Funderburk PI

Man Has Wife Arrested for Infidelity

2012-02-21T08:36:00.000-08:00

Most people don’t think about calling the police when they learn that their spouse has had an affair, but one Arizona man did just that, according to CBS News. Dave Banks is a resident of Glendale, Arizona, who got tired of his cheating wife. When Banks turned to Glendale’s Victim Assistance Program, he learned that not only is cheating painful, its actually illegal in Arizona. 

Arizona isn’t the only state with this type of law on the books. CBS reports that about half of all US states have some form of “alienation of affection” or other morality laws. But these aren’t the only outdated and comical laws that the state of Arizona can boast. For example, it is illegal to keep a donkey in your bathtub, hunt camels, or refuse to give another person a glass of water if they ask for one. Every state has laws like these that hark back to the foundation of this great country, but it has been decades or more since these laws have been taken seriously, if they ever were. 

Dave Banks was undeterred by the obsolete status of this law, and filed a police report anyway. Banks says that he has actually been calling the police for years in regard to his wife’s adulterous ways, but this is the first time that Glendale police validated his claim and filed the report. Banks states that his wife has had six or seven affairs that he knows of, and his wife openly admits to two, which took place after the couple moved into separate residences. 

While the whole situation has a slightly amusing undertone, it actually brings to light a very valid point. Why are some laws considered legitimate while others aren’t? Banks asks “who gets to pick and choose which laws they can and can’t enforce? They got somebody readily admitting to guilt.” 

Glendale Police finally accepted the report and filed a class 3 misdemeanor under Arizona state law ARS 13-1048 against Mrs. Banks, but they warned that a prosecutor is unlikely to follow through with a conviction. Of course, Dave Banks does have the options of hiring a private investigator like Funderburk Investigative Services to obtain proof of his wife’s infidelity, and then move forward with a divorce filing.

Why You Should Make Sure Your PI is Licensed

2012-02-20T07:49:00.000-08:00

If there is one thing that wem would really like to engrain into your brain, it is this: verify your private investigator’s credentials before you give them money! Why is this so important? Two words-John Bacon.

John Bacon is a convicted child molester who was caught by CBS posing as a private investigator in Anchorage, Alaska. This exact scenario is the reason that most states have licensing requirements, to protect consumers against convicted felons! You have a right to know if the man or woman you are about to pay to help find your missing child is a convicted child molester, rapist, murderer, or is otherwise deranged, amoral, or unreliable. If you never take the extra moment to ask your PI if they are licensed, an unsavory character like Señor Bacon could dupe you and steal your money.

According to CBS, this isn’t the first time Bacon has been caught doing a job he isn’t licensed for. In the last few years, he has been busted working as a plumber without a license, and worst of all, Bacon was caught in 2011 working as a psychologist with zero credentials and no license. John Bacon isn’t the only unlicensed and unscrupulous person out there posing as a private investigator, but he may be the worst caught to date.

In the United States, private investigators are required to be licensed in every state except Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Wyoming. If you live in any of the other 45 states, please take a moment to ask your private investigator if they are licensed. These three little words (“are you licensed?”) could be the difference between hiring a child molester like Bacon, and hiring a licensed professional you can trust.

Need a licensed private investigator in the Charlotte area? Call Funderburk Investigative Services today.

How to Find Someone on Facebook

2012-02-17T08:32:00.000-08:00

Have you ever tried to find somebody on Facebook and couldn’t? One would think that finding somebody on Facebook would be a relatively straightforward process, but with a vast array of privacy settings, it’s not as straightforward as you may think.

Social media is playing an increasingly larger role for private investigators, and there is no bigger game in town than Facebook. With 800 million active Facebook users, it’s more common for someone to be on Facebook than not. Social media sites such as Facebook offer an unbelievably rich source of information that might be relevant to any investigation including an asset investigation, an executive background check or to find someone on the Internet.

One of the initial challenges to finding somebody on Facebook is the vast array of privacy settings that users have implemented so that people like you (or us) can’t find them. But there are ways around that, which we will go into below.

Here are four ways to find somebody on Facebook:

Facebook Search
What better place to start than Facebook’s own search feature. Here you can search by the person’s name, school or company. You must have an active account in order to access this feature. In order to find the person on Facebook, that “somebody” whom you are looking for must have privacy settings turned off so that the person can be looked up by name or contact info.

Email Address
For most social networks, Facebook included, you can find somebody by typing in an email address. So even if a user profile has been set up under a completely fake name, you can still find the person by typing his or her email address into the Facebook search box.

Site Operator
Even if a person turns on every Facebook privacy setting in the world, when he or she comments on a public page, it’s “public.” One way to find if the person has commented on any public pages is to use the “site” operator in Google, which searches all pages that have been indexed by Google. So, for example, if you were looking for John Doe, you would type “site:www.facebook.com John Doe.”

Search Friends, Family and Colleagues
You can control your own privacy settings, but you can’t control everyone else’s. Facebook even has its own family search, where you can search by family last name. If friends, family or colleagues don’t change certain privacy settings, you may be able to find the person by looking through the friend lists of friends, colleagues, family and coworkers.

What Next?
If you have found the person’s profile, congratulations. While you may have found the person you are looking for, depending on the privacy settings, you may not be able to access the person’s wall or photos; but we have found that people often leave their friend lists open, which can be a rich source of information.

Finally, if you need help finding someone, consider turning to a professional private investigator like Funderburk Investigative Services.

Conducting a Criminal Record Search

2012-02-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

Whether you are going on a first date, hiring a new employee or meeting a potential roommate, there are many reasons to conduct a criminal record search on someone. And just as there are many reasons, there are many ways to conduct a criminal record search. However, conducting a truly comprehensive criminal record search is an involved process, which is why you should consult a professional like Funderburk Investigative Services.

Most organizations don’t conduct a comprehensive criminal record search because the results are not instantaneous (despite what others may claim, “comprehensive” and “instant” usually don’t belong in the same sentence), and the cost can be prohibitive because multiple sources must be searched manually.

A search through NCIC is the best way to conduct a true nationwide criminal record search, but this information is not available to the public.

We have broken down the way to conduct a comprehensive criminal record search into four simple steps.

(1) Conduct a search on the person’s name in state and local courts in the counties where the person has lived or worked.
Once you have determined which counties the person has lived in, you can send someone to the local courthouse. Every state and county differs in what is available at the county courthouse, so it’s important to understand what types of records would be included in the search. For example, there may be local town or justice courts that handle infractions or misdemeanors.

(2) Search the agency that maintains the statewide criminal history databases for states where the person has lived or worked.
While county court searches are the most effective way to find criminal records in a local jurisdiction, you may find that a person has been arrested in a neighboring county. While not every state has a centralized database maintained by an official state agency, many states do. The benefit is that you are using an official repository run by the state; however, these repositories are only as good as the information they contain and have been found to be missing information.

(3) Conduct a search on the person’s name in federal courts in districts where the person has lived or worked.
Most people think of criminal records including drug possession, driving while intoxicated, or assault and battery as state matters. However, there are a number of federal statutes that can result in someone facing criminal charges, especially with white-collar matters.

(4) Search “nationwide” criminal databases for additional criminal records.
We’ve discussed the myth about nationwide criminal databases before. The fact is that there really is no comprehensive way to conduct a nationwide criminal background check through open sources. These nationwide databases do have their place. Using a nationwide criminal database as a backstop, while the data is not comprehensive, is an excellent way to identify records that may exist outside the jurisdictions in which the person has resided.

You can conduct a criminal record search yourself, but for true peace of mind, leave it to a professional investigator and call Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte today.

Cell Phone Number Lookup

2012-02-15T09:02:00.000-08:00

Have a cell phone number but don't know who it belongs to? Funderburk Investigative Services can help. We can locate the name and address associated with that phone number

There are many reasons why someone would want find a person's name and address, especially when all you know about the person is their cell phone number. Many times through the course of the day we come across phone numbers we don’t recognize and meet new people we are unsure of. Are they are who they say they are? Perhaps you lost touch with an old friend. Maybe you are receiving calls from a number that you don't recognize. Whatever the reason, we can help.

You’ve tried free reverse lookups of their cell phone number to get their name and address. Worse, you paid for a reverse look-up on a hokey website. You tried to look up the cell phone numbers in the Internet to no avail. Unfortunately, many of the sites on the internet that promise cell phone number reverse lookups or 411 directory’s are inaccurate at best.

Here is where a private investigator can help: A licensed private investigator has access to databases not made available to the public. Funderburk private investigators have available to them a comprehensive cell phone database covering all the wireless cell phone carriers in the nation. As licensed private investigators we can very likely determine the owner of a cell phone number and return the name and address the cell phone address is listed to.

Locating a name and address of a cell phone number is only limited to the information made available by the cell phone company or the registered owner of the cell phone. A search of a cell phone number for a name and address is quick and easy with a professional private investigator.

There Are Two Exceptions to Locating Peoples Names and Addresses by Cell Phone Numbers:

1. To locate the name & address of a cell phone number that is unlisted will not yield any results, just like a land-line. When searched across the database we will learn what cell phone service provider the cell phone number is registered to. However, locating an individual from the cell phone number would not be possible if the cell phone number turns out to be unlisted.
2. If the cell phone is a prepaid cell phone, cash cell phone or go phone the name and address of the individual will not be available. The limitation to finding individuals addresses & names from cell phone #’s such as these is that you are not required to register a name and address when purchased, there is no contract. That is part of the benefit of the cash phone.

Call Funderburk Investigative Services. We can quickly run your cell phone number to determine the name & address associated with it.

Valentine's Day is the Hardest Day for Cheaters

2012-02-14T07:24:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day is probably the hardest day of the year for cheaters. They have to try to satisfy both their spouse and lover with gifts and time. It can be costly and nearly impossible to be in two places at one time, and it is the spouse who normally gets the short end of the stick. This is why the time leading up to Valentine's Day is an ideal time to catch cheating partners.

Most private investigators agree the weeks before February 14 are when cheaters leave most evidence of their affairs. Holidays, especially Valentine's Day, is when they take risk they normally would not have to take.

Many private investigators say that in the past few years the number of people looking for proof of their partner's infidelity has surged. It is too painful, to sit around waiting to find out the truth. If there is infidelity they want to, know now and move on with their lives.

Valentine's Day requires extra effort on the part of adulterers to satisfy their love interests. Giveaway signs of affairs include additional time spent away or coming home late, be particularly aware if the partner tells you, "You're crazy" when confronting them.

Other tell-tale signs are a flurry of activity on the credit card, unexplained cash withdrawals and lots of disappearances to urgent meetings.

While these things could also be the behavior of a faithful lover planning a Valentine's surprise, those paired up with an adulterer usually know the difference.

I advise those who suspect their loved one may be cheating, to talk it over with a trusted friend. There are also many signs of a cheating spouse on the internet site, http://www.infidelitypolice.com/.

According to one of my private investigator friends, a few years ago he would receive a couple of calls a week about investigating infidelity, but now he gets about six inquiries a day. The rise of Internet dating, which allows people to create fictitious profiles and make contact with hundreds of singles, makes adultery easier.

The next time you are in Victoria Secrets ask any sales women if it is common for them to sell two sets of underwear to customers for Valentine's Day.

You may find, "One set gets paid for with the credit card for the wife and the other gets paid with cash for the 'secretary'.''
If you are afraid that your spouse is cheating on you, contact Funderburk Investigative Services to find out the truth.

What to Expect When You Hire a PI

2012-02-13T07:38:00.000-08:00

Deciding on hiring a private investigator to watch someone is a big decision. It usually means there’s a problem. And problems don’t go away on their own. They need some type of intervention. Most of my clients have wanted their spouses or significant partner under surveillance to check on whether they are having an extramarital affair. Conducting surveillance on someone is a great benefit in finding out their habits, work schedule, use of free time, and potentially any one new in their lives.

This Is What You Can Expect:
1) Initial Consultation (gathering information)
Investigators rely on clients for personal information. The more information you have on that specific someone you want watched, the easier it is for the investigator to watch that person. This can save you a lot of time as well as money if you have this information readily available for the investigator. During the initial consult, the investigator will ask you for specific details, like the type of car they drive, the bar they hang out at, their place of employment and even their barber’s shop. Provide as much detail as possible. The trained investigator thinks outside the box, and all questions will be considered relevant to the investigation, even if you might think they are not. The first step in obtaining high quality results starts with providing as much information as possible.

2) Cost and length of investigation
The initial cost of the investigation is up to you. You decide how much you want to spend. Start with two 12 hour days of surveillance and see what the investigator can get in terms of evidence. Twelve hours on a Friday and Saturday should give you a pretty good picture of what’s happening. The length of the investigation could be a couple weekends to a couple months depending on your budget. I’ve seen a lot of surveillance cases produce positive results around the $2000 to $3000 mark. Private investigative companies charge anywhere between $60-$95 per hour for surveillance cases. Price can sometimes depend on experience, equipment, availability and reputation within the legal community.

3) Communicating with the investigator
This is the most dynamic part of the investigation. As an investigator in “the field” (which means physically out on an assignment) being able to communicate with a client about a specific question I may have or a picture that I have just taken is very important. Usually the client knows every quirk about their significant other, including who they usually hang out with, when they work late, who might be a co-worker and who might be a possible romantic interest. Ask the investigator how often he will be contacting you or “updating” you as the investigation progresses. Ask the investigator if pictures or video will be sent. Email is a great way to send most forms of media including digital pictures, video, messages, etc. I like asking my clients to set up an anonymous email like a Yahoo or Hotmail account, something separate than their primary work/home email. This gives a sense of confidence that the details of their case are not compromised.

