Cheating Spouse Private Investigator Insights

First of all, don’t get angry with your investigator.

Any good investigator will have many questions for you, one of the most important being, where and when will the surveillance begin?

We don’t ask this question to frustrate you. We realize that in most cases, “if you knew that” you wouldn’t need us. Well, here’s the thing, we don’t know your husband/boyfriend/wife/girlfriend at all. I don’t know that your significant other works late on Tuesdays and Thursdays, has dinner with his folks every Sunday at 5 and has his kids every Wednesday and every other weekend, for example.

With that being said, there are a couple of things you can consider when choosing your most effective “start time”.

Rule out the periods of time when you are absolutely certain that it CANNOT be happening, i.e., those times listed above. Once you put pen to paper, you may see a clear pattern of behavior emerge, for example; Aha! Monday evenings, he is supposed to get off of work at 5, but he never gets home until 8. There you have it, your rock solid start time.

But he’s in sales, you say. He is his company’s most valued employee as he is tireless in his dedication to his work and clients. He is ALWAYS working, you say.

Well, have no fear. Here is when some good, ol’ fashioned creativity comes in handy. If cheater offers no clear opportunity, then we will create one for him.

Do you ever travel? Enjoy weekend visits with your folks or old friends? Not usually?

Well, do it now. Hire yourself a professional investigator to monitor the where-abouts of your sweetie. Give him plenty of notice. If cheater is seeing someone else who is supposedly in a committed relationship, this will give them an opportunity to get their stories straight and free them self of their significant other during the same time.

Still nothing? You say, “but we haven’t spent one night apart in 25 years……”

Then you leave your investigator very few options. You must increase your budget.

We hate to ask. We like to work cost efficiently. But in cases such as the above, we just have to ask you to pick a time and go for it. Perhaps you can start with 30-40 hours. Let the investigator get out in the field to get a feel for his subject. He may find that after 5 hours spent tailing the subject, he has an idea of what’s going on and can offer helpful suggestions as far as when the subsequent surveillance sessions should realistically begin.

We do hope that these tips help. We want to help you, but remember, you’ve loved this person for how long now and you don’t know what’s going on.

We certainly have no idea……

The AP reported that the famous saga of a woman who killed her cheating husband by mowing him down with her luxury car returns to court Tuesday in a civil case Clara Harris filed against her former defense attorney. Jury selection is set to begin more than three years after Harris filed a lawsuit claiming Houston attorney George Parnham overcharged to defend her in the 2003 murder trial that garnered international attention.

Harris, 50, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for running over her philandering spouse in a hotel parking lot in 2002 after confronting him with his mistress. The lawsuit claims Harris hired Parnham for $75,000 but wound up paying more than $235,000.

Should people enlist the help of a private investigator to find an old girlfriend?  
The answer is a resounding, absolutely, and, no way.

That makes no sense, you say.  Well, let me give you some points to ponder before you get upset with me.

I don’t know who you are.  I am sure you are a fine person of strong moral character and certainly a pillar of integrity within your community, but none-the-less, you are a stranger to me.  I have been specifically trained to question anything unfamiliar to me.  Please don’t be offended when I am unmoved by proclamations to the effect of “I’m not crazy”.   

You must understand that I have no idea of the circumstances behind the demise of your past relationship.  I am always curious though, if she wanted to remain friends with you, why did she not provide you with her forwarding information?  Never-the-less, I am not always so cynical.  I know that friends lose touch.  I know that people grow up and move away and friendships get lost in life’s shuffle.  If this is true in your case, then nothing will bring me greater joy then to reunite you and your friend, but let’s consider the more sinister side of people and their motives. 

At least once a day, I’ll get a call from a seemingly kind man who “just lost his wife” and would enjoy reconnecting with his “first love” just to see how she is and how her life is going.  Well, my first instinct is to be moved by the romance of it all.  How special she must be that she is thought of so highly after so many years……sigh….but I digress….  

Suddenly, I am reminded of the harsh reality of “sometimes”.  Sometimes seemingly kind man has a restraining order against him.  Sometimes “first love” is unrequited and would tremble if she thought a private investigator revealed her whereabouts to her ex boyfriend. 

