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Child custody
One of the things that we tell everyone with a custody case is no matter what you believe is happening, unless you can provide proof of what you believe, it is a he said she said circumstance. Evidence could be as simple as you audio recording a custody exchange or a tyrate over the phone. Or it could be one of our investigators gather pictures, video or other evidence of any behavior that person is taking that puts the child or development at risk.
Don’t forget other people in your ex’s life. Anyone around the child in question could affect their development or safety. Looking into someone’s background and history is only a portion. It is a snapshot of historic behaviors, but current surveillance can give you current life styles and behaviors which are more important in a current and ongoing custody hearing.
We are not attorney’s and we are not giving legal advice.These are simple recaps of cases and what our experience in private investigations has shown us to be the most prudent investigative actions to take.
Dating during or after seperation and divorce not matter how painful, is not grounds for emergency hearing. Even if that new person is spending the night. Unless they is a court order or agreed custody document that specifically blocks that.
Don’t waste the courts time and your money with simple alligations. Get proof, consult with your attorney before taking action. What ever you do don’t tell people you have evidence, tell your attorney, the judge and your private investigator.
Data Breach due to Your Careless Behaviors
How often do you upgrade your electronic device? I’m talking about ANYTHING, not just a computer. IPods, Ipads, MP3 players, Phones, Tablets. For this discussion lets call Personal Electronics anything that connects to a computer or the internet, anything that stores data on it.
Pre-Example:
MY son has an Old Zune Mp3 player, I had completely forgotten that this device has Wifi on it, hence it has my WIFI code stored in memory. While it doesn’t have any banking info, he entered his address in it for the OWNER info. Now if that is found by a miscreant then they have my Wifi code and my address. and then access to anything connected to my home network.
Your Carelessness:
So now you are getting ride of that old computer, handheld device. Maybe selling on ebay, or if your brave, on Craig’s list. What do you do about the data? It needs to be obliterated. Hey don’t forget the backup copy that you created to restore the device in case you broke it. With an forensically cleaned device, a backup can restore it to a fixed point in time prior to the obliteration.
Media cards within those devices should be KEPT and not given with the item unless they substantially increase the price and you cannot use that storage media for something else.
The Solution:
We have forensic wiping equipment and software to clean the media, weather its a removable card, USB drive, or the embedded memory in device. That wipe can take DAYS per device. If you are gifting it to a friend there is probably less concern about removing the drive as just obliterating the OLD personal data within it. Apple IOS and Android devices have a factory WIPE feature, but we have recently done an Iphone 5 that was wiped (not by us) and I was able to recover a dozen or so voicemails from the device.
For Android here are some :
For Apple:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201351
An Awesome Post from CDNET that I can NOT put in any better terms.
http://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-wipe-your-phone-or-tablet-before-selling/
At a minimum TAKE OUT your harddrives before you sell, give or DONATE.
Ashley Madison Hack – Don’t be tricked
The whole issue is blown out of proportion. It is what it is, a bunch of cheaters who got caught. But at least they weren’t on regular dating sites pretending to be single. There are 2 sides to this story, but both are cheaters. There is no where to hide for users on both end of a cheater’s site. Before there was a defense if it was just a plain old dating site or hook up site, “I didn’t know, they said they were single.”
In my opinion, who cares about the hackers. So far there is no evidence of identity theft or credit card theft, or any other criminal activity related to data they stole. They did steal data, so it is still a criminal act.
It does make you at least snicker at the whole situation. The cheaters got exposed. I believe that this was a personal attack against the company. Someone had a personal or indirectly personal vendetta against this company and site. Let’s mentioned the the media company operates numerous “dating” sites. BUT Only The Ones Related To INFIDELITY OR A-Moral behaviors.
The data itself if insignificant since without an authentication process, I could of registered my DOG for an account and used anyone’s email. The only accounts that would make you raise an eyebrow would be ones confirmed and billed with a valid credit card. But wait, can’t you get a prepaid VISA at Walmart? YES, so that again turns the data into useless names and numbers. You could create an account in someones name and pay for membership using an anonymous prepaid credit card. That person would never even know the account was there.
I have issue with people trying to profit at the paranoia and paying to search the data base that was already stolen from the rightful owners. If its out there for free, then use it to get legitimate business, not simply accesses it. Sell your business service for infidelity and checking out a cheating spouse, give away the fee gift.
You can sell investigative services by explaining that free data and how a name could of possibly been on that list.
Craig list purchase scam
There are SOOO many scams on Craig’s list now, from buying to selling, to simply robbing you when you go for an exchange. I have seen this grow since Craig’s list and other older electronic bulletin board and community eboards first came about. An elderly but not “senior citizen” friend approached me with this problem. We will call him Bob and here is the story.