4) Viewing Evidence The Investigator Has Gathered
With today’s technology, clients can view most of their evidence from the privacy of their own home or office. An investigator can send video, pictures, addresses, phone numbers and investigative reports almost instantaneously from their laptop directly to the client. The investigator may choose to meet with you and provide your evidence in person. Be prepared to stomach the actual footage they show you. This could range from the person having a romantic affair to absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Don’t expect the video or pictures to look like those spy movies in Hollywood either. Remember, the investigator will either be on foot or in a vehicle capturing your evidence. They will be under real world conditions, so expect real world results. Remember there are no spotlights or second takes. You will more than likely be shown the “raw footage” as it happened. Your footage should be time date stamped, which means the video evidence has the time and date code embedded in the footage. This establishes a timeline of when the activity took place and can be considered “best evidence” under most court rules in North Carolina.

5) Following Up With The Client
Once you’ve viewed the evidence and have decided to call it quits you may receive a call back from the investigator. The investigator follows up on your case to find out if the situation has changed and inquires about the possibility of more surveillance. Relationship type cases are often very emotional and things can change at a drop of a hat. Let your investigator know if you would like to continue your investigation. I haven’t known one PI to say no to that response.

If you have been considering hiring a private investigator, don't wait any longer. The problem won't go away on its own. Call Funderburk Investigative Services today!

Get a Background Check Before your Next Date

2012-02-09T08:22:00.000-08:00

A great article by Kim Green, as seen in Nashville Scene.

The end of love — that way madness lies. Just ask a private investigator.

As it happens, my husband Hal is a PI, and so am I. A born diplomat, Hal often finds himself in the role of informal counselor to scorned and lovelorn clients. At all hours, plaintive marimba notes proclaim a litany of despairing texts detailing woman's inhumanity to man (and vice versa): You won't believe what (s)he's done now! Indeed, it defies credulity what seemingly rational people (often from tony ZIP codes) will do when romance jumps the track.

If Hal and I have learned anything from digging through the detritus of failed relationships, it's that there's all manner of unspeakable misery behind the beveled-glass doors, and a multitude of sad little secrets spouses keep from each other — from covert drug deals to affairs too hapless for reality TV.
It's little wonder that some folks decline to join the fray. Marriage rates in America keep dropping, and the prospect of dating — especially online — in a two-degrees-of-separation town can seem almost ... undignified. Not to mention utterly discouraging, and sometimes, downright dangerous.

That's why Alice Sullivan, a 32-year-old writer and editor, has a message for online dating services: I'm just not that into you. She's planning to let her account lapse when it expires ... right around Valentine's Day. "At this point, it's totally just entertainment for me," she says. "Because I don't think anything is going to come of it, except for really awkward stories." Not awkward, as in long pauses over lattes. Awkward, as in guys texting her penis pictures. As in her date urinating in his pants during dinner.

As in convicted sex offender.

She met him through an online dating service and went out with him twice. "He was handsome," she says. But something didn't feel quite right to her, something she couldn't define.
And then, after their second date, he confessed: "He'd been busted in a raid," Sullivan says, "because he had sent naked pictures of himself to [a] supposed 14-year-old." Who, fortunately, turned out to be a police officer.

"Pretty much like To Catch a Predator," she adds.

New York writer Maria Coder wants to arm thrice-burned daters like Sullivan with information that can make new love feel a little less blind. A former crime reporter, Coder started thinking about ways the research techniques she was using every day could help people protect themselves from scammers and predators.

And then one day, she found herself applying those techniques in her own life. It troubled her that her boyfriend minimized Facebook whenever she walked by. Applying some simple sleuthing, she discovered that he was meeting and sexting dozens of women on Facebook, and even arranging liaisons with some of them. "I was totally devastated," she says.

Energized by that experience, Coder launched a series of workshops that coached prospective daters how to analyze Facebook and online dating profiles with a critical eye, search for criminal and employment records, and interpret conversations and body language. And she wrote a book outlining those simple investigative tools, called InvestiDate: How To Investigate Your Date, which comes out this month.

"You want to pay attention to the little things," she suggests. "Think of yourself as a detective or a doctor putting together all the important facts and symptoms so you can draw an accurate conclusion."

Coder advises people beginning a relationship to pay attention to gut feelings and heebie-jeebies — that intangible sense that something isn't right — and follow them where they lead. If she never picks up the phone in the evenings, find out where she has lived (zabasearch.com) and check those county courthouses for a marriage certificate. If he claims to be a lawyer but won't cough up a company name, check trade databases (martindale.com). And Coder details scores of tools that search criminal and sex offender records, address and reverse cell phone listings, and property records.

Coder says several common scams are currently making their way around the online dating world. In one, scammers pose as lonely soldiers and initiate a long-con romance, gradually transitioning from sweet nothings to escalating crises that supposedly require large funds transfers. One widow wired a half-million dollars — her entire life savings — to a phantom major-general.

One technique Coder uses to weed out potential con artists is to create two accounts on dating sites — your actual profile and a very different "control" profile. She's looking for people who respond to both accounts but change facts about themselves, like age or profession. "Whenever someone lies about anything, I disregard them," she says. And she counsels her students to scour online profiles for contradictions and warning signs. Do photos jibe with a person's professed hobbies? Does a person claim a fat bank account and huge estate? Red flags.

Most important of all, Coder says, daters should keep careful records of all correspondence with suitors, let friends know when and where they're going on a date, and make sure a close friend has password access to their computers.

Healthy skepticism aside, Coder insists she hasn't given up on romance. "I'm definitely still capable of being impressed by someone," she laughs. She just believes in clear-eyed watchfulness, for herself and for her clients.

"Better safe than dead," she says.

Need a background check performed on someone you are dating? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services.

Are You the Other Woman?

2012-02-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, infidelity is a hot topic. But, have you ever considered that the man you’re dating may be cheating – not ON you, but WITH you?

You could unknowingly be his mistress - the other woman in his life.

Dating deception is very common these days. It’s common for married men to misrepresent themselves as single men, especially if they have no qualms about cheating on their mate.
Many single men in committed relationships also misrepresent themselves as men who are available to date.

And it’s up to the single woman who gets involved with one of these deceptive men to find out the truth on her own, before she gets too deeply involved.

Are you absolutely sure that the man you’ve been dating really single? Or could he be a married man who’s cheating on his wife?

If you don’t know for sure, there’s a very strong possibility that you could unknowingly be his mistress – the other woman in his life. According to one study almost 20% of women are unknowingly dating married men.

Could you be one of these unsuspecting single women?

If you’re a single woman looking for a committed relationship, the last thing you want is to find out is that you’ve given your heart to a married man who’s cheating on his wife.
How certain are you about the marital status of the man you’re dating? Are there any signs which indicate that he’s among the 1 in 5 men who claim to be single when they're not?

6 Signs He May Be a Married Man
Married men pretending to be single often give clues about their true marital status without realizing what they have done. Knowing what to look for is the key. Keep your eyes and ears open for telltale signs below.

The 6 signs below are clues that he might be married or in a committed relationship:

1. He won’t give you his home number. He has a variety of excuses for why you can only call him on his cell phone or at work.
2. He only calls or e-mails you from work, or at odd times of the day – very in the early morning or in the wee hours of the night.
3. He’s unavailable on weekends, holidays, or other times when his family might be around.
4. He’s overly secretive about his family and friends.
5. He comes to your place fairly often, , but never takes you to his. In fact he won’t give you his home address or tell you exactly where he lives.
6. When you go out, together, he takes you to private, out-of-the-way places, rather than popular places where everyone else goes, so he won't be spotted by anyone who knows him or his wife.

Still not sure whether you could be the other woman? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services today and find out the truth!

That “Gut Feeling”: 3 Reasons Why You Should Hire a PI

2012-02-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had that “gut feeling” about something? Maybe about someone? Studies show that our brains can dig deep into our instinctual past, making use of a plethora of thoughts and interactions in a matter seconds. The reason we have these gut instincts is to protect us from making bad decisions, decisions that don’t coincide with our beliefs, well being, and physical security needs.

My room keys are stolen, someone is following me, my credit card is being used, my boyfriend or girlfriend is cheating on me, and the list goes on… There is no end to what situation you may be in and there is no single way to handle it.

In such cases, you need someone who can watch on your issue from an independent perspective, and supporting it with facts and evidence to show you what’s right and what’s not.

1. Private Investigators Can Act As Impartial Witness
Let’s say you’re in a situation that needs professional help, help from someone who is impartial to your specific situation. An example would be: You suspect that your partner is being disloyal, a caretaker may be stealing, an employee may be exaggerating his work-related injuries. Calling on the help of a reputable private investigator to act as an independent witness can increase your chances of success. It may be a very personal matter that you feel uncomfortable confronting. Keeping your distance can ultimately help with credibility.

2. Private Investigators Can Help Weather The Storm
Yes, it happens to the best of us, but sometimes we get so obsessed about something we just can’t see straight! Either someone has rubbed us wrong way, we got cheated out of something we deserved, or someone has violated our trust. These situations touch us emotionally and can blur our sense of practicality. When something is too hard to handle on our own we usually call in someone who can help, right? Have you ever called on a plumber when the toilet is leaking? Have you ever spent the night in jail wishing you called that midnight bail bondsman?

The same applies for calling in that trustworthy local PI. Private investigators are trained to see the “big picture” and can help direct you back to the practical side of the situation. PIs can provide emotional support too. Clients can feel very alone during the investigation and the private investigator may often be their only outlet for release, the only person they can fully trust with this often emotional matter.

3. It's Risky Going It Alone
For the following reasons, it's better to hire a professional PI like Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte.

Not being familiar with the law
Civil liability, possible stalking charges
Mishandling or damaging crucial evidence
Limited resources as an individual
Credibility issues if you are a party to the matter

So don't try to handle things by yourself if you have a gut feeling about something. Instead rely on Funderburk PI to help you with your problem no matter how big or small.
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Using Facebook in an Investigation

2012-02-06T07:06:00.000-08:00

Facebook has become an integral part of most people's lives, so much so that increasingly more Facebook evidence is actually winding up in court. About 45% of divorce cases involve email, Facebook or other social media, especially in cases of infidelity. Those are usually used by the actual opposing parties with regard to civil reasons — not for criminal prosecution.
Many people think they can investigate someone themself by looking at someone's Facebook account. However, obtaining information regarding a Facebook account is not that simple. Of course, you are able to serve the Custodian of Records with a subpoena duces tecum. However if you’re in pre-litigation stages, you might not be able to do this. You’ll have to employ a private investigator to acquire this information for you personally. Even then, a good investigator cannot rely on any cooperation from Facebook staffers. He’ll have to rely on his own wits.

A private detective can uncover an amazing amount of proof using digital forensics as well as Internet investigations. A simple trace of the suspect's email to online dating services or social media could uncover proof of infidelity, substance misuse, porn addiction, or frequent use of escort services. This sort of digital evidence could be overwhelming in a young child custody hearing. But it needs to be a thorough investigation that’s carefully documented from beginning to end. It’s insufficient to just print some Facebook pages. You have to carefully document every step in order and organize a chain of custody of evidence.

So snooping on someone on Facebook is one thing, gathering and recording evidence is another all together. For example, information gathered from the computer hard drive could be ruled inadmissible as well as worthless in court when the proper procedures aren’t used to collect and document which evidence. This means the whole Facebook investigation can in fact backfire on the litigant, which is why it is vital that you hire a professional private eye like Funderburk Investigative Services of Charlotte.

Protecting your Business with Video Surveillance

2012-02-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

If you are a small business owner, you've spent a lot of time and money growing your business -- you've developed your product or service, marketed it and hired the right employees. But how much thought and expense have you put into protecting your ideas, your property and your staff? Have you evaluated the potential for theft or other crimes at your office or location? Have you considered what security breaches might cost your company?

No matter what kind of business you have, your assets are worth protecting. Possible threats include thieves, vandals, shoplifters, and even dishonest employees. Hiring private security personnel is one option, but may not make sense for you, either practically or financially. However, video surveillance equipment provides a valuable and affordable strategy for monitoring your business.

Video surveillance equipment serves several purposes. One is to catch crimes or security breaches as they occur. An obvious advantage of this type of surveillance is it greatly increases your chances of stopping perpetrators before you suffer permanent loss. A second function is to deter theft or other intrusion. If employees and would-be shoplifters know they're being monitored, they are far less likely to try to steal from you. Some surveillance camera systems also allow you to keep a record of events should one be needed by the police or in court.

Many types of video surveillance systems are now available. Depending on your needs, you'll find a variety of cameras, such as wireless, night-vision/infrared, and weatherproof; digital video recorders (DVRs), including multi-channel, motion-activated, and pocket DVRs; time-lapse VCRs; remote monitoring systems; and more.

Decide which locations on your property would benefit the most from added protection. Obviously if you're a retailer, you'll want to keep a close watch on your cash register area – both during and after hours. To deter and/or catch shoplifters, monitor retail areas with visible cameras. If you store inventory in a warehouse, consider installing a surveillance system there as well. In any business, it's important to have petty cash boxes and safes covered at all times. You may also find it valuable to place surveillance equipment any place important or confidential documents are stored, such as your office.

Relative to what your business is worth, a video surveillance system is a small investment – preventing one theft of property or propriety information will likely save you far more than the price of your equipment. And it's worth knowing you're doing everything you can to keep your ingenuity, property and personnel as safe as they deserve to be.