As professional private investigators we have a duty to know the intentions of our prospective clients.  We have a policy here from which we never deviate; we will NEVER release our subject’s personal information without her permission.  We also make it our business to know exactly who our clients are so it should not come as a surprise when I ask you for the first 5 or last 4 digits of your social security number on our investigations agreement.  I want to be sure that you are who you say you are. 

Okay, with all that being said, let’s assume you’re on the up and up.  Let’s say that you want to know whether your ex is married or single before you decide to contact her.  No problem.  I am perfectly willing to let you know what I believe her marital status to be (this is not free of charge).  If it appears she is attached, you may decide to hold off on contacting her.  We will file her information for future reference in case circumstances change for either of you. 

If she is free, one of our female investigators will contact her to offer your contact information, or obtain her permission to release hers to you.  We can also forward a handwritten letter from you, to her.  This allows us to withhold her information while still allowing you to reach out to her.   

I’m a huge romantic and a fan of first loves reuniting in the second half of their lives. I just want to be sure that both parties are as pleased as I am about the prospect of becoming reacquainted with each other.  I hope you understand.   I hope you take comfort in knowing that I will protect your information as diligently as I do hers.                                           

I had an opportunity to attend a training for investigators recently and during one of the breaks there was an excited conversation taking place within a group of investigators who were new to the business. They had what sounded like a varied past set of experiences, some being from the military, some from law enforcement and at least one from corporate security. They were having a good time pointing out the “problems” associated with domestic cases like infidelity investigations. In particular, they felt the clients, who mind you are going through a very difficult time dealing with the prospect of their spouse cheating on them and who have no idea how investigations are handled, are not smart enough to represent. The labeled these clients as “morons” and began some excellent story telling about cases where the client was charged a large amount of money but, the investigation failed to yield any results.

This same group then began describing how the often charge such clients hundreds of dollars for “data” about the other man/woman, that is nothing more than database runs that cost $ 5 and $10, again laughing about the loser clients who buy that info.

At this point I joined the conversation and asked about their practices, areas od specialization, training, office location and staff size. This lead the another round of jokes about how a PI should always take every case that comes their way and simply farm out the work to someone else for a kick back rather than simply telling the client that they do not do that type of work.

This lack of professionalism is a major cause of concern the “real” private investigators, with real offices, real staff, real reports, real training, real ethics policies and a real commitment to their clients.

IMO, if your PI is working from their home office in the basement, run! You deserve better.

London, Jan 20:

Hoping to win 50,000 pounds on a TV game show, a husband owned up to cheating on his wife by having an affair and visiting a prostitute on his bucks night.

Stuart Brandwood admitted his scandalous antics as he was hooked to a lie detector on game show Nothing But the Truth, where contestants must answer 21 questions truthfully in front of their spouse to win the jackpot.

Apart from confessing an affair and bedding a prostitute, Brandwood said that his wife Amanda was not the best lover he’d had.

She has, however, forgiven him, and the couple, from Warrington in Cheshire, insist their relationship is ’stronger than ever’.

Before the program, Amanda submitted two suggestions for questions to ask her husband. One was: ‘Have you had an affair while you have been together with Amanda?”, the other: “Have you ever paid for sex abroad?”

When his wife asked him the questions, Stuart thought he had no option but to confess, rather than have her find out on the program.

“I went to Amsterdam on my stag night. My mates decided to get some money together for a prostitute in the red light district. I was very drunk,” the Scotsman quoted him, as saying.

Stuart said that the worst part was when he was asked whether his wife was the best lover he had had, to which he replied: No.

“That was unbelievably awkward and she really grilled me afterwards about who was the best lover,” he said.

“I had a life and a past before Amanda. She knew that because I was 30 when we met.

“But the question that has really kept us together was: ‘If you could have an affair and not get caught, would you do it?’ and I answered honestly, ‘No.’ So I think that proved how much I love her.”

