“What is the cost to find someone?”
We get asked that question about 17 times a day, in one form or another.
- How much will it cost?
- What if I only know the person’s first name?
- What if I only have limited information on the person?
- Why can’t I use one of the online consumer databases (TruthFinder, Spokeo, BeenVerified, etc.)?
- Is there a cost difference between finding a long-lost relative and finding someone to serve in a lawsuit?
- What if I only saw the person from 82 meters away and could only draw a picture?
And so on and so forth.
We understand. At the end of the day, there is so much information out there about finding people, and you just want to know how much it’s going to cost you.
These are (mostly ;) totally normal questions, but for the most part, you will get answers like “It depends,” or end up signing up for some online database that will charge you $29 a month in perpetuity without giving you any definitive answers.
Before we get started on private investigator fees, it’s worth discussing some of the online, consumer-grade databases, as these will inevitably be part of the conversation.
A brief warning: This post is pretty epic. So here is a cheat sheet if you want the Cliffs Notes version:
- Consumer-grade databases (e.g., TruthFinder, Spokeo, BeenVerified) are decent, but they are not always up to date and accurate.
- Although they are not perfect, these consumer-grade databases can be good for some situations; however, for professional jobs where you don’t want to have to question the information you obtain, you should hire a professional.
- While consumer-facing databases get their information from unregulated data, private investigators have access to professional-level investigative databases, which contain more regulated/more secure data.
- Private investigators use databases such as TLOxp, IDI, IRBsearch (also known as Accurint), Tracers and LexisNexis, among others.
- Private investigators must have a permissible purpose to access the information.
- On average, most private investigators charge anywhere from $100 for standard cases to up to $500 for more difficult cases.
- Our fees start at $500 to find a person if you have some basic information about the person, such as a full name, date of birth, recent address, workplace, area of residence, etc.
- Our fees start at $1,000 to find a long-lost relative, friend or similar, or other cases in which you have limited, outdated or historical information.
- We don’t offer guarantees, but we do promise that we will be completely transparent and upfront about our chances of finding the person. We don’t take on cases if we think we can’t help, and we have a really high success rate in finding people.
Are the online consumer-grade databases (TruthFinder, Spokeo, BeenVerified, etc.) any good?
At this point in your research, I am certain that you have come across one of the many online consumer-facing databases and are wondering whether they are any good. You may have even used a few of them.
With a credit card, anyone can sign up for any one of the dozens of online, consumer-grade databases such as TruthFinder, Spokeo and BeenVerified. They are quick and easy, and they are probably pretty decent for finding a portion of the population.
Are these databases any good? The short answer is that they can be decent, but that comes with a lot of caveats:
- One is that the data is not particularly good. Based on some of our own research, these databases’ reports tend to be incomplete, not up to date and not particularly accurate. Most of these databases are pretty cheap, so they would fall under the category of “you get what you pay for.”
- They might have some information right but other information that’s not so accurate. For example, our results showed that some of the addresses were correct, but the telephone numbers were not. Or vice versa. That can be really frustrating if you really need to get in touch with someone.
- Lastly, based on our own experiences, some of these databases rope you into pretty hefty fees that are hard to get out of. Just a few weeks ago, we were working on a case in which we were trying to determine whether any of the consumer-grade databases had contact information for a business executive (they didn’t). But after taking two seconds to sign up, it took about two hours of phone calls to cancel the service.
(If you want to dig into this more, we suggest you take a spin through the post Intelius vs. Spokeo vs. BeenVerified — A Private Investigator’s Review.)
Although each of these databases is different, they generally contain aggregated consumer information that comes from things like forms that you fill out online and publicly available information from government records.
In simpler terms, this is unregulated data.
Can I just use one of the online consumer databases INSTEAD of hiring a private investigator?
Of course.
In fact, in many scenarios that is exactly what we recommend.
Especially for one-off scenarios, if you want to try to save a few bucks or you are pretty confident that the person can be found easily, it’s no bother if the information is not totally up to date and you don’t mind calling a few wrong numbers.
Why would I hire a private investigator then?
The short answer is you should hire a professional if you want a professional job where you don’t have to question the information you obtain.
It’s that simple.
Otherwise, there is no cut-and-dried answer. We have seen consumers, businesses and law firms use these databases with varying degrees of success. Frankly, we mostly see the results of these databases when they don’t provide the answers the clients are looking for, so our personal opinion might be skewed.
We often get these reports sent to us from attorneys who don’t have any confidence in their results. Sometimes they are right, but about half the time they are not. That’s not a great hit rate, especially in a legal matter.
What types of databases do private investigators use?
While consumer-facing databases aggregate unregulated data, professional investigative databases generally gather the more regulated data.
There are dozens of professional-grade databases that investigators use to find people’s addresses and phone numbers. In investigative lingo, this is called skip-tracing. When we say “professional-grade,” we mean databases that (for the most part) only investigators have access to — where you need to verify that you are a licensed private investigator in order to access them. In some cases, law firms and certain businesses can access the information as well.
The reason that a license is required is that much of the information in these databases is protected by regulated data and federal laws like the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCPA) and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA), and in order to access this information, you need a permissible purpose.