Need additional advice on protecting your business? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte today.

Weiner Spent Over $13,000 on Private Investigators

2012-02-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

According to the New York Daily News, disgraced ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner used campaign money to hire private investigators to chase down his lie about his infamous crotch-shot tweet.
The article states that Weiner paid T&M, a Manhattan-based PI firm, $13,290 for “legal services” in the fourth quarter of 2011, financial statements filed Tuesday with the Federal Election Commission reveal.

Supposedly Weiner hired T&M — a firm full of former NYPD detectives — when he was in full spin mode over the controversy that eventually led to his resignation from the House.

When the story first broke, Weiner claimed that someone had hacked into his Twitter account and sent the pic of him in his boxer-briefs to a Washington State college student.

“We’ve asked a firm to look into whether some of my photos could have been taken; they could have been manipulated,” Weiner said at the time.

Two sources familiar with Weiner’s downfall said the Queens politcian told investigators the same story. T&M investigated — and learned Weiner had sent them on a fool’s errand.

“They did their job, and then it was time to sit down with lawyers,” another source said. “Self-denial, it dies a slow death.”

Weiner eventually admitted he had sent the lewd picture. After the T & M investigation ended, Weiner continued to use the firm for security, paying them more than $43,000 in the last six months of 2011, though he resigned in June.

Robert Tucker, CEO of T&M, declined comment.

Need someone's dirty laundry investigated? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte.

Child Custody and Obesity: The New Fight

2012-02-01T06:34:00.000-08:00

As private investigators we see plenty of custody battles. After a divorce, the fight over which parent will gain custody of a child can turn nasty for any number of reason. But now there's a new point of contention that's quickly finding its way into custody battles across the country: childhood obesity. According to the Wall Street Journal, legal experts say that often one parent claims that the other parent is allowing a child to become obese or is not providing the child with proper nutrition. Douglas Gardner, a family lawyer in Arizona, said this:

It's come up quite a bit in the last couple of years. Typically, one parent is accusing the other of putting a child at risk of developing diabetes or heart disease—or saying that the child is miserable because he's getting made fun of at school.

The evidence to support such claims can vary. Sometimes it's a child's documented obesity, but other times it's as simple as claiming a parent is serving too much junk or fast food. It has even gone so far that some parents have even been accused of being unfit to care for their children because they are too obese themselves. This isn't the first time lifestyle issues have been raised in custody fights. Family law specialist Jeff Wittenbrink points out,

It used to be constantly and consistently about smoking. It's only been recently where one parent thinks their kid's not active enough, is gaining weight and eating sugary food.

So what, besides the growing national obsession with obesity and its health effects, has been driving this trend? Well, there have been several high-profile cases involving obesity—including one in which a 555-pound teenage boy was taken from his mother—which have drawn people's attention to the possibility of introducing obesity accusations into custody fights. Plus, there was a widely read article co-written by David Ludwig, an obesity expert in Boston, arguing that, "in severe cases of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable."

Child custody laws have also shifted, making obesity claims more relevant. In the past, it used to be that mothers almost always received sole custody. Now it's far more common that mothers and fathers share custody. In determining how to divide up a child's time between two parents, a judge often must weigh the merits of each parent. This opens the door to arguing about a child's (or parent's) weight, regardless of whether a child is actually in any real health danger. And it can cause damage to the family—and especially the child—but that can be true of almost any accusation in a custody battle.

At least so far, there's not much evidence that it's exerting undue influence on judges. As lawyer Jonathan Merel explains, "If one side is scratching to find something wrong with the other person, the courts might not give it the same weight. If all things are equal but one person only feeds fatty foods and the children have weight problems, I think it can become an important distinguishing factor."

For the moment, when a child is obese or a parent isn't giving them ideal nutrition, lawyers say it's rare that these issues (unless they are extremely severe) will "trump both a child's right to have a close relationship with a parent and a parent's right to raise a child in the manner he or she sees fit." That seems like it's as it should be, but it will be interesting to see whether this is a passing legal trend or whether it's something that will gain more and more traction, which could certainly be the case if our obesity epidemic continues to expand at its current rate.

Need evidence for your child custody case? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte for professional and discrete assistance.

How to Avoid Counterfeit Money

2012-01-31T07:29:00.000-08:00

Let’s face it, in the midst of an economic depression, we could all use a little bit more money in our wallets. Whether it's just to pay bills or to afford one of life's extras, like a vacation, a little additional money would make all of our lives' easier.

When you live in a society where money makes the world go around, what do you do when you need more money? Get another job? Work a few hours of overtime? Or how about removing the ink on a five dollar bill and reprinting it as a one-hundred dollar bill? One of these things is obviously illegal but sadly true.

Throughout the United States, and most recently in the Milwaukee Metro area, businesses have been victims of counterfeit currency transactions. Perpetrators are bleaching five dollar bills clean of ink, and then printing over the real money with larger denominations such as twenty, fifty or even one-hundred dollar bills. Unfortunately, what’s fast money for some, is hard earned money for others and not just the businesses, but every employee that works for them. Thankfully, there are a few tips and precautions that business operators and clerks can take to prevent themselves from falling victim to counterfeiters.

Now that you’re aware, be on the lookout for any suspicious bills.
In addition to the standard security pen test, hold the bill up to the light and look for the watermark on the right hand side of the bill every time.
Don’t be afraid to contact your local police department or manager if you’re unsure about a suspicious looking bill.

Want to know other ways to protect your business from scams? Are you suspicious that an employee is stealing from you? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services and let us investigate.

Background Checks

2012-01-30T09:06:00.000-08:00

Research and background queries allow an company to verify information supplied by the applicant. Companies who help to make proper and judicious utilization of the information gathered due to a thorough history investigation typically reduce contact with employee fraud, thievery, embezzlement, turnover, unqualified workers, negligent hiring statements and violence at work.

The following are the most crucial aspects that make-up a background analysis. Additionally, how the information may be used to significantly reduce worker difficulties and employment litigation can also be discussed:

EMPLOYER REFERENCES-
Checking past employers can be used primarily to verify information supplied by the applicant upon resumes and applications for example dates of work, job title, payment, reasons for splitting up, and re-hire standing. With even a tiny bit of information provided with a past or present employer, you might be able to gauge an applicant’s ability, ability and honesty or maybe areas such because attendance problems, chaotic behavior, and manageability.

Required aspect in the defense associated with negligent hiring statements (regardless of set up reference shares information).

TRAINING VERIFICATION-
An essential integrity check. Surveys suggest that as much as 1 in 3 resumes as well as applications contain incorrect education assertions which more than 500, 000 Americans have purchased their academic levels. This area offers the second highest price of inaccuracy, at the rear of salary. This examine verifies education commiserate along with position requirements.
· This is among the easiest checks in order to pursue.
· This might include industry specific certifications along with other non-degree-oriented training.

INDIVIDUAL AND PROFESSIONAL REFERENCES-
Much like screening employer references and ideal for gaining an understanding into some personality traits from the applicant.
· Addresses of family and friends that are within other states, or are otherwise an excellent distance away, could also indicate that the actual candidate had lived for the reason that area. This is essential regarding criminal report checks.

DEPARTMENT OF AUTOMOBILE REPORTS-
May verify the kind, status, validity, and restrictions from the applicant’s driver’s permit. Can also supply to verify information supplied by the candidate for example current address, day of birth as well as license endorsements.
· Essential when the applicant will generate on company period or use organization vehicles.
· May indicate a brief history of substance misuse.
· Required aspect in the defense associated with negligent hiring statements.

SOCIAL SECURITY QUANTITY TRACE-
A specialized report that could indicate a interpersonal security number’s validity or even uncover aliases along with other people using exactly the same number. Generally features a candidate’s current as well as previously reported handles for comparison for an application.
· Previous addresses ought to be used in the criminal record check.
· Required aspect in defense of negligent employing claims.

CRIMINAL HISTORY CHECKS-
Make a comprehensive criminal background examine. It is not unusual for employers to become sued for a good employee’s illegal functions. Do not examine arrest histories, just records of felony convictions. Compare to application to find out a candidate’s integrity. You should not really immediately disqualify an applicant for convictions, unless they’re not included about the application. Convictions should recent and work related (i. at the. driver applicant having a DWI conviction or perhaps a retail candidate charged of shoplifting or even theft).
The police arrest records check is important in considering the candidate’s character, ethics, history of chaotic behavior, and suitability for that job. It is better to visit the suitable county’s Clerk of Court criminal history records office in person but you may also reach them through phone, fax, pc or mail.
· Previous performance is a sign of future outcomes.
· Required aspect in the defense associated with negligent hiring statements.
· If you need to find information that triggers you not to employ an individual, keep a copy for the records.

PRE-EMPLOYMENT CREDIT SCORE CHECK-
Also called the PEER report by credit rating bureaus. This report is comparable to a standard credit report. It might contain secured as well as unsecured loan, revolving credit (credit card) along with other debt information, in addition to payment history. It might include information through public record sources for example judgments, liens, as well as bankruptcies.
· Accustomed to gauge a candidate’s financial responsibility and monetary pressures.
· Could also include information in the less expensive Interpersonal Security Trace.

GOVERNMENT AND STATE PERMIT VERIFICATION-
Used when a job candidate must have a license for that job. Verifies the actual validity, type as well as status of needed licensing.
· Complaints as well as administrative actions concerning licensed individuals can also be available.
· Required aspect in the defense associated with negligent hiring statements.

HONESTY, ATTITUDE AS WELL AS PERSONALITY TESTING-
While not a background or even reference investigation, these tests possess a definite place within the pre-hire process. These types of surveys measure the candidate’s attitude concerning honesty, ethics, drug abuse, reliability, work as well as supervisors.
· These types of test typically price between $6-$10 for each candidate.
· Over 45% associated with Fortune 100 Businesses use profile screening at some level within their organization.

DRUG SCREENING-
Once again, tests for using illicit drug use also provide a definite devote the pre-hire procedure. Many studies possess linked drug use at work to higher compared to average losses. Based on one such research, the average thievery incident per employee having a substance addiction is actually 6. 3 times greater than to the typical theft incident committed with a non-addicted employee. OSHA has re-released information showing that employees within companies with medication screening programs tend to be 4 times not as likely to have work related accidents, equating in order to greater productivity as well as profits.
· Required aspect in the defense associated with negligent hiring statements (especially when workers operate machinery, generate on company period or use organization vehicles).
Keep in your mind, the results through these reports should be compared against provided information to be able to measure an applicant’s integrity. Hiring a unethical candidate is never a great decision.
There are a lot more sources for history and reference investigations than happen to be included here; a licensed personal investigation agency focusing on pre-employment investigations might be able to help you identify and acquire any additional requirements.
As in all facets of the hiring procedure, federal and condition laws may govern the way you use or reveal information obtained whilst conducting these along with other checks; always maintain documentation generated due to these reports.
In addition, all positions don’t require every examine or screening procedure included; for instance, a waiter’s position inside a restaurant may not warrant the cost of a credit score check, motor automobile report or mental profile testing.

A few Important Considerations:
· All employers should consider a comprehensive drug-screening plan.
· Any time a situation or federal license is needed for the placement, a license verification check should be completed.
· Background research for jobs requiring use of cash, financial information, and valuable products (jewelry, weapons, consumer electronics, etc. ) will include a pre-employment credit score check, with check-ups carried out semi-annually.
· Department of Automobile Records should end up being checked semi-annually.
· Criminal record checks should be completed one per year.
· Additional investigation components ought to be verified when a worker is promoted.

Need a background check done on a prospective employee? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services today.

Facebook and Infidelity

2012-01-27T09:36:00.000-08:00

More and more often, people are finding the social networking site Facebook a breeding ground for emotional affairs. Face it, it’s alluring: the one who got away sends you a friend request, you shoot a few messages back and forth catching up on old times, and then it escalates. You find yourself constantly checking your inbox, and maybe you move on to instant messaging. That tiny little box in the corner of the screen is so harmless, you can barely see it! It’s hardly cheating, right?
Except when it is.

We all fantasize about what we don’t have, or what we could have had, and the allure of Facebook cheating is too strong for more and more people. How many times has a memory become a friend request become a Scrabble game that then becomes a constantly pinging chat window, and suddenly you realize you’re flirting with the forbidden fruit of an old beau who is now in a relationship, or even married? Or perhaps you’re suddenly logging off of Facebook when your significant other enters the room? You’re cheating. Sure, it’s only Facebook, but if you secretly confide in and tease and keep obsessive tabs on someone you once were either attached to or wanted to be, and one of you is in a committed relationship, you’re cheating. And Facebook makes it so, so easy.

So easy, in fact, that Facebook cheating is now the cause of an ever growing number of divorces, according to the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. The Academy conducted a study that says that even though the overall number of divorces hasn’t increased, the amount of divorces fueled by a social networking site (Facebook comes in at 2/3 of all sites, much much more than MySpace or Twitter) has jumped to four out of five divorces. That’s an insane statistic to read, but if you think about it, old boyfriends and the girl from college you crushed on for four long years are now at your fingertips, so maybe it shouldn’t be such a surprise. Profiles are meant to be read, right?

Listen, everyone has friends, Facebook and otherwise, with whom they have unfinished business. But if you’re still lighting an electronic torch for someone from your past, your real life relationship could be in a serious amount of trouble. And it might be a good idea to think about whether you want online cheating to be the way your relationship status changes back to “Single.”

Think your spouse may be cheating on you? Don't hesitate to call Funderburk Investigative Services today!

