on his client's site. He was a subcontractor for a big oilfield construction company.
We did a full electronic sweep and found nothing (this was back in the early nineties, didn't have to worry about burst transmissions, etc.) No devices implanted in his phones. He insisted on a full physical sweep of the trailer, inside and out. So we crawled under the trailer and got a ladder and inspected the roof. Still nothing.
We're getting ready to leave and he says: "Look, I'm not crazy. Pick up the phone, press 9 to get an outside line, and you'll start hearing all sorts or clicky sounds." Turns our his office phones were routed through the corporate PBX of his client. They didn't have to bug his office, they could just "pick up an extension" inside the main building and listen in to whatever they wanted. We weren't even sure if it was illegal. We advised him to install a private phone line that he paid for if he wanted private conversations. We ended up billing him like two grand for that visit.
But Tony added that, if you're going to hire a PI, you need to do your research first. Today, there is still no legislation controlling private investigators in the UK. "There has been much said by subsequent governments over the years about the need for this, but it has never really gotten off the ground," he noted.
"The World Association of Professional Investigators, amongst other associations, attempts to self-govern its members in best practice and lobby government for correct legislation, but there remain many rogue individuals who call themselves “private investigators” who are inexperienced, have no consideration for ethics, wish no part of the rules any association has and continue to cause harm to the public image of a profession that is required more now than ever."
#17
Doing a standard pre-employment background check on a guy, found that he was found guilty in a sexual harassment case. Didn't have the case details at that point and the guy denied it was him. Pulled more details from the case and confirmed that it was definitely him... And that he was convicted of indecent exposure. The guy finally admitted it was him, but claimed it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Pulled the court transcripts. Turns out he flashed a 12-year-old on the beach and said "ever seen one of these before?" He did not get the job.
#18
It was one of my last cases that I worked on. It was for a child custody/paternity case.This case was the one that made me rethink what I was doing and I got very disturbed by what I was asked to do. This is the case that made me stop being a PI Our client was denying that the child in question was actually his and was fighting the child support case. He believed that the mother of the child was a serial adulterer. So much so that he spent THOUSANDS on the case for us to make sure there was evidence to support his claim. The icing on the "s**t cake" was when my case manager told me that client wanted video evidence that the child did not look like him. The client told us that we had to record the child at play. So here I am, beside a playground, in a completely limo tinted car, videotaping a 9 year old. I couldn't have felt worse about my life choices. To this day I have never felt like such a creep before. I hated that case and the case manager. two weeks later I handed in my resignation.
#19
Was asked by a prospective client to kidnap a child who's parents were in the middle of an ugly custody battle, the one parent was keeping the child in violation of a court order and this family member thought this would be the easiest solution, nope, passed on that one. One of the funniest things about the PI business that we saw over and over was clients coming in mad as hell wanting something done saying "cost is no object", right up until we told them we charged $100 per hour, then cost suddenly became an object.
#20
My uncle is a PI. He got tasked with investigating a collision at an intersection. He found a nearby business that happened to have a camera facing the road which would have collected the footage and got said footage of the collision.
The client was definitely in the wrong and caused the accident, then the client was seen abusing the other driver while damaging his own car further.
It was meant to be an insurance scam where the client could say they hired a PI but found nothing which legitimizes his word, however he rolled snake eyes and ended up incriminating himself.
Fat Harry (Oi / You) 6 months ago
I fail to see how one party hiring a PI - who is by necessity on their payroll - would legitimise their word. They're hardly impartial.
#21
Funniest to me, my brother in law is a private eye following around a worker comp victim with a bad back.
He films the victim lifting a lawnmower into a truck bed. A riding lawnmower.
Teutonic Disaster 6 months ago (edited)
Back so bad, he probably looks like prime Cena and prime The Rock had a lovechild... 😂 Lifting a riding lawnmower as a singular person, damn...
#22
I am a private investigator and I have came across many cases. I will label a few of them.
● A police department in a small town in the Appalachian Mountains wanted me to keep an eye on an old lady.
● A manager at a Walmart in Indiana wanted me to watch a couple of employees because he thought they were talking about him behind his back.
● A retirement home hired me to watch one of their tenants, the tenant was a 90 year old lady with Epilepsy, but the pay was great though :)
● A casino in Reno hired me to watch everyone who uses a certain slot machine.