The same way that someone can’t just pull your credit report without some sort of permissible purpose, one cannot search regulated data (which we will discuss in a bit) willy-nilly.
Here are a few of the biggest database providers of aggregated data to the investigative industry:
➔ TLOxp
➔ IDI
➔ IRBsearch (also known as Accurint)
➔ Tracers
What types of permissible purposes are there?
Federal privacy laws protect certain types of information from being released. Nearly all the commercial database providers require that you declare a permissible use under the GLBA and DPPA.
This is not an all-encompassing list, but in order to access these databases, a private investigator must show that, for example, the search complies with legal requirements (GLBA), protects against fraud (GLBA), has the express consent of the consumer (GLBA), is in connection with a litigation proceeding (DPPA) or is on behalf of a government agency (DPPA).
There are more than a dozen permissible uses under the GLBA and DPPA, which you can read more about here; but in summary, some sort of permissible use is required.
Do you need a permissible purpose to find the person?
Yes. 100%, without question.
Why?
In order to use the databases described above, a permissible purpose is required, 100% of the time, to access the protected data.
Do you need to know the REASON why you are attempting to find the person?
We can’t speak for other investigators, but in our case the answer is 100% yes.
It’s our duty and obligation to know why you are trying to find the person.
For a business, it may be to track down a former employee relating to a fraud investigation.
For an investor, it may be in anticipation of litigation.
For an attorney, it might be to find a witness for an upcoming trial.
For the general public, that answer can vary, from trying to get in touch with a long-lost relative to finding an old friend to connecting with a former acquaintance.
As private investigators, we have some specialized skills and access to some pretty powerful information. As you can imagine, there have been some horror stories of investigators who tracked someone down with tragic results.
The most famous of these stories concerns Rebecca Schaeffer, the actress who was killed by a deranged stalker who had hired a private investigator to track her down. The killer told the private investigator that he was an old friend of Schaeffer’s and wanted her address so he could send her a gift — but he went to her doorstep and shot her.
Had the private investigator vetted the person just a bit more, they might have never taken the case and Rebecca Schaeffer would still be alive.
Do you even need to use investigative databases?
We are fairly certain that any experienced investigator can find just about anyone’s address with some ninja Internet skills and Googling ability. So, while these private investigator databases make our lives much easier in terms of making it quick and easy to find someone, they are not totally necessary.
Take a recent case we worked on where we were able to find a ridiculous amount of information on an executive.
We were tasked with finding information on an executive at a major company who had become the target of Internet trolls. The executive and the company were concerned that these Internet trolls might act upon some of their vague threats, so we were tasked with trying to identify information about the executive and his family to see what information the trolls might be able to come up with.
Without using a single investigative database, the amount of information we were able to come up with was astonishing, even for us, who have been in this business for nearly 20 years. We found out his home address, home phone number (yes, those still exist), his cell phone number, his wife’s name and cell phone number, photos of his entire family from social media, photos and the address of his second home, his mother’s and father’s names, his kids’ names, his dog’s name and even his grandparents’ names.
This information took quite a bit of time to track down without access to the investigative databases, which would have gotten us from point A to point B much quicker. Nevertheless, it wasn’t all that difficult. Just took some time — something Internet trolls appear to have plenty of.
In this case, the man happened to be a pretty high-profile executive who also had quite a big footprint in public records like property, voter registrations and political contributions.
This definitely wouldn’t be the case for everyone, but you get the point.
Can a private investigator find ANYONE?
We always tell any potential client: With unlimited time and resources, virtually anything is possible.
No matter how little information you have.
But, in reality, there is no such thing as unlimited time, and resources (money, in our case) are limited.
So, while we like to think that we can find anyone, that’s more of a pipe dream than a reality.
So, how much does it cost to hire a private investigator to find someone?
On average, we would say most private investigators charge anywhere from $100 to upwards of $500 for more difficult cases. That doesn’t encompass everything, but it captures a good portion of the cases. On the low end, that would mean someone running a database or maybe two and providing you with whatever comes up. On the higher end, that may require a bit of extra legwork.
How much do we charge?
You have arrived near the end of this post, and you may find yourself wondering, well what the heck do WE charge?
These cases can typically be broken down into two categories:
- Cases in which you have limited information on the person (for example, only a piece or two of identifying information such as a full name, address, date of birth) or information that is dated or really scarce. For example, if you are trying to find a long-lost friend, military buddy or relative, and you have only that person’s relatively common name, approximate age and that’s about it.
- Cases in which you have recent, more comprehensive information, such as a person’s name and a recent address or date of birth, or simply a name and company. For example, if you are trying to find a former employee at a local business who moved away or if there is someone on Facebook whom you want to track down.
Diligentia Group fees to find people
Professional Desktop Research
Fee: $500 (flat fee)
Our initial approach is to identify addresses and contact information from professional-grade investigative databases. We utilize multiple cutting-edge investigative databases that aggregate information from a multitude of sources, including credit headers, utility records, public records and open sources, to identify address and telephone number information.