Conducting Surveillance Yourself - Part I

2012-01-26T09:33:00.000-08:00

If you want to learn how to conduct surveillance, then this article is for you. Today we will discuss how to prepare for the surveillance. To start with, there are two types of surveillance: a stakeout (fixed surveillance) or tailing someone. If you are planning on surveying someone you know, you are usually better off hiring a trained private eye, such as Funderburk Investigative Services, or recruiting one or more of your friends to do the surveillance for you. If you are conducting surveillance for the purpose of gathering evidence to be presented in court, your timed and dated notes, videotapes, and photographs will have much more credibility with judge and jury if there was a witness present who is willing to testify on your behalf.

Before you attempt surveying someone, gather as much information about the target's habits and haunts as you can. Learn the neighborhood you'll be working by driving around it or studying a map. Plan possible routes your target might take. Cover yourself by preparing an alternative plan you can put into action should things suddenly go awry. If you've done your homework, you may be able to reestablish a tail even if you lose it.

The more research you do the better. It would be stupid to go out on a surveillance without knowing the neighborhood. Find out where you can sit undisturbed. Be prepared to get harassed by nosey neighbors who will want to know why you're sitting on their street and will call the cops on you if you don't move. And the police are going to tell you to go away and not to come back.

One way to discourage neighbor interference is to sit on the passenger's side and not the drivers side, as if you're waiting for someone. A female is nowhere near as obtrusive as a male. That's one reason many PI agencies have females agents. A woman in the passenger's seat looks simply like she's waiting for her husband. No problem. Or, sit in the back seat and slump down. Dressing and disguising yourself also can help you in a surveillance -- especially if the person you're following or staking out knows you.

Join us tomorrow for part II of this article and learn how to conduct surveillance yourself. However, we always recommend that you hire a professional such as Funderburk Investigative Services, especially in cases of infidelity.

Employee Theft

2012-01-25T06:34:00.000-08:00

Question: Why would an employee steal from their employer in such a fragile economy?
Answer: When employees feel undervalued, the risk of employee theft rises.

In 2010, the National Retail Federation reported shoplifting nationwide increased to $3.6 billion, an 11% increase equaling $37 billion in loss from theft alone. More surprisingly, these figures were primarily from employees stealing on the job, not the customers we all assume shoplifting statistics come from.

Employee theft, specifically in California, can range from potential felony charges of embezzlement and grand theft (over $400); to simple petty theft of miscellaneous store merchandise. Aside from retail theft, corporations are affected as well. Corporations are well known for issuing employees company credit cards and fuel cards for job related expenses. These “access cards” carry a greater risk of being misused for personal use and even 3^rdparty use (friend or relative), both considered fraud.

In July 2011, the LA Times ran an article about an LA County municipal chief who lost his job. It involved a government gas card tied to personal use of fuel purchases throughout the western United States. Whether it’s a government employee in an esteemed position or a summer intern working for free, employers should realize that internal theft can impact their bottom line and should implement measures to prevent or dissuade employee related theft.

In a difficult economy, a good chunk of employee theft may be due to the “I’ve earned it” or “I’m underpaid” or just simply “the company will hardly notice it” mentality. Remember, one employee can greatly affect your business, especially if it’s a small business with less than 10 employees.

Keeping employees happy and eager to work for you can be an efficient and cost effective way to prevent internal theft. Employees that respect their workplace, feel valued and consider themselves an integral part of the business are often less likely to consider stealing.

Management’s ability to connect with employees on a personal level, yet maintain their supervisory respect can also minimize internal theft. When an employee steals, they are now dissolving the relationship with their manager as well as their employer. A “firm but fair” attitude is best practice in the retail industry, which is prone to higher turn over and historically shows employees being less committed to their employer.

If you think an employee may be stealing from you, contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte. We will find out the truth.

Mexico's Drug War Increases Use of Private Security

2012-01-24T05:52:00.000-08:00

Mexico's wealthy embed GPS chips under their skin, fatten their SUV’s with bullet proof armor, and hire trucks of gun-toting bodyguards to follow them to the shopping mall.

While Mexico’s merciless drug war has scared off tourists and investment dollars, it has fed one niche industry: private-security services.

During the five years since President Felipe Calderon took power and declared war on drug cartels, Mexico has been shaken by 47,000 drug-related murders as well as rocketing levels of kidnapping and extortion.
In the same period, Mexico’s biggest security firm, Multisistemas de Seguridad Industrial, says it has grown by 70 percent.

It now has an army of more than 10,000 private security guards — including many former soldiers — who are licensed to carry guns to protect the company’s 2,500 Mexican clients.

Many foreigners, including Hollywood stars, diplomats and businessman, also hire entourages of bodyguards when they traipse around Mexico.

In total, there are more than 10,000 security firms across Mexico, which take more than $3 billion a year in revenue, or about double what was spent here on security services in 2006.

The companies focus mainly on protecting Mexico’s wealthy minority, with costs of many services out of the reach of the middle class.

Private security guards carrying guns cost an average of $3,000 per month each, while it costs $30,000 to $50,000 to bulletproof your car.

Mexico’s minimum wage is $5 a day.

Multisistemas spokesman Gabriel Avalos says the company works to protect their clients round the clock, from their home to their work to their leisure activities.

“We work with clients on their habits so they don’t become victims of kidnapping or other crimes,” Avalos said. “We help them build circles of trust, both among inner circles of friends and families, and outer circles of employees and others. In the majority of kidnappings, someone on the inside is involved.”

Mexican police received reports of 1,847 kidnappings for ransom in 2010, one of the highest rates in the world.

Anti-crime groups say that for every kidnapping reported, as many as 10 could go unreported, as kidnappers threaten to kill the victims if police get involved.

Kidnapping gangs are notoriously known to torture or mutilate victims to pressure relatives for ransom payouts.
Most security companies also protect their clients with GPS systems, which they can carry in their cars or under their clothes.

Others go a step further actually wearing bracelets that cannot be removed — devices that use technology similar to that used to watch convicts on parole.

One company called Xega has even sold a chip that can be placed under people’s skin to trace their whereabouts.

The device is about twice the length of a dime and is normally implanted between the shoulder and elbow area.
“We offer a solution that makes families feel safe and tranquil,” Xega says on its website. “We have a system that prevents kidnappings and emergencies at the most advanced level in the world. It is designed to operate in the most dangerous places in Latin America.”

Some human-rights activists fear that the expanding army of private security guards poses the danger of unregulated gunmen roaming the street.

On Thursday, police in the southern state of Oaxaca announced that they had shut down 21 security firms for operating without the proper licenses.

One gunmen working for the Mano Con Ojos gang, which kidnapped and sold drugs in the Mexico City area, also said he had worked at one point in a private security company.

However, Multisistemas say they carefully screen and train all their employees.

“Our clients are almost giving us the keys to their house so we have to have a great deal of trust,” Avalos said.
None of the clients have been victims of kidnappings and none of the company’s guards have got into firefights in recent years, Avalos said.

“Our philosophy is to prevent,” he said, “not to fight."

Concerned about your security in the Charlotte area? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services.

The Facts on Cheating

2012-01-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

It makes headlines the world over. It's something that every married person has worried about (whether or not he or she is willing to admit it). It is often the plot of movies, TV and books. As a society, it continues to fasicnate us on a daily basis. I'm referring to infidelity, of course. In honor of our obsession with cheating, we have compiled a few facts and factoids on the topic.

PLAYING GAMES
Nearly half of social gamers end up cheating in real life. (PC Advisor)

YOUR CHEATIN’ CHIN
According to a study, women with larger chins are more likely to cheat. (The Daily Telegraph)

TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK
Researchers say that men are more than likely to forgive a cheating partner’s lesbian fling vs. a tryst with the opposite sex. (The Daily Telegraph)

FACING TROUBLE
Some American lawyers suggest that the mega popular social networking site, Facebook, plays a heavy hand in multiple marriage breakups. (The Guardian)

HEARTBREAK BEAT
One survey says that cheating is all in the genes. (Live Science)

WATCH OUT
Cheating on your spouse can get you a misdemeanor in Arizona. (Phoenix New Times)

A FAIRYTALE ENDING?
Three out of four affairs that lead to marriage eventually lead to divorce. (Redbook)

A MAN’S DESIRE
A sociologist notes that for some men, monogamy isn’t the only “proper” way to be in a relationship. (The Huffington Post)

FEMALE CHEATING CRUX
Apparently female infidelity can be much more harmful to a marriage. (CNN’s The Chart)

FACE THE NATION
Only 36 percent of Americans would stand by their spouse during a press conference if they were married to a politician involved in a sex scandal. (USA Today)

BITING THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU
One study says males who financially rely on their female partners are more likely to stray than males who contribute equally. (Live Science)

WHO’S YOUR DADDY?
One in 25 “fathers” could be raising another man’s child without knowing it. (World Science)

If you live in the Charlotte area and think your spouse may be cheating on you, contact Funderburk Investigative Services today and find out the truth!

How to tell if someone is lying

2012-01-20T06:57:00.000-08:00

How do you tell if someone is lying? Our natural tendency is to trust someone, so unless we are looking for subtle clues, the lying may go right over our heads. Here are some of the most obvious indicators that someone is being deceptive.

A person's demeanor or voice changes. For example, if a person is naturally lively they may become mellow when lying.
Person avoids saying "I." People who lie try not to use the first person, "I" or "me", according to research.
The person has an answer for everything. Most people have to pause to remember what they did last week. If someone seems to remember something down to the minute detail this is often an indicator of deception.
Fidgeting. Look for useless, repetitive actions such as cleaning glasses or retying shoelaces. This is especially common if someone is lying to a person they love.
Person proclaims their honesty repeatedly to try to sell us on the integrity of their answer. Liars use phrases that validate their answers such as "to tell the truth" or "to be perfectly honest" or "as God as my witness."

If you think someone is lying to you, contact Funderburk Investigative Services to get at the truth.

Reasons to Hire a Private Investigator

2012-01-19T05:59:00.000-08:00

When it comes to hiring a private investigator, people don't usually waste a lot of time. Usually hiring a PI is their last choice. They have been confronted with a potentially life-changing situation or event and have exhausted all other resources in solving their problem.

Whatever the situation, the moment you choose to call a professional private investigator, you realize that you will most likely have to discuss intimate details about your life, your business or yourself.

Private investigators come in many different forms. Some refuse to do family law work (Cheating, Child Custody) and some specialize in only one area of the business.

Some ways private investigators can assist people are as follows:

Catching cheating spouses
Uncovering neglect of a child
Conducting background checks on people and companies
Due diligence prior to signing a business contract
Find lost loves, or old friends
Wiretap detection/debugging
GPS device tracking
Hidden Camera Installations
Computer Forensics
Data Recovery
Employee screening

These are just a few of the many ways a private investigator can assist you. The clever ones know how to combines many services and provide complete solutions to their clients. If you need a private investigator for one of the reasons listed above, do not hesitate to call Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte today.

PIs Used to Spy on Tenants

2012-01-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

According to the New York Times, private investigators are being put to use in a unique and inventive way: helping landlords save thousands of dollars by identifying and locating illegal tenants.

In major cities like New York, tenants can get locked in to rent controlled apartments. Once they move out, the landlord has the legal right to raise the rent by 20% to compete with the city’s rising costs, but the problem is that tenants grow out of their rent-controlled apartment but don’t want to let go of the lease. Often, renters sublet the apartment to family or friends illegally in order to keep their current rate. Renters may even try to earn additional money by renting out their unit for a higher price, making a profit that they will never claim on their taxes, and that rightfully should belong to the landlord.

Landlords in situations like these have very few options if they try to deal with the situation themselves, which is where private investigators come in. By conducting a surveillance investigation, private detectives can determine who is living in which apartment. Surveillance investigations consist of photographing residents and determining the commuter patterns of residents suspected to not be on a lease. A “suspicious” resident would be a young couple living in an apartment held by a single elderly woman.

With the information gained by the private investigators, landlords can begin to take action against illegal tenants, and reclaim their property and income. It takes a skilled investigator to obtain the information in a timely and legal fashion to ensure that all data collected is viable in court.

Do you have the need for undercover, discrete surveillance? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services today.

Do women cheat as much as men?

2012-01-17T06:43:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the courageous female pioneers of the past few centuries, women now have the same rights as men. Though the sexes still aren't 100 percent equal, us ladies are certainly working hard to be respected as much as our male counterparts. The latest struggle we've almost won? Infidelity!

Yes, ladies can now boast, "I am woman, hear me roar! I can vote like a man, be the boss of a man and dammit, I can cheat like a man, too!" Oh, how far we've come.

Of course, I don't think women who cheat are actually proud of their cheating, nor should they be. However, some interesting results from a new study suggest that although men are commonly stereotyped as the most likely to be unfaithful, women aren't too far behind — if they're behind at all, that is. Researchers from Indiana University and Manchester Metropolitan University found that 20 to 25 percent of guys and 15 to 20 percent of ladies commit extramarital affairs.

What's worse is that the researchers claim the female percentage may be a bit underestimated: Women, in an effort to protect their reputations and relationships, aren't as willing to spill the number of times they've cheated on a partner. So, in short, thanks to unreliable self-reporting, the number could be even higher than 20 percent, putting us ladies even with — or beating — the dudes. Some polls even suggest that half of all females have cheated. Yikes!