● A trucking company made me follow one of their drivers, who was pulling a shipping container from Salt Lake City to Ottawa.
● A factory manager hired me to watch his employees whIle he jacked off furiously in his office.
● A tenant of an apartment building hired me to watch his landlord, who also hired me to watch the tenant.
The weirdest one of all? A Donald Trump supporter hired me to watch his neighbor because he was convinced his neighbor was "A Soviet".
#23
P.I. for 5 year, I had a few exciting, not necessarily strange cases. One incident was of a coach who was sleeping with one of the female players. One of the players that was benched hired me to document the coach for sleeping with one of the starters on the team...They were careful with how they arranged their meetings, and took me a bit to document it, but ultimately got the information. Fast forward a week later and the papers reporting the coach has resigned to work in the family business...fast forward another week later, the story broke with all the evidence I had collected (I was not named in the story as I had requested not to be.)
Another case was my quickest (2 hours). Picked up surveillance after the subject had dinner with his wife at Applebee's, followed to a hospital parking garage and he went in to visit his mother. I stayed to monitor the vehicle, and another shows up. The subject exited the hospital and jumped in the other vehicle...I then recorded him getting a bj. Case opened and closed in 2 hours (paid $1,000 retainer, was able to keep all $1,000 since retainers are non refundable I charged $60/hr and would've only made $120)....I have many many more stories....some funny, some really sad (I specialized in father's rights cases).
#24
I have a story about this. My Brother was a PI in the early 90's. He worked for a law firm. I was in my early 20's and so he got me a gig as a process server. He was working a particularly nasty divorce case. Husband was a Jordanian national married to an american woman (one of several wives) who was over being the broodmare in the family and wanted out. Also, she worked for Nasa. He was tasked with going into their house, which was in her name (she wasn't living there, she was in an apartment until this was settled) and getting a briefcase with financial information in it. Since I was the process server, I had to go along in case someone was home for whatever reason. We went and waited down the road until everyone left and went in and got the briefcase. no big deal. We take it back to the attorney's office and he calls the lady and says he has it. She gives him the combination he opens it and it was full of technical plans from Boeing for the Apache helicopter. Attorney says "F**k", instantly shuts the briefcase, tells me and my brother to leave now, so we did. We never heard any more about that case at all, other than he contacted the FBI over it.
Teutonic Disaster 6 months ago
So hold on, was her story a lie and she was committing espionage or was she trying to make sure her husband wasn't able to get those technical plans?
#25
Not a PI, but I met one. I was at my friend's house and he got a knock on the door. The dude was black (EDIT: Congolese to be specific).
"Hello, sir, are you X?"
"Yeah, why?"
"[explains that he's a PI and that he'd like to talk in private]"
"Nah, I'm fine just talking here at the door."
"[shows him a picture] Do you know this man? His name is Y."
"Yeah, that's my great-uncle, he's vacationing in the Congo right now, why?"
"I'm sorry sir, but your great-uncle died of hepatitis. [elaborates how his great-uncle, a priest, banged some hooker and got infected and died]"
I was in the living room eating pizza the whole time, pretending to be watching TV.
#26
I used to be an investigator that specialised in work cover/injury claims. The type that you follow people with injuries around, see how they move, are they faking it and working a second job and scamming their workplace, that kind of thing. I was working a case where the guy in question would leave his house every morning, walk to the local park and take a s**t on the grass, pull out toilet paper, wipe himself off and continue with his walk. He lived in a very affluent suburb. Every day, same s**t.
#27
Way late to the party. Also not the PI, I'm the person who paid the PI bill for this one.
We hired a PI to provide proof of life.
The guy suing me completely disappeared, to the point where for 6 months even his own lawyer could not reach him. His lawyer is 400 miles away. No one had the guy's real address (only address anyone had was a FedEx store that he did not work at). But the employees did say that the guy comes in every few days to collect mail.
Since we had so little information we actually had a PI sit out front the FedEx store until we got a picture of the guy alive.
That whole case (still ongoing) is a huge pile of WTF. My lawyer friends enjoy laughing at me over the lawsuit because it is so bizarre.
Nicola Mawson 6 months ago
So, hired someone to prove someone was alive when the court case could have just died with the guy who wasn't actually dead?