Bob posted an local ad for some antique furniture on Craig’s list and hours later had 2 inquiries. They agreed to a sale with the first person. That buyer was out of the area and could not pickup, but they had a shipping company they wanted to use. (Red Flag)
The buyer then tells Bob he will send him an extra $20 if he holds furniture and if Bob will coordinate with the shipping company to come pick it up. (RED FLAG)
Buyer sends Bob what appears to be a bank check. but it is a personal check that instead of having the buyers name in upper left hand corner has a bank’s name and address. Hence giving the appearance of a bank check. (the bottom line is no matter what this check says it will bounce).
That check that Bob gets will be for $500 or more above the cost of the chair(RED FLAG)
The buyer tells Bob to cash the check and go get a MoneyGram or Wal-Mart money gram and send it to the shipping company ( giving Bob the particular info) (Red Flag)
It doesn’t matter what you type in money gram, anyone with the info can pick it up no matter what it says on payable to.
Here is where there can be a couple variations in buyer’s story. Sometimes they will say shipping company only does electronic or MoneyGram’s, sometimes the buyer will say that he owes the shipper some other money from a prior shipment and will not ship without paying off past bill and then prepaying or this shipment. The most common story is that the shipper is shipping numerous things to the buyer and this extra $500 or $1k is the TOTAL cost of shipping the container of furniture, not just the 1chair.
DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN THE STORY, that is all part of the scam, misdirect your focus.
Lets pause and reflect.
A. You are selling a $200 chair or ANY ITEM, you have found a buyer that is going to pay $200 then pay $1000 to have it shipped???
B. Your buyer can’t send money to shipper, so you have to do it for them? But don’t forget, they can send a check to you?
C. They want you to send payment to the shipper, In the form of a money order that has no FREEZE, pause, undo, HOLD or any control once you send it.
Lets take a look at the icing on the cake. The emails texts or communications will most likely have some reference to God, church, religion, faith or will provide some sort of story that would convince an average victim that the unknown party is somehow a better person than what you would normally believe from just reading an email or text. They are trying to get your confidence by telling you a lovely fluffy bunny story.
If you happen to speak with them on phone, they will NOT have English as a first language, or will pretend not to at all. As a society we have become introverted and lazy, most people do not want to communicate by phone anymore, everyone seems to prefer text or emails. This is to our detriment both as a society and when doing business, but that’s another blog.
Back to the story…
Bob cashed the check, sent the MoneyGram to the shipper.
The check bounces, the MoneyGram is GONE and the shipping company never calls to pickup chair.
Your buyer is gone but at least you still have a $200 chair that is now worth $1200.
Here are some basic rules for Craig list.
#1 NO MONEY GRAMS or Wires or Wal-Mart payments, do not take gift cards as payment. ACCEPT CERTIFIED BANK CHECK or Cash. Heck even PayPal is NOT even safe ( it takes NOTHING for a buyer to file claim against you and Paypal protects the BUYER not the seller) !!!
#2 Do not post your address, phone number or email. Get a disposable email address that y use for JUST Craig’s List selling.
#3 Block your phone number if you have to call someone from Craigslist
#4 Never meet alone, do not go to their house alone and don’t invite them over alone. ( some police departments now even promote mewing at police station ( just make sure there is a cop at the station)
#5 Have a friend review the deal to make sure it make sense
#6 When it sound too good to be true it most likely is.
Hi this is Microsoft calling (SCAM ALERT)
How many have received a call from someone with English as second language claiming to be from Microsoft support? Now with the flood of IT support jobs LEAVING the USA, it is easily believable simply based on lack of English skills, but really,, Microsoft is calling you… have you every tried to find a support phone number for ANY of these Tech giants?
With the recent release of Windows 10 and the fun little pop up on our computers about getting a FREE COPY, again it lends credibility to the scammers calls ( they know this and the timing couldn’t be more perfect).
Lets try another quick POLL. (these are fun and all answers are anonymous)
Cold calls that you receive and have not initiated are just TRE-TEXTS for fraud. Unless you called them DO NOT tell them anything.
The first test is if they can give you a number and extensions to call them back at. Take a look at this pic from a overseas call I received at home, they didn’t even try to block or mask the foreign caller ID, and didn’t even opt to pay for a VOIP line to get domestic number for their fraud attempt.
Its not just Microsoft, I have gotten calls from “Norton Anti-Virus support” and other common names that you think of related to your PC.
HANG UP AND CALL the support line for that business or company calling you.
We can now bypass the lock screens on Apple IOS 7.xx equipment
Did you know we can bypass the lock screen on IOS device running 7.XXX
This means our forensic exam is not stuck knocking on the locked door. We can provide a full picture and document evidence on that Apple device that can give you piece of mind with a child or spouse, or even keep you out of jail in a criminal matter. This is a huge gain for businesses, image what you can learn after a fired employee turns in a company phone and wont give you the code. you are no longer in the dark!