A gender division is created when it comes to the motivation behind the infidelity, however. Women, say the researchers, cheat for "emotional reasons" — they need to feel desired, they want to feel appreciated, yadda yadda. Meanwhile, men cheat to have more sex. Sadly, this in itself perpetuates the stereotype that women are hyper-emotional and men are driven by their "heads" rather than their, well, heads. So much for smashing stereotypes!

Think your spouse is cheating on you? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services to find out the truth!

via YourTango.com

Predictive Policing

2012-01-16T09:12:00.000-08:00

Intelligence-led policing, an umbrella concept which includes “predictive policing,” could help move police departments beyond the increasingly outdated Community Policing model and toward a more-professional approach that envisions crime suppression and control as the most important result of good police work. The premise of “predictive policing” is that human behavior is predictable, which opens the door to computer-assisted techniques that can forecast subtle patterns of specified criminal activity.

Though at first blush it appears that intelligence-led policing and “predictive policing” are the same, they are, in fact, slightly different. According to David Sklansky of the Univeristy of California at Berkley, “[t]he main distinction between intelligence-led policing and predictive policing is that predictive policing claims to be more ambitious and more technologically sophisticated…” In other words, “predictive policing” may be more aggressive in its application of intelligence-led policing techniques, a distinction that may be more obvious in theory than practice.

Let’s also be clear at the outset. “Predictive policing” isn’t predictive. Using computer algorithms it estimates where certain types of crime may occur, in a similar way that meteorologists forecast weather or seismologists estimate earthquake aftershocks. No crystal balls, necromancy, witchcraft, prophecy, or freakish “precogs” — only inputs, outputs, and informed analysis of criminal patterns, not individual criminal behavior.

Need something investigated, but you don't want to call the police? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services today.

Military more likely to cheat

2012-01-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

According to an article in HealthDay News, almost a third of current or former U.S. miltary service members who were ever married have had affairs -- twice the rate of the general population, a new study found.

It's not clear, however, whether serving in the military played any role in the higher rate of infidelity.
The findings do suggest that service members, veterans and their spouses may need special care and counseling, said study author Andrew S. London, chair of sociology at Syracuse University.

"This shows the need for interventions and programs that might assist military families that are grappling with these issues," London said. "In some ways, it validates the concerns of some spouses left behind and increases our understanding of the problems that veterans and their families might face."

The study, which London said is one of the most extensive of its kind, examined the results of a national survey -- the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS) -- that was taken in 1992. The 3,121 participants were aged 18 to 59; 2,308 had ever been married. "Although [the data] is now two decades old, the NHSLS is one of the few national data sets that includes questions about whether respondents have ever served in the military, had extramarital sex, and marital and divorce history," London said.

The researchers focused on active-duty service members and veterans, both men and women, who were married or had been married. They'd served during peacetime and wars.

Almost a third of them (32 percent) said they'd had sexual affairs outside marriage, about twice the rate of other married people (16.8 percent).

It's not clear when the service members and veterans had the affairs. And the research doesn't prove that military service causes affairs, London said. One possibility is that something in the respondents' backgrounds made them more likely to join the military and to have affairs, he said. For example, people who like to take risks may be attracted to serving in the military and to having affairs, he said.

If there is a connection between military service and the affairs, he said, it may have something to do with separation from spouses, or "there may be something in military cultures that supports going to commercial sex workers."

The researchers weren't able to study whether spouses of service members or veterans had more affairs of their own.

If you think your spouse is cheating, contact Funderburk Invstigative Services.

Avoiding Workplace Violence

2012-01-12T05:59:00.000-08:00

The first step to avoiding workplace violence is to be aware of the potential risk, so you can plan for it. According to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, workplace violence typically falls into one of four categories. Specific workplaces are more at risk for certain types of violence, so identifying the type your company is most at risk for can help with planning.

Type I: Criminal intent. In this kind of violent incident, the perpetrator has no legitimate relationship to the business or its employee(s). Rather, the violence is incidental to another crime, such as robbery, shoplifting or trespassing. Acts of terrorism also fall into this category.

The vast majority of workplace homicides (85 percent) are Type I violence. Your workplace may be at higher risk of Type I violence if your business handles cash or drugs or could be a target for terrorists.

Type II: Customer/client. This is when the violent person has a legitimate relationship with the business. For example, the person is a customer, client, patient, student or inmate and becomes violent while being served by the business, the violence falls into this category.

A large portion of customer/client incidents occur in the healthcare industry, in settings such as nursing homes or psychiatric facilities. In these situations, the victims are often patient caregivers. Police officers, prison staff, flight attendants and teachers can also become victims of this kind of violence.
Only about 3 percent of all workplace homicides result from Type II violence, but this category accounts for a majority of nonfatal workplace violence incidents.

Your workplace may be at risk for Type II violence if your business involves dealing with individuals such as criminals or those who are mentally ill or individuals who are confined and under stress, such as airplane passengers who have been sitting on the tarmac or customers waiting in long lines for a store to open.

Type III: Worker-on-worker. The perpetrator of Type III violence is an employee or past employee of the business who attacks or threatens other employee(s) or past employee(s) in the workplace. Worker-on-worker fatalities account for approximately 7 percent of all workplace homicides.

All workplaces are at risk for this type of violence, but workplaces at higher risk include those that do not conduct a criminal background check as part of the hiring process, or are downsizing or otherwise reducing their workforce.

Type IV: Personal relationship. The perpetrator usually does not have a relationship with the business, but has a personal relationship with the intended victim. This category includes victims of domestic violence who are assaulted or threatened while at work and accounts for about 5 percent of all workplace homicides.

This type of violence can occur in all workplaces, but is most difficult to prevent in workplaces that are accessible to the public during business hours, such as retail businesses, and/or have only one location, making it impossible to transfer employees who are being threatened.

If you have a concern about potential workplace violence, contact Funderburk Inestigative Services in Charlotte.

January: The Month of Infidelity

2012-01-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

According to the infamous infidelity website AsleyMadison.com, January is the time of the year when your spouse is most likely to cheat. Instead of bringing couples togther, the holiday season is more likey to drive them apart.

New data reveals that the strain which the holidays can put on married couples, and far from being a period of relaxation, it appears that "quality time with the family" drives men and women to seek extra-marital affairs when they return to work.

AshleyMadison.com site profiled its members and found that on the first day back at work there was a 389% increase in membership sign-ups with 2,000 new members seeking people with whom to be unfaithful. Making Monday, January 9th the busiest day of the year for the previous 12-months.
The data is in line with figures showing January as the No. 1 month for filing divorces, as couples seek a fresh start in the New Year after realizing that they are incompatible.

Noel Biderman, CEO and founder of AshleyMadison.com, says: “Married couples will spend large amounts of time together over the Christmas break. Unfortunately for many, rather than this acting as a bonding exercise, it simply highlights incompatibilities, especially when it comes to physical intimacy. The New Year can amplify this feeling and men and women across Australia decide to do something different, in this case seek an affair.”

If you think your spouse is cheating on you, contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte to find out the truth.

How to avoid a nasty divorce

2012-01-10T05:51:00.000-08:00

As if getting a divorce is not traumatic enough, you have all the dirty tricks in the book to make it worse. When a couple is going through divorce then they should try and make it as peaceful as possible because they owe to themselves and if they have children then to the children. When you go to a lawyer for divorce advice, get the legal part right but do not play into their hands and make your divorce dirty.

Marriages are breaking up every now and then these days which is why you have to be prepared for the worst while getting a divorce and still maintain your sanity.

7 Steps To Getting A Peaceful Divorce:

1. Be Fair With Money: A divorce almost always involves a financial settlement from either side unless both parties forfeit their claims. Now you have to put your bitterness aside and think fairly. If you think that her demand for alimony is just then don't challenge it. And if you feel you can take care of your needs why beg for alimony?

2. Dispose Off Joint Property: It is very difficult to get a equitable distribution of joint properties like houses and cars so it is best to sell them off and then divide the cash. Lawyers make issues out these trifles in court so don't play into their hands. You'll end up losing more than you gain.

3. The Children Must Be Taken Care Off: No matter what happens to the two of you, the children must be taken care off and that should be your joint motto. If you cannot trust each other then set up trust funds or put the money the name of the children.

4. Do Not Divulge Dirty Secrets: Getting a divorce becomes a session of public embarrassment when any of the partners pulls out dirty secrets to justify their claims. You pull out one rabbit from the bag and she will pull out another. This way the divorce gets dirty as the can of worms is open.

5. Do Not Drag Your Families: It is best not to pull your parents and extended family into the proceedings of a dirty divorce. Once the blame game is started neither side will be able escape. Moreover separating for parents is not the smartest thing to do.

6. Do Not Spy on Partner: Many lawyers may advise you to use a private detective to track your partners whereabouts. Do not give in to the temptation. What your partner does when the divorce is eminent hardly matters. Your activities too can be misrepresented in court.

7. Don't Pull Cheap Stunts: Splurging on your partner's credit cards, intercepting their calls or maligning their character are cheep stunts that you should not be pulling; if not anything else you won't lose your dignity.

Get the right kind of divorce advice and avoid these silly mistakes; you can prevent the divorce from getting nasty. If you are getting a divorce because you think your spouse has been unfaithful, contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte to get the proof you need.

Skip Tracing Techniques

2012-01-09T06:31:00.000-08:00

Skip tracing is used to locate a person who has moved without leaving a forwarding address.

Document every step you take to trace the skip. This will help to prevent you from repeating the same steps over again.

These are potential sources of information for skip tracing. Not all of these information sources will help you, but you can almost always find someone who will help you.

The response you receive from many of these sources will be dependent upon:

Government regulation concerning information sharing
Industry standards and corporate guidelines
Individual personality traits of each information source
The relationship of the skip to the information resource
The reason you state why you are seeking the information
Your skills as an investigator

Skip Tracing Checklist

Check online resources such as ZabaSearch.
Check online telephone directories and call the information operator (411).
If you have a telephone number for the skip, check the reverse telephone directories.
If the last known address is an apartment building, check with the property management firm to see if they have a forwarding address.
Mail a letter to the last known address and view the information on the envelope after it is returned by the post office.
Try to get the last known address from the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Try to get the last known address from the Drivers License Bureau.
Check marriage licenses with the country clerk.
Check death certificates with the country clerk.
Check voter registration records.
Check real estate property records with the county assessor.
If the skip has school-aged children, check nearby schools.
Check with the power company. Inquire both by name and by last known address.
Check with the water district. Inquire both by name and by last known address.
If the skip is the type of person to incorporate, check with the Secretary of State for his state to discover incorporation papers.
If the skip was a business owner, check with the Department of Wage and Labor for possible wage claims from past employees.
Many professions require state licenses. Contact the appropriate licensing agency. Professions which are commonly licensed include:
- Commercial truck drivers
- Real Estate Agents
- Real Estate Appraisers
- Construction Contractors
- Insurance Agents
- Barbers and Beauticians
- Cosmetologists
Many professions are unionized. Contact the appropriate labor union. Professions which are commonly union controlled include:
- Construction
- Musicians
If the skip was or is in business, check with:
- Customers
- Suppliers
- Competitors
- Past employees
Check with neighbors at the last known address.
Check with family members.
Check with local banks, credit unions, and finance companies.

Of course, it is always best to leave skip tracing to the professionals. If you need to find someone, contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte.

Coping with infidelity

2012-01-06T05:58:00.000-08:00

Finding out that your partner is having an affair is devastating at any age, but if you’re in your fifties and you’ve been together for years the shock is seismic. Suddenly you’re forced to see the person you thought you knew in a totally new light.

“It makes you feel that all the certainties in the world are collapsing around you,” says Andrew G. Marshall, one of the wisest and most experienced marital therapists in the business. “Even if you accept your own contribution towards the problem, the realisation that you get rewarded like this just because you took your eye off the ball not only undermines your trust in your partner but in the general sense that the world is a fair place.”

The fifties are a classic time for affairs. The sense of ‘Is that all there is?’ hangs heavy in the air and the kids are no longer the glue that binds couples together. But no matter how commonplace infidelity has become (it is estimated that 30 to 40 percent of us will stray at some stage) it is always painful.
So how can you handle the emotional chaos of those first few weeks, when you can’t eat, your brain won’t stop and the only thing that gets you through the night is a hefty dose of Valium?

With any luck, at this stage in life, you’re able to overcome the initial impulse to reach for the nearest blade – tempting though it may be – or make off with the mistress’ puppy. Rather than storming out, you’re more likely to take a considered view of what you really want.

“I had always assumed that if my husband was unfaithful I’d leave him,” says Anna, who discovered her husband’s two-year affair with a colleague three years ago. “But when it actually happened to me I reacted very differently, I think because I’d learned from previous crises in our relationship that impetuous gestures are usually counter-productive as well as hard to go back on. I thought very carefully about what was at stake.

“My initial instinct was to tell the whole world the gory details – his parents, our kids, the taxi driver, my hairdresser. I held back, and now I’m so relieved I did. We told the kids the bare minimum, and I found that it was better to talk to just one or two good friends, because otherwise I got too much conflicting advice.

“I remember times when it was a huge relief to be with people who didn’t know anything about the affair.”

Andrew Marshall’s book, How Can I Ever Trust You Again?, speaks to the partner who has had the affair as well as the one who discovered it. Marshall says the hardest thing about the immediate aftermath is learning to live with uncertainty. He urges couples to accept the complexity of their emotions.

“It’s normal to be filled with all sorts of contradictory feelings: love and hate, hope and despair, fear and relief. We don’t like living with ambivalence, and often push ourselves to come down on one side or the other, even if it makes things worse. And there is a tendency to think, I’m in so much pain we’ve got to solve this now. In fact, there is no ticking clock.”