#28
Not a P.I but thought this may qualify.
My grandfather (P.I) was asked to tail a well known beer delivery truck around its route leaving Central Scotland, traveling south then back again.
Turns out my other grandfather was driving the truck! They never did speak from what I can remember
#29
My brother, not me. I usually tell this long and dramatic, but here is the quick to the punch version. Schizophrenic woman reported being watched by ghosts at the abandoned funeral home... Turned out when investigating, someone (or something. dum dum dum) was actually watching the people in her building and keeping crude log books of their coming and goings and left some of them in the place. My brother's theory was that they were discovered / almost discovered and fled. Anyways no idea what kinda crime was being planned but that whole thing sounded creepy as f**k to me.
#30
I did surveillance for insurance fraud/workers comp cases for a short time. We would usually just be assigned to someone for a couple of days, unless we found something that warranted more time. On my first day watching this guy he leaves his house about 7 hours into the 8 hour (for me) day. I follow him out of the neighborhood, out of the town... onto the highway... still on the highway... into the metro area... into downtown (oh s**t where is this guy going to?) ... and into a valet parking ramp. I panicked a bit because I had my video camera, laptop, and all the background paperwork sitting on the passenger seat next to me. I was able to shove all that stuff away or grab it into a pocket before I turned the car over to the valet. Ended up riding the elevator out of the garage with the guy and his family. They were going to see the seasonal holiday light parade thing, so that was nice to watch at least.
#31
I have a friend who is a PI. She is a former cop, retired. Says it is really boring; lots of sitting around on surveillance or digging for paperwork, working long crappy hours. Never carries a gun. Says being a woman is an advantage as people are more suspicious of a male.
The explanation 6 months ago
If I saw a man watching me through a window with binoculars, and a woman doing the same thing through another window, I'd be just as suspicious of both of them
#32
My RA my sophomore year of college was a part time PI and bragged about it to the coed underclassman. Few weeks before spring break he's seen with bruising and black eyes. Some guy he had been following to catch in an affair got a hold of him and beat him senseless.
#33
My mom hired a private investigator on my dad way back when she was pregnant for me she felt like something was wrong cause he said "he just needed time away" In the end he was cheating and my mom left him.
#34
I found a lady who'd been missing for twenty years out of pure, dumb luck. I was getting lunch another town over and she walked out of a resale shop across the street. It was so unexpected that the only footage I could get on her was with my s**tty phone camera. Otherwise, I don't get a ton of "bizarre" cases. Most of the time, I'm just doing insurance fraud cases since that's where the money is. The most interesting part is looking at their background info and piecing together what kind of person they are based on their spending habits. Then you take that information, make a quick and dirty psychological profile, and try to predict their movements based on it. I've gotten pretty good at it.
Deborah B 6 months ago
I'm picturing a PI finding me by staking out the nearest supermarket on Friday. "We know this woman likes her icecream. We know she avoids grocery shopping on the weekends. It's Friday, it's 26C, and the sun is shining. If she's in town, she'll be hitting the local Tesco between 11am and 3pm."
#35
Not me personally, but I worked with a guy whose subject died on the first day of surveillance. D**g overdose. I'm sure the final report must have been legendary. "The claimant died.".
#36
One time I was hired by this really famous author to test the security system in his Hawaii vacation home. His British caretaker set his two dogs on me and I had to escape by hot wiring his Ferrari.
#37
A college of mine was a PI.
He said the majority of his casework isn't tailing people but serving court notices. He told me of a variety of really slimy ways he'd serve people, including disguises, high pressure tactics and weird social engineering.
He's out of it now because he'd had too many close calls. Serving divorce papers or notices of being sued where you have no idea of the state of mind of the person you're serving to could get interesting to say the least.
#38
OK, not a PI, but my boss hired one.
He never told me but I was snooping around the network one day and came across a document that was cut-and-paste e-mails between the boss and a PI.
I worked for a playground design/construction company. Very small, and the boss was an absolute prick. He may have been bipolar because he would be happy one minute and then the tiniest problem (like a slide being a different colour to what he thought it should be) would send him off the rails for the rest of the day.