Amanda said: “Because of everything he has confessed to, there have been a few tough times for us recently, but now he has a clean slate and I have forgiven him. I was more angry with him for not telling me about those things and keeping them a secret for years than what he actually did.

“We always had a strong relationship, and we must have done to have got through this. Amazingly, it has made us closer. We certainly talk a lot more now, she added.

Cheating spouses don’t have to leave home to be bad. They go to the computer - and promptly leave a trail

The Gazette

Published: Saturday, January 19

When possible, he and his team do house calls, tapping for example, into a husband’s computer when he’s away at work.

Other clients courier their spouses’ hard drives over to Wiechman.

“The chain of custody is very important. It’s essential to know that no one else played with the computer,” he said.

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Wiechman tells the story of a man who was convinced his wife was

having an affair: “It turned out she wasn’t.”

But the wife was keeping some pretty shocking secrets Wiechman was able to uncover.

“She was logging into (a) website and having sexual relations online with other men and with sex toys.”

The husband didn’t react well, though they attempted to reconcile. But 18 months later, she was back at it again.

“She claimed it was just a way for her to earn a living,” Wiechman said.

But online evidence isn’t always enough. “That’s because we can’t usually prove the identity of the person who has done it,” he said.

Wiechman has only handled two cases where he was able to conclusively identify a cheating spouse in court. “They had their webcams turned on themselves,” he said.

Asset tracking is also becoming a bigger part of Wiechman’s business.

He can access an individual’s online banking activities and determine whether the person has offshore bank accounts.

“Sometimes people have stock and bank accounts under fictitious names,” he said.

It’s a good thing for Wiechman that people feel secure when they are

online - otherwise, he’d be out of business. “People don’t realize they leave tracks, which is where I come in.”

Wiechman stresses the importance of bringing in a forensics expert to collect online evidence.

“Otherwise the date and time stamps on the file could be changed - and that information can be very important,” he said.

Digital information tends to have a long life.

Wiechman warned that even evidence-wiping computer programs may not keep people’s secrets safe.

“If you’re not an expert user, it’ll still leave data out there for us.

My simplest and best advice is: don’t do it,” he said.

Cheating spouses don’t have to leave home to be bad. They go to the computer - and promptly leave a trail

The Gazette

Published: Saturday, January 19

In the old days, lipstick on a shirt collar and suspicious late-night phone calls were signs your spouse might be a- cheatin’.

But even adultery has gone high-tech.

More and more people are discovering online evidence of their partner’s peccadillos.

People who send email love notes to their paramours or who meet up for salacious conversations in chat rooms should beware: Big Brother - or your cuckolded spouse - may be watching you.

Montreal divorce lawyer Robert Teitelbaum says that in the last five to 10 years, an increasing number of his clients have been coming in with evidence they’ve found on the Internet - and many of them weren’t even looking for dirt when they made their discoveries.

“Husbands and wives may be on chat rooms late into the evening.

“The spouse only discovers this weeks later when they happen to be looking at the history on their computers.

People don’t always clear their history,” said Teitelbaum.

Teitelbaum, who’s been in practice for 30 years, says several of his clients have actually married the people they met in online chat rooms.

“In one case, I handled the second divorce,” he said.

Gerald Stotland, a family law lawyer with Lavery, De Billy, reports seeing a similar increase in evidence acquired over the Internet.

“I’ve had cases where there have been Internet liaisons established which the other spouse has discovered, and instances where communications between one of the spouses has indicated a possible involvement with someone else.

“I’ve also encountered cases where one of the spouses has been accessing pornography, and this has become an issue not only in the marriage but also in child custody,” he said.

Though neither Teitelbaum nor Stotland were willing to divulge more specific details, Stotland indicated he’s heard some pretty wild stories.

“I have a saying: You think you’ve seen it all until the next client walks into your office,” he said.

If Stotland had to give a word of advice to cheating spouses who hope not to be discovered, it would be to do a better job of covering their tracks.

“People have to be more cautious with respect to the messages they receive and send on their computers. Once you delete something from a computer, it’s never really deleted,” he said.

Wednesday, January 09, 2008