It’s reassuring that 25 years spent counseling couples through the aftermath of affairs has convinced Marshall that, despite all the misery and pain, the soul-searching that follows can make those relationships that survive stronger and better.

“There are many positives: you and your partner will probably speak more to each other in five days than you have in five years. Affairs have the capacity to bring all the unburied bodies in your relationship to the surface. So you’re not just dealing with the affair itself, but also with the long-term issues that you ignored beforehand, which usually turn out to be not as big or as scary as you thought. And that, ultimately, must be a good thing.”

How to cope with the shock

Resist the temptation to throw your partner out straight away. You need answers to your questions.
Equally, don’t forgive too soon. You can’t forgive until you know what’s happened and seen its full impact.
Don’t make major decisions when you’re in shock. Put off the decision to stay or go for as long as possible.
Tell your kids the absolute minimum: “We’re having problems and we’re sorting it out” is quite enough.
Don’t tell the world and his dog. What you need is a sensible friend who won’t tell you what to do, preferably someone who doesn’t know your partner well (and who hasn’t gone through a bitter divorce themselves).

If you think your spouse may be cheating, get the proof you need by calling Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte today.

Are RFID credit cards safe?

2012-01-05T06:24:00.000-08:00

Ask any of the estimated 9 million Americans who become victims of identity theft each year: getting billed for someone else's credit card charges stinks.

Enter the "radio frequency identification" (RFID) credit card. Designed to provide extra layers of security against identity theft, an RFID card transmits credit card information through radio waves from a chip embedded in the card.. (The cards also have a magnetic stripe on the back so you can swipe it in the traditional way.)

If you're using a card with an RFID chip, and your merchant has a compatible card reader, you don't have to swipe your card when making a transaction. You merely hold your card within one to four inches of the card scanner. This practice raises questions as to how safe the technology is and whether you should protect your RFID card with a special wallet or card sleeve. Here's the skinny on RFID credit cards.

Benefits of the RFID card
Available through credit card companies including Visa, MasterCard, and American Express, RFID cards eliminate certain security hazards posed by traditional cards, but could make you vulnerable to others. According to Denis G. Kelly, author of "The Official Identity Theft Prevention Handbook" and chairman of the Identity Ambassador Commission in Seattle, the security benefits of the RFID cards are threefold: limited card exposure, data encryption and new authentication codes.

A side benefit: RFID cards also help speed the checkout process. "RFID technology tends to cut the overall transaction time (of a credit card purchase) in half," says Kelly.

Because the technology doesn't require card holders to physically remove the card from their wallet, Kelly adds that RFID can eliminate the need for waiters, retail clerks, and all other salespeople to handle your card. That creepy guy lurking behind you at the grocery store? He won't get a chance to see your credit card info because you'll never have to take your card out.

Does RFID make it easier to steal?
The new technology causes some to worry that it's now easier to steal RFID credit card information. Because your RFID card allows you to transact without pulling out the card itself, critics argue that identity thieves could swipe your credit information simply by placing an RFID scanner nearby.
Jay Foley, executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego, is quick to admit that thieves could get your card info remotely through a scanner, but adds that they probably wouldn't be able to use it. Unlike magnetic stripe cards, RFID credit cards encrypt a card holder's information. To access a consumer's account, thieves not only have to scan the card, they also have to break the card issuer's encryption.

Authentication code
RFID cards also create a new authentication code for each transaction. If an identity thief nabs info by physically skimming a traditional credit card, he or she can use that information as many times as they like, racking up purchase after purchase until the card gets reported. If all they have is the information from your RFID chip, they can only make one purchase with that authentication code.

"If someone captures your (RFID) card (electronically), the most they can use it is one transaction," Foley explains.

But of course, the encryption and authentication code only helps you if your card information is swiped remotely from an unauthorized scanner. If a thief physically nabs your RFID card, they can still use the magnetic stripe all over town until you alert the authorities.

Reports of RFID hacking
There's no doubt that limiting who handles your credit card and the number of purchases thieves can make on stolen accounts will significantly increase card security, but questions remain as to the reliability of RFID credit card encryption.

According to a University of Massachusetts, Amherst, study published in 2007, researchers purchased a commercial RFID scanner over the Internet and accessed sensitive information on 20 different first-generation RFID cards issued in 2006.

One year later, a University of Virginia graduate student successfully hacked RFID encryption found in rechargeable bus and subway cards issued by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

It's worth noting that to date, there's never been a major RFID credit card breach outside of a lab, but that's not stopping retailers from selling aluminum-lined wallets and card sleeves designed to disrupt unwanted radio waves from reaching your cards.

Protecting your RFID credit card
The first step to protecting yourself from RFID identity theft is simply knowing if you have an RFID-enabled credit card. You can find out by calling your credit card company, reading your card agreement or checking your card for the presence of an RFID chip or RFID logo, which looks like a series of expanding ripples or waves.

Consumers concerned about the security of their RFID card can purchase an RFID-blocking wallet or credit card shield, though both Kelly and Foley insist that such protection products aren't absolutely necessary at this point.

"If it's that big a concern to you," says Kelly, "I probably recommend not using an RFID card."

If you have security concerns, consult Funderburk Investigative Services today.

Protecting your business against data breaches

2012-01-04T08:07:00.000-08:00

This is a great, informative post by Chris Poulin for Forbes that I wanted to pass along to you:

Data breaches are like lightning; they will strike, but you never know where. Some breaches result from negligence, inadvertent disclosure, but many are due to malicious activity. Thus the industry conversation has moved beyond “if” to the questions of “when,” and “what is the impact?”
So how should you prepare for your data breach?

Once you’ve resolved to not bury your head in the sand, there are several ways to prepare. One of the newer options getting attention is data breach insurance. This innovation can offer coverage for a variety of potential costs associated with a breach – legal defense, forensic investigations, notifications to affected individuals, crisis management, liability claims, and so on. As a newer financial instrument, the terms and coverage can vary significantly from one insurance provider to another.

By no means does data breach insurance protect an organization against the event itself or all the consequences of data theft or exposure, but it is a prudent step to mitigate the resulting economic impact. As with auto insurance – which doesn’t eliminate accidents – data breach insurance doesn’t reduce the incidence of data breaches; it merely recognizes that breaches happen and mitigates the downside.

What else can you do to prepare? Here are three practical steps to protecting your organization against a breach:

STEP 1: Deploy the Right Security Technology

Enumerating all of the information security technologies that an organization should consider is beyond the scope of this article; however, the basics are fundamental. Organizations should look to deploy technology that meets their need to: control the flow of information across the network; control access to information itself; protect end systems; encrypt information where necessary; and where possible meet more advanced security requirements, including, but not limited to, data loss prevention.

The requirements of the business will drive the technologies deployed and the depth to which the technologies are leveraged. Beyond protection mechanisms, one often overlooked technology need is total visibility into the activities in the information infrastructure. A major lesson I’ve learned through the years is that, compliance creates budget to enable the investment in this security intelligence technology, and it will pay dividends in the end.

STEP 2: Stay Ahead of Threats with Continuous Configuration Management

Ensuring ongoing configuration management sounds great, but in reality it can be quite challenging. The fundamentals here are pretty basic – ensure all the doors on the network are locked except as necessary to meet specific business requirements. Regulations are emerging that will require your being able to continually assess the effectiveness of the configurations that are on perimeter security devices, gateways, and endpoints. There are automated configuration audit solutions that can assist in meeting this objective. The essential thing to consider in this step is having tools that help lower the barrier to entry to effective analysis of complex device configuration and to provide exceptional automation that can quickly determine – and notify – when configurations are applied that put your assets at risk.

STEP 3: Ensure Top Vulnerabilities Are Addressed

Vulnerability scanners have become an important tool in the security administrator’s tool chest to ensure that assets on the network are not susceptible to well-known vulnerabilities. Historically there have been challenges with vulnerability scanners because they typically report vulnerabilities without context of the world around the device. This can result in numerous false positives and information overload. There is little doubt that systems that are exposed to well-known vulnerabilities are the first line of attack from those that wish to do harm.

What’s important here is not looking at vulnerabilities in a vacuum, but rather taking a comprehensive, risk-based approach that takes a much more relevant network and security analysis into account, and enables you to look at incidents in context.

Preparing for a breach is a multi-layered effort, and one that has frankly become a requirement of professional business management. No single action is a silver bullet, but together these steps can help minimize your business’s reputational and financial risk.

It’s time to stop gambling and start preparing.

If you have concerns about your business' security, contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte.

Good-bye passwords, hello biometric scanning

2012-01-03T07:17:00.000-08:00

IBM recently released its annual tradition of five predictions for five years in to the future — among them, the belief that passwords will become redundant.

Generation Y, rejoice! No longer will you struggle with attempting to remember the password for your Facebook account, Twitter, Gmail, games networks — the list goes on. We’ve all had those moments, cursing under our breath, when after three attempts you are locked out just as you remember the actual word and number combination. Or even worse, forced to fill out mud-smear captchas until your eyes start to swim.

According to IBM, future generations won’t need to suffer this kind of hardship.

Not much has changed in the last five years. When it comes to computer security, most of us still rely on passwords and username log-in systems to protect our private data and access our accounts. Some companies, for example EyeNet Watch, offer fingerprint recognition software. However, this kind of technology is rarely used by the general public.

IMB is developing technology that views facial definitions, eye scans, voice files and even DNA as personal safeguards to a far more extreme extent than now.

The company wants to replace words and numbers with security based on your biological makeup, and create unique DNA based profiles that will serve as your ‘password’ for a variety of tasks. These could include going to an ATM, logging in to your computer, and perhaps going as far as signing in to individual online services like Facebook or Twitter.

By using personal data that is far more difficult to forge than simply guessing or learning a password, IBM believes this type of security will be far more appealing than the memory-based approach currently employed.

That is, if people want it. Personally, I’m not keen on the idea of more DNA profiles, even for security measures. It smacks of the U.K government’s failure to introduce biometric I.D cards. A question we probably don’t ask ourselves enough is: how much personal information are we comfortable for organisations to hold on us?

We are yet to see whether this kind of technology, which is likely to be far more expensive to produce, will make its way in to the general public market — or whether it will remain firmly in the grip of security companies and elitist technology.

Do you have security concerns? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte today!

Protecting yourself from online fraud and identity theft - part I

2011-12-30T10:59:00.000-08:00

This is the first part of a two-part article.

It's the beginning of a new year and and there's no better time to brush up on your skills to make sure you don't fall for online trickery designed to fleece you or convince you to give up sensitive personal information. Here are some tips to stay safe.

Learn to Identify Phishing and Spear Phishing Attempts
Phishing attacks cast a net wide with generic offers and promises in the hope of luring you into providing personal information before you realize there’s a problem. Spear phishing are targeted attacks to try and get additional information from individuals who may be at risk because their account at another organization may have been hacked, their employer suffered a data breach, or some other information is already available about them. In both cases, the most beneficial skill you can learn is a healthy sense of internet skepticism.

As always, give out the minimum amount of information when required and nothing more when asked by companies or businesses that present you with forms to fill out, and never give out information—even if the requester is legit—unless you understand why they need the information and what they'll do with it. Any reputable organization will be able to answer your questions. Trust your instincts, and remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Beware Suspicious Emails and Attachments
It should be common knowledge at this stage, but you should never open attachments from untrusted sources, and even if you get one from a trusted source, you should pay attention to the file extension of the attachment before downloading and opening it. If you get an official-looking email from your bank, credit union, or another company you do business with telling you to log in and review your account, be careful. Even if it's legit, it's always safer to visit the business' web site by typing in the URL instead of clicking the link in the email.

Most companies will never email you to say you need to "verify your account information" and beg you to click a link in the message. If your email client supports it, you can hover your mouse over the link in the suspicious email to see where it really leads. Odds are it's not actually your bank's web site. Don't click, and visit your bank's web site manually or call them instead. Remember email addresses can be very easily spoofed, so even if you get a note from a name or business you trust, it could be spoofed and the URL could lead you to an unexpected location.

Keep Your Anti-Malware Software Up-To-Date
Even though viruses and trojans don't make headlines as often as they used to doesn't mean you can get away without some anti-malware software installed on your system. Once installed, it's equally important to keep it up to date. Out of date antivirus and anti-malware suites are effectively useless. Besides, with options like Microsoft Security Essentials for Windows and ClamXAV for Mac out there that are free, light on system resources, and both scan and update in the background without your help, there's no reason not to have something installed. If your school, office, or ISP offers an anti-malware package to you for free, make use of it.

Be sure to read Monday's post to find out additional ways to keep yourself safe and if you have security concerns, contact Funderburk Investigative Services as soon a s possible.

Mastering the art of the password

2011-12-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

Passwords are a way of life for nearly everybody who uses any kind of software. No viable alternative is imminent: fingerprint readers, retina scanners, voice identification, and USB tokens all have limitations. Nothing is as simple and inexpensive as an old-fashioned string of keystrokes.

Web services and network managers nearly always require a minimum degree of password difficulty to prevent standard password-cracking techniques from guessing them quickly. We're also cautioned not to reuse the same passphrases on different sites and are routinely blocked from recycling the passwords we've used previously.

Considering the number of times PC users sign into a service or network each day, we may need to remember a half-dozen hard-to-guess passwords, not to mention the various sign-in IDs we use along with the passwords (full name or first initial-last name? Case sensitive? An e-mail address?). Many computer professionals need access to dozens of secure systems, which stretches the limits of anyone's memory.