Anyway, according to this document, he was suspicious that his competitor was able to offer playgrounds cheaper than him and still make money. He had a strong suspicion that the competitor was using illegal immigrants to build the playgrounds and paying them in cash, for less than the minimum wage. This is in Australia, not the US, so this is probably very uncommon here.
The PI went to a construction site and talked to the workers. He returned a report that stated that the workers were co-operative, they did not appear to be foreign, they spoke English very well, they even showed him their drivers licences. He left totally satisfied that the workers were legitimate Australian citizens.
Boss refused to pay.
The rest of the document was the PI arguing that he did work and should be paid for it (a few thousand dollars I think) while asshole boss' argument was that the workers were definitely illegal immigrants, he just knew it, and if the PI couldn't prove it then he wasn't a very good PI and therefore shouldn't be paid.
#39
This girl's family once tasked me with tracking her down and convincing her to go back to the family farm. Turns out she had moved to LA, become a porn star, and married an apparent millionaire, but it gets weirder: some of her friends tried to ransom her when she went missing. The husband, who didn't actually have money of his own, pretended to pay the ransom with money from his daughter's charity, while giving the bag man a fake ransom to make the hand off, and pocketing the money from the charity. Unbeknownst to the husband, his daughter actually hired the bag man to figure out what happened to the girl and the money to get it back, and he figured out the husband took it just as the girl got back from visiting her friends, unharmed. It was nuts. I heard the girlfriend of one of the guys who ransomed the girl even cut off her own toe to send to the husband to get him to pay. It was like something out of a f**king movie.
#41
Some guy assigned me to investigate another private investigator while simultaneously telling that private investigator to investigate me.
Absolutely bizarre.
#42
A private investigator came into the bar I was bartending at years ago and showed me two pictures. One of a girl in her early 20's that her family was trying to find; the other of a guy in his late 20's that they suspected she had run away with.
The guy in the picture had a charge on his debit card from my bar a week earlier so the investigator came in hoping that I would remember if the girl was with him that night.
I did not recognize the girl at all but I remembered the guy. He had come in with two other guys around his age, they got pretty drunk but all they really did was shoot pool. They didn't cause any problems and they actually tipped me really well. I never heard anything else about the girl so I don't know if the family eventually found her or if she disappeared for good. I just now remembered that her first name was Katie. I can't remember the guys name though.
Maggie Fulton 6 months ago
If she’s in her 20s, she can run away with whomever she wants, no matter how ill advised it is.
#43
One unlucky respondent revealed they were asked to follow another member of staff who left work, as the boss suspected that rather than being ill, he was off to the pub.
Nicola Mawson 6 months ago
That was me until I got into recovery. No need for a PI. It was all too obvious. 5.5 years now
#44
I worked for a PI company that mostly handled workers compensation cases for insurance companies or other employers.
Assigned to a case in Seattle where a guy was claiming am upper back and shoulder injury. After a few hours on site at his house, he pulls up in a truck, proceeds to empty the truck bed of landscaping equipment ALONE. After he has put everything away, he walks over to the side of his neighbors house, pulls out a piece of the siding of the building, withdraws a crack pipe and smokes it in front of me, all on camera.
Another case in Texas, I was following a guy (Back injury) to the mall where he met up with a woman that was NOT his wife (I had already identified her the previous day) and followed them as they shopped around and then back to his vehicle where they proceeded to have sex in the car IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MALL PARKING LOT! I filmed it of course, but I had to call my boss to make sure that I could send this to the client. She was kinda hot too so...
#45
My personal favorite case was this one wherein a guy with a video-game esque last name (akin to Gannon) had a criminal record against him. The record indicated that he had been charged with c****ine usage and that he had reportedly snorted the cocaine out of a Hooker's a*s.
#46
Someone hired me to follow his wife. He thought she might be cheating. They were a pretty rich couple and were married for a couple of years. Fast forward a few days of investigation and it turns out she was just meeting a friend in secrecy so she could just throw a few kisses and for a little bit of p**is touching. In the end the guy who hired me faked his own death and his wife clapped and gave me a 100$ bill.
OpheliaPoe 6 months ago
I am so confused by this one. So she was cheating?? When did he fake his own death? How did the wife meet the PI and why did she pay them?
#47
One of the most bizzares task one was following a women and her friend to learn that she and her friend were cheating there husbands and all of the details being recored on reddit which i later found out!