We then analyze the data and provide the best possible address based on other supporting information, such as utility, voter registration, property ownership or driver’s license records. We aren’t just giving you a data dump of the first information we find; we are carefully and thoughtfully analyzing the information so we can give you the best known address.
We will also provide the best known telephone contact information. While in most cases we will provide telephone contact information for the person you are looking for, in some instances, that may not be available, so we may provide you with the contact information of a close relative.
These records are generally reliable; however, they are not always 100% accurate or up to date and may require additional research, such as on-the-ground work. Additionally, while this may be adequate for the vast majority of people, in some cases, people are much more difficult to find. These can include people who move frequently, are running from the law or are in serious financial trouble.
Deep Research and Telephone Inquiries
Fee: $1,000 (flat)
This is for cases where Professional Desktop Research just won’t cut it — the ones that provide more unique challenges and call for deeper research, telephone inquiries and scouring of public records.
In these cases, we will make additional telephone inquiries, such as calling employers, neighbors, adversaries, distant family members or colleagues, to try to get a sense of the person’s whereabouts. This will be done in combination with taking a deeper dive into public records to identify any potential upcoming court appearances, tracking their social media accounts to triangulate their whereabouts, identifying recently registered vehicles and determining whether they recently set up a new business.
In this phase, depending on the intelligence developed, we may conduct an on-site visit to find the person and/or make a few inquiries.
Bespoke Investigation (Long-Lost Relative / Limited Information / Under the Radar)
Fee: $1,000+ ($150 to $250 per hour)
We use this phase for the cases that are hard to wrap up with a nice little bow.
This kind of investigation is saved for those who are seriously living under the radar; and are more complex than a Deep Research case. They typically require specialized databases, creativity, thoughtfulness, some elbow grease and a tailor-made plan; and just about every tool in our tool belt. And more often than not, they require some actual boots-on-the-ground work.
In terms of finding a long-lost relative or friend, we have had a lot of success with these types of cases in the past. Our favorites include the story of Yvette Ferrari, who spent 45 years without knowing her father — until we found him — and the story of Tucker, who was reunited with his father, who didn’t know he existed.
Some other examples our previous “bespoke” cases include:
➔ locating a person who had been homeless for 20 years, living on the streets of New York, who was due a substantial inheritance;
➔ a mother who had been living off the grid in a trailer in the middle of Oregon;
➔ a former soldier who went by the name Richard Smith (quite literally the most common name in the United States) whom a woman had met in Virginia in the 1980s and on whom she had scant details;
➔ and a businessman in Colorado who had protected his tracks so well that we needed to deliver a giant red tube to his P.O. box and wait for days until he picked it up (spoiler alert: we got him!).
Whatever the challenge is, we are up for it.
Dig deeper:
➔ Private Investigator Tips to Find a Long-Lost Friend or Relative
➔ How Much Does It Cost to Find a Person (Long-Lost Friend or Relative)
➔ Using a Private Investigator to Find a Person or Witness
➔ How to Find Someone on the Internet
Why not just use one database?
Simply put, because not all databases are created equally.
There is no ONE database that is the be-all and end-all. Some are better than others. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses.
At the end of the day, it’s our job to analyze all the information and intelligence and provide the most accurate information based on our experience and analysis.
Are there exceptions to these fees?
Yes, tons of them. Way too many to explain here.
If you want to find 100 people, or 1,000 people, that’s a whole different story.
If you are trying to track down an undocumented immigrant who just came into the country, or have a case that pertains to a non-U.S.-based individual (i.e., someone living internationally) or an adoption-related matter, these are different balls of wax entirely.
If you have something you want to discuss that might not easily fit into one of our categories, contact us.
How long will it take?
For standard cases, such as tracking down an address and phone number, we will typically get back to you within a day or two.
For more complicated matters, it will take several days or weeks to complete the request.
Although this is in no way typical, in one case, we waited over a year to get results from some military requests before we were able to find the right person.
Do you guarantee you’ll be able to find someone?
Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee anything. There are just too many variables, and guarantees can lead to tremendous letdowns.
Just last month, we were asked to find someone by the name Jose Rodriguez who had previously worked at a Walmart in Michigan. He was a potential witness in a slip-and-fall lawsuit. Unfortunately, we just didn’t have enough information to track him down, and the client didn’t want to commit the amount of resources it would have taken to actually track him down. Like contacting all 82 Jose Rodriguezes who have lived near the Walmart in question or tracking down former employees of the Walmart.
However, we were upfront about our lack of confidence in being able to do it without TONS of resources, and the client was understanding.
There are dozens of other stories that follow this same pattern.
But we CAN guarantee you a few things:
➔ We will be completely and sometimes brutally honest about our chances of finding the person.
➔ Our reputation is based on providing our clients with results, not false promises. You can check out some of our feedback here.
➔ We don’t take cases that we can’t help you with.
➔ We have a really high success rate in finding people.
Final thought
If you made it this far, you’ve read (or skimmed through) over 3,461 words (including the title, if you are counting).
Congratulations.
If there was anything we didn’t answer, if something is not clear, or if you have a unique situation, you can set up a time to talk to me personally, here.