Your three options are to use a password-management program, to write your passwords down on paper (or record them in an encrypted text file), or to devise a method for memorizing hard-to-guess passphrases. While no single technique is right for everyone, here's why I suggest the memorization approach.

The pros and cons of password managers
For many people, the best way to protect their data and identity is to use a password manager, which either stores your passwords in the cloud or on a local drive--often a USB thumb drive or other portable storage device. The obvious risk is that the vendor's server is hacked or you lose the drive that stores your passwords.

Last May, the LastPass password-management service reported a breach that may have exposed users' passwords, although LastPass CEO Joe Siegrist stated that people who used strong master passwords were not threatened.
Other password managers work without storing your passwords on a Web server. The Tech Support Alert site recently compared several free password-management programs, including LastPass, RoboForm, and KeePass.

The hard-copy approach to password management
If you forgo the password-manager route, your options are to write your passphrases down or to memorize them. Whenever you record your passwords on paper--even if you record only a mnemonic that reminds you of the actual characters--you've made your accounts a little more susceptible to unauthorized access.

That hasn't stopped computer experts from recommending that users jot down their passwords and keep the paper in a secure location. Gunter Ollman, a researcher for security firm Damballa, concludes that recording your passwords on paper is the lesser of several password evils; more risky is using the same password at multiple sites, setting your software to remember passwords, failing to change passwords frequently, using an easy-to-guess password, and reusing past passwords.

Likewise, computer expert Bruce Schneier reiterated on his Schneier on Security blog the advice of Microsoft executive Jesper Johansson to record your passwords on paper to encourage use of strong passwords.

The obvious downside of the paper approach is that someone will find the paper taped to the bottom of your keyboard or tucked into your wallet and access your private data before you're able to take preventive measures. Or you may simply lose the paper and have to do the recover-password-by-e-mail two-step for each network and service you need to access.

The wetware approach to password storage is still the safest
As you might have guessed, Mr. Schneier's 2005 post recommending that you write down your passwords generated quite a few comments to the contrary. Most of the commenters suggested their own technique for remembering strong passwords.

Of course, the bad guys pay close attention to this information and will attempt to incorporate the approaches in their password-cracking efforts. The key is to get creative in altering something you've already memorized, such as song lyrics, family members' first names, or place names from your past.
An alternative method leverages something nearby. For example, there may be a product near your workstation that has a prominent model or serial number, or a book within view of your seat has an ISBN number on the back cover. Rather than using the exact number, add or subtract two or three numbers or letters, so "1158748562" becomes "3370960784," or "BCGA1339" becomes "DEIC3551."

The only problem I've encountered with my own password-mnemonic creation is that some vendors require a mix of upper and lower case letters and numbers. I have become resigned to having to go through Apple's "Forgot your password?" e-mail routine about every other week.

This is doubly upsetting because my system uses from 12 to 16 random alphabetic characters (found in no dictionary and following no discernible pattern). As the How Secure Is My Password site indicates, the all-text, all-lower-case password I devised would take much more effort to crack than an eight-character password that meets Apple's requirements.

However, I give props to Apple and other sites that enforce strict password-creation policies, as well as to network managers who do the same. Efforts are underway to address the strong-password conundrum. As CNET contributor Lance Whitney described in post last week, Microsoft is working to improve the password-management capabilities of Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10.

Only time will tell whether PC users will ever be able to securely store their sign-in credentials in their systems' software or on a service's Web server. For most people, the safest approach to passwords is to rely only on their own personal gray matter. Let's hope a secure alternative to passwords arrives before our memories give out.

If you have security concerns beyond passwords, don't try to resolve them yourself. Contact Funderburk Investigative Services and let a professinal get to the bottom of things.

This article by Dennis O'Reilly orginally appeared on CNET.

What to do if you suspect elder fianancial abuse

2011-12-28T07:41:00.000-08:00

Sadly, as despicable as this may sound, elder financial abuse is really quite common. According to a 2011 MetLife Study of Elder Financial Abuse, elder abuse victims lose an estimated $2.9 billion dollars annually. While strangers commit just over half of these crimes, 34 percent of them are committed by family members, friends and neighbors. Nice, huh?

There are many reasons why these crimes are so prevalent, from addiction issues to straight-up greed. A typical scenario, however, is when someone is brought into the home of an elderly or disabled person who needs round-the-clock care. The temptation to take a little here and there can be too great.

So what should you do if you suspect someone is stealing from an elderly family member? You have a number of options:

1. Try to solve the problem internally.
Gather the family and inform the culprit that he (or she) must repay every ill-gotten penny. Because he is not trustworthy, claim some collateral, so you feel more secure. Maybe he has a car, jewelry, furniture or an appliance that you can hold onto while he is making financial amends.

2. Contact the Administration on Aging.
The Administration on Aging is a federal agency that’s responsible for advocating the concerns of older people and their caregivers. Contact them to get a social worker to come to you and help your family find a resolution.

3. File a police report.
Again, what this relative did was criminal, so you may just want to jump to the law. Call the police and explain what happened. They’ll take the next steps and he could be brought to formal justice.

4. Employ a money and credit monitoring service.
If you still need someone to help with your parents’ routine and who will also assume financial tasks (like paying bills or going grocery shopping), consider hiring a member of the American Association of Daily Money Managers. That person will monitor bank account and credit activity. If they detect problems, they’ll notify you immediately.

5. Have your parents close their credit accounts.
If mom and dad don’t need them for making purchases or keeping up their credit rating, having open lines of credit can be more liability than asset.

6. Set up a financial power of attorney.If the elderly person has dementia, perhaps his spouse is still capable of arranging for this legal document. It would allow her to choose someone you both trust who can properly oversee their financial affairs.

If you suspect someone in your family of elder financial abuse, contact Funderburk Investigative Services for help. We can conduct a discrete investigation of the matter.

6 worst security breaches of 2011 - part II

2011-12-27T10:09:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we took a look at the first three worst security breaches of the year. Today we will conclude with the final three.

4. The stolen SAIC/TRICARE backup tapes.
There were some massive health care sector breaches this year, but the SAIC breach was particularly bad for a few reasons. Unencrypted backup tapes with medical data on 5.1 million members of the military and their dependents were left in an employee's car for 8 hours and were stolen. This was not the first time SAIC had unencrypted backup tapes stolen. In fact, it was the second time since 2010. Despite that and other breaches they have had in recent years, they continue to get huge government contracts. Members of Congress have now asked why.

5. Insurance Corporation of British Columbia insider breach.
There’s a lot we don’t know about the ICBC breach as yet, but it seems that an employee of the insurance company accessed and then disclosed information on 13 people who were later either shot at or were the victims of arson. Scarily, the employee also accessed information on 52 other people. Will they become victims, too? The RCMP are investigating, but this appears to be one of those breaches where there can be real and serious harm that has nothing to do with ID theft.

6. Hemmelig.com hack.
Hackers downloaded the entire database of over 26,000 users of Hemmelig.com, a Norwegian site that includes the sex trade. The downloaded material, which includes images and very personal messages, was dumped on the web. It seems only a matter of time before we start seeing embarrassing revelations about public figures as well as private citizens.

If you are concerned about your company's security, contact Funderburk Investigative Services today!

6 Worst Security Breaches of 2011

2011-12-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

If you’re looking for the biggest breaches of the year in terms of numbers affected, you can find them over on DataLossDB.org or in others’ reviews. Certainly there were some really big breaches this year, but those were not necessarily the worst, in my opinion. So here’s my short list of the year’s worst breaches involving personally identifiable information. Today we will look at the first three in chronological order:

1. The HBGary Federal hack.
I don’t claim to be a security expert, but if you’re making the claim, then having your server successfully attacked and all your professional correspondence exposed on the web should be seriously embarrassing. Not only should HBGary Federal have been embarrassed, but the February attack also exposed – and brought into negative public light – a well-known law firm. From a public relations standpoint, this breach was an in-your-face and up-your-left nostril attack that should have put everyone on notice that both data security and the collective known as Anonymous needed to be taken more seriously. In terms of immediate impact, after the firm’s emails became public, the Chamber of Commerce and Bank of America cut all ties with HBGary. Two other firms that had collaborated with them – Berico Technologies and Palantir – also cut ties with them. By the end of the year, however, HBGary CEO Gary Hoglund said that the breach had actually helped their business. Good for them, but not so good for others, perhaps?

2. Texas Comptroller’s Office web exposure incident.
In April, Texas Comptroller Susan Combs reported that the personal information of 3.5 million people had been accidentally disclosed on the web for quite a while – including Social Security numbers, dates of birth and other personal information. No hack necessary to get a goldmine of information for identity theft. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot ...

3. The Arizona Department of Public Safety hack.
A hack by LulzSec in June also makes my list of worst breaches of the year. In a politically motivated attack that presaged other “AntiSec” or political attacks, the hackers released personal information on members of Arizona law enforcement and their families. For the rest of the year, releasing personal information on employees and their families became almost routine, despite the fact that the hackers occasionally recognized that calling the exposure of innocent uninvolved people “collateral damage” was not particularly acceptable to many members of the public.

Come back tomorrow to read about the next three worst hacks of 2011. Have security concerns? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services today. And remember to please "like" us on Facebook.

Hispanics are fastest growing group of cheaters

2011-12-22T06:11:00.000-08:00

According to AshleyMadison.com, the Hispanic community is "the fastest growing community when it comes to infidelity."

In a press release sent by the self-described "largest dating site for married people", the company states that since launching the Spanish-language version of their website in 2009, 1.1 million Latinos have signed up, accounting for 31 percent of their total new membership.

The company further suggests that according to their data, "Hispanic members have affairs at the youngest age: Average age of 27 for women and 34 for men (compared to 33 for women and 40 for men in the general U.S. population)."

Considering the stereotype of Latinos as family-oriented and with conservative social values, this may come as a bit of a surprise.

In a 2010 review of General Social Survey data, one intrepid blogger took a look at the "relationship between ancestry and philandering in the U.S." The writer's analysis indicates that 19.6 percent of married Mexican men and 12.4 percent of married Mexican women have cheated on their spouses, whereas the rates for Americans (i.e. those who claim this as their only ethnicity) were 28.2 percent for married men and 15.5 percent for married women, indexing over 40 percent and 25 percent, respectively, versus the Mexican respondents.

Persons of the Iberian peninsula (Spain and Portugal) rated low for women, 10.9 percent, but quite high for men, at 38.5 percent.

While Hispanics are different from Mexicans or Iberians, and while perhaps presenting a bit of a statistical case for the machista reputation of Latino men, the findings possibly reinforce the stereotype that Hispanics are more socially conservative that the U.S. mainstream when it comes to this issue.

A separate finding reported by AshleyMadison.com in their press release corroborates this, somewhat, indicating that Hispanics who are cheating on their spouses "are choosing to have fewer partners: U.S. members average three affair partners per year; Hispanic members average only one affair partner per year."
However, in 2009, the National Institutes of Health published a report which showed that Latino youths are less apt to protect against sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy due to their focus "on the emotional and social repercussions of potentially revealing infidelity by advocating condom use than the physical repercussions of unsafe sex."

The findings suggest that this group, Latino youths, are promiscuous and prone to concealing their infidelity, behavior which could persist and lead to the kinds of findings noted by AshleyMadison.com.

So, the jury is still out. The people at AshleyMadison.com may be onto something, maybe they know what’s really going on behind the curtains of Latino marriages. To be sure, they accelerated the launch of their website for Mexico, launching it at the end of November.

Smart phones and privacy: Are we being paranoid?

2011-12-21T08:03:00.000-08:00

Call Chicken Little! The sky is falling! Our smartphones are tracking our every move! Big Brother is real! Or wait: There's no reason to worry about a loss of privacy, because as we move into 2012, privacy doesn't exist anymore — right?

For most of the past year, the news has been full of stories about smartphones loaded with secret software that tracks our keystrokes or follows our every move.

But the truth is that if you own and use a cellphone, you've already given up a good part of your personal privacy. Your cellular carrier — and the government, if it asks for it — already has a record of every number you've ever dialed, every text-message you've ever sent, all the places you've ever been and, if you've got a smartphone, every website you've ever visited.

Most people may not be aware of this. That may be why the recent discovery of a diagnostic software program called Carrier IQ transformed what once were standard privacy concerns into full-blown paranoia.

To recap, an amateur Android hacker in Connecticut found Carrier IQ on his phone in November, grew concerned about what it did, discovered that it was secretly installed on millions of smartphones and began to raise technical questions online. The Carrier IQ company threatened to sue him.

Rather than back down, the hacker posted a YouTube video that seemed to show Carrier IQ logging keystrokes and keeping records of Web-browsing activity. Suddenly the media were up in arms about this hidden spyware, which even the Carrier IQ company admitted was nearly impossible to remove from certain Android phones.

(Sprint, Carrier IQ's biggest customer, said last week it would stop using the software.)

Just the tip of the iceberg?

"It's important to note that Carrier IQ isn't the only threat to consumers' privacy concerns with smartphones," said Ashley Podhradsky, an assistant professor of computing and security technology at Drexel University in Philadelphia. "In May of 2011, news broke of Apple monitoring users' physical locations through location-based services on their iPhone.

"There was a large outcry from the public about privacy concerns, especially since one in six iPhone users are children. If the file that contains the user's location information, it would essentially serve as a map for locations they frequent, such as their home, work, or school."

Even so, the ways our phones track us do serve some purpose.