Kayci Styles 6 months ago
WTH?!?! I have no clue what went down in this one but I do know that reading it gave me an aneurism.
#48
My brother is a PI.
A while back a dwarf came into his office (happens to also be our flat) and asked him to protect this box of Maltesers, and payed him £200 for it.
We were both confused as to why we had to protect a box of chocolates but hey, money's money.
Wanting to find out more, we work out that this dwarf is a regular at this club. We pay it a visit and end up talking to a singer, who's asking for news of him.
We show her the Maltesers, and then we hear shouting. Two massive guys come charging towards her and take her away, kicking and screaming, towards a van. They drive away and we never see her again.
We assume the dwarf is dead, so we keep the Maltesers and get on with our lives. A few weeks later, we get a letter from the singer with a single Malteser in it. Turns out she knew their purpose and switched the box of Maltesers when she got "kidnapped".
The Maltesers were diamonds covered in chocolate.
We plan to go on a skiing holiday with the money but my brother broke his leg so the money was spent on medical bills. :/
John Mosley 6 months ago
Someone had an idea for a movie but it's such a sh*t idea it only got published here. For us. Aren't we lucky?
What do you think ?
Mr. Jones 6 months ago
I love how so many start with "Not a PI, but...." BP, can you just not publish those? Also, a few of these are downright incoherent. Maybe not publish those either.
Rebecca A. Corvello 6 months ago
I think they need to stop letting AI determine what to post. I'm not against using AI but it's obvious it's not giving even mediocre results here. When I read these I want to be entertained and understand what I'm reading. I don't want to have to spend ten minutes trying to decipher something that's supposed to be entertaining because then that's work and I'm doing this for fun.
Catharina Geerts 6 months ago
There are a LOT of them saying that it's about their brother, colleague, boss, or a random guy who is the PI, rather than themselves. Seriously?
Marie BellaDonna 5 months ago
It's always been a secret, irrational fear of mine that if I ever went on disability, they wouldn't believe me. I've had back problems since jr high school, and I'm 43 now, so I'm very used to it. I'm very often in pain, almost every day, in fact, but it's my normal. Most of the time, I don't even notice it. I know how to move with it. I mean, there's things I cannot do, especially now that I'm older. I sure as shít wouldn't be able to lift any lawnmowers, lol. But there's things I *can* do, because I'm used to it, that a typical person with back pain might not be able to. Because of that, I don't always look like I'm in pain, even when I am. And I have been accused of lying before. I've had to learn to slow my steps, and walk funny, on occasion, to make my outside appearance match the pain on the inside, so people will believe me. I'm not lying. And I'm still pretty mobile right now, thankfully. But I worry about the future. And because of the accusations I gotten, I have that fear.
Mr. Jones 6 months ago
I love how so many start with "Not a PI, but...." BP, can you just not publish those? Also, a few of these are downright incoherent. Maybe not publish those either.
Rebecca A. Corvello 6 months ago
I think they need to stop letting AI determine what to post. I'm not against using AI but it's obvious it's not giving even mediocre results here. When I read these I want to be entertained and understand what I'm reading. I don't want to have to spend ten minutes trying to decipher something that's supposed to be entertaining because then that's work and I'm doing this for fun.
Catharina Geerts 6 months ago
There are a LOT of them saying that it's about their brother, colleague, boss, or a random guy who is the PI, rather than themselves. Seriously?
Marie BellaDonna 5 months ago
It's always been a secret, irrational fear of mine that if I ever went on disability, they wouldn't believe me. I've had back problems since jr high school, and I'm 43 now, so I'm very used to it. I'm very often in pain, almost every day, in fact, but it's my normal. Most of the time, I don't even notice it. I know how to move with it. I mean, there's things I cannot do, especially now that I'm older. I sure as shít wouldn't be able to lift any lawnmowers, lol. But there's things I *can* do, because I'm used to it, that a typical person with back pain might not be able to. Because of that, I don't always look like I'm in pain, even when I am. And I have been accused of lying before. I've had to learn to slow my steps, and walk funny, on occasion, to make my outside appearance match the pain on the inside, so people will believe me. I'm not lying. And I'm still pretty mobile right now, thankfully. But I worry about the future. And because of the accusations I gotten, I have that fear.
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