How often and quickly do you upgrade the operating system on your Android or Apple Device
How often and current do you keep you mobile device and the operating system, IOS and android operating systems make major updates but the first thing to note is that not all devices are capable of these updates. It is hardware specific, in the real world this creates an end of life timeline for devices that will no longer step up to the newest release. You can keep you old hardware and watch Apps stop working and see a limits on new Apps as they are written and updated to stay with the most current operating system or pay to upgrade equipment.
If you fight change and don’t update then downloading new Apps is probably not a concern, your only thought is why old apps stop working correctly as they get updates for newest operating systems.
Please check out our poll below, we will have a follow up poll in coming months, Please check back
How to Hire a private investigator
Please do NOT use Craig’s List, I will say no more. Also, anyone advertising prices dramatically lower than industry standards is most likely going to get you drastically reduced results.
(As we are based in Indiana, operating 2 physical offices in Fort Wayne and the Indianapolis suburb of Fishers, these guidelines can apply to ANY state or region.)
- Ask for legal business name. I doubt the company is called carmel private investigator. Like many other companies we have paid advertising on separate sites called Adversites, for example 1 of ours .(http://www.carmelprivateinvestigator.com) *Most of these re-direct to our actual company site which clearly states our business name and locations. Some do not and are free standing separate websites.
- Ask for their license Number. It is on business cards and websites.
- Ask if the company is insured, ask to see insurance carrier “accord” form.
- Do not rely on internet reviews completely, This goes against the norm, but think about it. Who hires a private investigator for a matter that they most likely want to keep private because of a court hearing or simply because it’s embarrassing. Most online reviews require some sort of back check to determine its not a SEO or programming trick. But in our 30 years of experience, I can only think of a handful of clients that want anyone to know they contacted and used a private investigator. (We have some that require signed confidentiality statements)
- Research (internet). Many of the “googled” responses to your search for a local Private investigator will result in another advertising directory website, or other subscriber lists dedicated to simply pointing you to more links for varies companies (those are expensive and most good PI firms wont spend the big dollars to advertise there). Or you will get a link for a large national firm that does not even have an office or employee in your state or local area.
- Find the actual web site of the company. See what they are about. Does the website tell you anything or is it just there to be a search engine listing of key words & services.
- Talk with them over phone then in person. Not just an answering service, or a sales rep on the phone. If you cannot talk with the owner, manager or director of operations, or the actually private investigator working the case then keep calling! If your lucky these large national firms simple take your case and then re-sell it to an actually private investigator in your area. Worse case, if they do have someone in the area, you will never know if that guy is working his first PI case or if they have 15 years experience. Talking with the actually guy working your case gives direct, and immediate facts as to what is happening.
- Get a signed contract, They should have some form of written agreement that lists service being provided and costs of said services.
- Get a receipt for any retainer paid.
- Have a reasonable expectation of results, don’t get convinced that proof is easy. There are no guarantees in this business or the services we provide, but don’t get burned by someone taking a retainer and then simply saying sorry no results. We go through our results with clients and even the lack of activity or lack results still has some documentation depending on the type of case.
- Talk with them (I repeat this because its important) you don’t pick you Doctor or lawyer or contractor without meeting or talking on the phone a couple times. Heck you probably even call around at least 2 or 3 times to get your car repaired. On the flip side please don’t waste our time with physical meetings that are not honest, we are busy, but a phone call is quick and easy, spend a bit on the phone. We like to talk with potential clients on a call or email either a couple times or a fair amount of time in 1 call, and we then expect the meeting to be business. Meaning, you give a much more detailed description of case, photos, etc. and we sign contract and collect retainer at that time. It is the time for you to confirm what was said during free phone consultations and then hire us for the job. A physical meeting should be to confirm what your gut instinct was during the phone calls and emails, Not to shop around, do that over the phone. BUT if that meeting doesn’t feel right then Don’t do it. Be honest and tell them your not comfortable and want to talk with some other firms. We do not always take cases and we are doing the same thing you are as a consumer. If something is not quite right we will tell you we are not talking your case.
- MAKE SURE ITS LEGAL. Your requested service must be something that is legally obtained, any actions being taken illegally can come back to haunt you in court.
Motor Vehicle Crashes Are Leading Killer Of American Teens
Motor Vehicle Crashes Are Leading Killer Of American Teens
(Sent from 21Alive)
http://www.21alive.com/features/eyes-forward/-Motor-Vechhe-leading-killer-of-American-teens-242915501.html
Contact us for real time GPS tracking solutions to help keep your kids safe but still allow them some independence.
Budenz Private Investigations 