"Much of the data shared is inherently needed to provide the basic services, such as the phone numbers we call," said Don DeBolt, director of threat research for Total Defense, an anti-virus software maker in Islandia, NY. "We trust that the service provider will perform the necessary due diligence to protect the data we share and protect our privacy. Each service provider provides an encompassing privacy policy that governs the services they provide, the data they collect and how they share it."

However, privacy becomes more complicated as more third parties are introduced with the installation of every new application.

"That third party may not perform the same due diligence as your carrier, they may have an entirely different privacy policy, and the simple fact of storing your data in more places increases the chances of compromise," DeBolt said. "Smartphone owners are encouraged to be selective about the apps they install and review the privacy policies of all apps."

Carriers aren't whom you should worry about

Perhaps the focus on privacy — or the lack thereof — is pointed in the wrong direction. While most phone users worry about how their phones track them, Catalin Cosoi, global research director at anti-virus firm Bitdefender in Bucharest, Romania, believes the biggest threat to privacy is mobile malware.

"We noticed a serious increase in the past months of malware samples for Android devices," Cosoi said. "Eighty percent of this malware was specifically created to extract personal details from the device and to forward these details to different servers on the Internet, such as contact lists, text messages, browser history, GPS location, etc, with the other 20 percent of malware being created for obtaining a fast profit."

That said, Cosoi admitted that consumer concern about privacy is justified.

"Social-media services, traffic-monitoring services, marketing-research companies, blogs, forums and professional networks now aggregate and maintain huge amounts of information about hundreds of millions of individuals around the world," he explained. "Because of differing standards in security, this data is not always well protected, or can actually be sold for a profit without [the users'] consent. We have placed a lot of our lives into a system that is not 100 percent safe to do so still."

Much ado about nothing?

Not everyone agrees with the idea that our phones are "spying" on us. Jason LaFollette, CEO and found of Citrrus, a mobile-app developer in Herndon, Va., thinks the privacy scare is overblown and rooted in hyperbole and user confusion.

"Consumers should be extremely concerned about their privacy, especially in today's hyperconnected world," LaFollette said. "However, the media should play the role of educator and empower users to maintain their privacy when using mobile devices, [instead] of feeding the idea that privacy is out of the user's control.

"It is my feeling that privacy issues have not fundamentally changed. Wireless phones have always allowed carriers and government agencies to track users and computers connected to the Internet have always allowed users to publish private information if they aren't careful," he added. "Smartphones may have made it possible for people to get themselves in trouble anytime, anywhere, but their manufacturers have also explicitly recognized the problem and taken steps to put users in control."

So should we be worried about wireless carriers, app makers, government agencies and even our spouses knowing too much about our daily lives, thanks to our cellphones? It doesn't hurt to be aware of the issue, but as long as you're using the phone securely and making sure you aren't giving away too much personal information or financial data, the notion that you've lost all privacy is probably overblown.

Or perhaps we need to think about the privacy issue in a whole different way, said Art Neill of New Media Rights, a non-profit legal clinic and advocacy group based in San Diego.

"I think that rather than expressing generalized fears about the potential dangers of technologies which can be used for good or evil," Neill argued, "criticism needs to be specific and focus on making sure users are given full disclosure about how they are being tracked and how their information is being used."

As the saying goes, knowledge is power. And with knowledge, even Chicken Little eventually realized the sky wasn't falling.

If you are concerned about security, contact Funderburk Investigative Services today!

This article originally appeared in Security News Daily.

1/3 of Population Arrested by Age 23

2011-12-20T07:58:00.000-08:00

By age 23, almost a third of Americans have been arrested for a crime, according to a new study that researchers say is a measure of growing exposure to the criminal justice system in everyday life.

The study, the first since the 1960s to look at the arrest histories of a national sample of adolescents and young adults over time, found that 30.2 percent of the 23-year-olds who participated reported having been arrested for an offense other than a minor traffic violation.

That figure is significantly higher than the 22 percent found in a 1965 study that examined the same issue using different methods. The increase may be a reflection of the justice system becoming more punitive and more aggressive in its reach during the last half-century, the researchers said. Arrests for drug-related offenses, for example, have become far more common, as have zero-tolerance policies in schools.

The study did not look at racial or regional differences, but other research has found higher arrest rates for black men and for youths living in poor urban areas.

Criminal justice experts said the 30.2 percent figure was especially notable at a time when employers, aided by the Internet, routinely conduct criminal background checks on job candidates.

This estimate provides a real sense that the proportion of people who have criminal history records is sizable and perhaps much larger than most people would expect,” said Shawn Bushway, a criminologist at the State University at Albany and a co-author of the study, which appears in Monday’s issue of the journal Pediatrics.

The study analyzed data collected as part of the federal government’s National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The 7,335 participants were nationally representative and ranged in age from 12 to 16 when they were enrolled in the survey in 1996. The first interviews were conducted in 1997. Follow-up interviews have been carried out annually since then.

The researchers found that the probability of a first arrest accelerated in late adolescence and early adulthood — at 18, 15.9 percent of the participants reported having been arrested — and then began to flatten out as the youths entered their 20s.

Robert Brame, a professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and the lead author of the study, said he hoped the research would alert physicians to signs that their young patients were at risk.

“We know that arrest occurs in a context,” Dr. Brame said. “There are other things going on in people’s lives at the time they get arrested, and those things aren’t necessarily good.”

If doctors can intervene, he added, “It can have big implications for what happens to these kids after the arrest, whether they become embedded in the criminal justice system or whether they shrug it off and move on.”

If you need a criminal background check run on a prospective employee, contact Funderburk Investigative Services today.

This article originally appeared in the NY Times.

What is skip tracing?

2011-12-19T07:51:00.000-08:00

“Skip tracing” is a term that refers to the process of finding a person whose whereabouts are unknown. This term is based upon the word “skip,” which is often used to describe a subject who is believed to be “skipping out” on his or her duties and obligations such as a debt or court appearance. Private sector investigations occur on behalf of a wide variety of client-types:

Family members looking for long-lost relatives.
Friends looking for persons with whom they lost touch many years ago.
Attorneys looking for missing heirs in probate cases.
Creditors looking for those who owe them money.
A bail bondsman looking for a client who has failed to appear in court.
An insurance company looking for a missing witness to an insured loss.
A parent looking for their child who has run away or was abducted.
Private Investigators looking for a scam artist or identity thief.

The list goes on and on really.

Perhaps the most important consideration to take into account when beginning a skip trace assignment is to determine what type of missing person you have. You must be able to answer the question, “Why is the subject missing?” in order to develop a reasonable plan of action and begin the investigation.

People are missing for a great number of reasons, but these reasons typically fall into one of two categories, intentionally missing or unintentionally missing, which I then like to break down in to the following subcategories:

People who are missing intentionally typically know that they are being looked for, or will be looked for, and are taking proactive measures not to be found.

The Fugitive
The Abductor
The Runner
The Professional Skip
The Recluse
The Assisted

Unintentional missing person assignments typically involve people who would not consider themselves missing and are often surprised that they are being looked for.

Long-Time-No-See
The Lost
The Typo
The Adoptee’s Search
John or Jane Doe

Understanding why they are missing, or their motivations for hiding, enables the skip tracer to put a plan of action in place to find the skip and best use those tools and techniques which are appropriate to the investigation. Imagination and resourcefulness combined with unfailing perseverance are essential character traits if a skip tracer is going to be successful; understanding the tools available and how best to implement them, doesn’t hurt either.

Need a missing person located? Contact Funderburk Investigative Services today!

Surveillance Tools: Not Just for Spies Anymore

2011-12-16T13:33:00.000-08:00

A German company offers surveillance technology for use against political opponents.

In Russia, a startup company sells equipment to identify a single targeted voice in digital recordings of thousands of phone calls.

In China, a company boasts software that can crack the security on any Hotmail or Gmail account.
Welcome to the global marketplace for spy technology.

Specialized equipment and secret techniques that just a few years ago were the exclusive preserve of electronic government spy bureaus such as the U.S. National Security Agency are now available to the highest bidders from companies in dozens of countries.

The private companies offer equipment and services that can eavesdrop on cellphone calls, monitor Internet activity, tap into fiber-optic cable. The equipment then can search, filter and index the vast quantity of data obtained through all this surveillance.

Privacy advocates say there is nothing to stop foreign intelligence services from using the equipment to spy on their own people -- or Americans.

“Even if American companies, as they claim, only sell to governments and law enforcement, there’s no real regulation of end-users, even in the United States, let alone China and Russia," said Christopehr Soghoian, an online privacy advocate and graduate fellow at the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research at Indiana University.

“There’s nothing to stop [this equipment from] being used in the United States,” he added. “Sure it’s illegal … but you’re never going to get caught.”

He said cellphones can be monitored easily with a widely available device called an IMSI catcher because “almost all voice traffic is unencrypted.”

“What is being done to protect Americans from this technology?” asked Mr. Soghoian, “The answer is nothing.”

Privacy International, an advocacy group based in London with which Mr. Sohoian works, and the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks last week published a database of more than 130 companies worldwide that market Internet monitoring, phone interception, computer logging or other surveillance technologies. The database is the fruit of a yearlong investigation during which Privacy International and WikiLeaks investigators infiltrated technology sales conferences and obtained promotional materials.

Based in 25 countries, the companies include well-established entities in the U.S., Israel and Europe and upstarts in countries such as Brazil, China, India and Russia.

India-based Paladion, which says it is “the fastest-growing information security company” in Asia, claims that its tools can track encrypted banking transactions and Gmail communication.

China Top Communications, a government-owned company based in Beijing, offers a package called Internet Watcher, which it claims can decrypt the secure Web connections used by Hotmail and Gmail email systems so users’ accounts can be monitored.

“They were only one of several dozen companies all making the same claims and pushing their own brand of repressive technologies,” Privacy International researcher Eric King said.

Some of the companies active in the marketplace are large computer or communications companies that have developed niche security and surveillance businesses, alongside the sale of conventional goods and services.

Chinese telecom giant ZTE, for instance, markets surveillance products in addition to its phone networks and switching equipment. Big U.S. technology companies such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Northrop Grumman Corp. also sell surveillance equipment and services, according to the database.
Many of the companies are startups in a market that did not exist a decade ago.

Elaman, a German company that sells a British-designed cybersurveillance package called FinFisher, says buyers can use its equipment to “identify an individual’s location, their associates and members of a group, such as political opponents.” Russia's Speech Technology Center claims its biometric voice-recognition technology can isolate and identify hundreds of individually targeted voices from daily digital recordings of thousands of phone calls.

All of the companies say they operate within the law and sell only to government and law-enforcement agencies and other authorized users.

After the Arab Spring uprisings, though, protesters in Egypt, Libya and other countries found evidence that deposed dictators had used surveillance technology to spy on anti-government activists. Syria is using sophisticated surveillance technology to intercept even secure communication channels such as Skype.

Campaigners are calling for the law to be tightened.

“When it comes to surveillance technology, merely operating within the boundaries of current legislation and regulation is insufficient,” Privacy International spokeswoman Emma Draper said.
“The fact these companies are selling what are essentially tools of political control to oppressive regimes with impunity can no longer be tolerated.”

Some observers say the situation is more complicated.

“It’s too hard a problem to resolve with a knee-jerk restriction on exports,” said Stewart Baker, a former national security official.

He said the United States faces the same problem as it did with high-technology export controls.
“Except the West doesn’t really have any obvious comparative advantage over China and Russia, as far as surveillance technology is concerned,” he said.

“We could cut off exports from Europe and the United States, and that would simply mean that the market is taken over by Chinese and Russian companies.”

If you need surveillance of any kind, leave it to the experts -- Funderburk Investigative Services.

This article first appeared in The Washigton Times.

How to tell if an employee is stealing from you - Part II

2011-12-15T07:16:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we looked at the first five ways to tell if an employee is stealing from you. Today we will discuss the final six signs.

6. Excessive absences.

Excessive absences from an otherwise steady and regular employee are an indication that something is going on. If it’s not health issues, family problems, or something specific that makes sense to you, look for other warning signs of theft. Often, a tug of conscience or not wanting to be around when the theft happens can be the reason for the unexplained absences.

Suspicious cars, especially cars parked near back doors or dumpsters.

This seems like common sense, but how often do you drive around or look outside to see what’s going on in the more isolated areas of your workplace? It’s probably a matter of security to do so at shift’s end or at the end of the workday, but consider impromptu check-ins during the day or near the end of the workday.

Change in employee behavior.

This is one managers have a tendency to dismiss. But, again, we’re talking about a noticeable change. There is a reason that your employee who usually shows zero initiative all of sudden is offering to take out the trash and work through his breaks. Is it your superior leadership example? Maybe. Or is it something else?
Acknowledge the positive change but beware. Be specific and let your employee know you’re paying attention. “I’ve noticed how hard you’ve been working - taking out the garbage and wanting to work through your breaks.” And make sure your employee knows your expectations. For example, breaks are required and they need to be scheduled according to customer, co-worker, and workload needs, not individual preference.

Pattern of friends or family showing up, or family and friends who insist they only go through employee’s checkout line.

Internal theft isn’t always a solo operation. Watch buddies who come in and only want to go through their friend’s line. If they came in for an innocent hello, they shouldn’t care about going through someone else’s line before chatting for a few minutes. If it’s a one-time situation, it’s probably nothing. But, if it becomes a regular thing, question what’s going on.

Change in voids, over rings, cash drawer over/shorts.

An increase in damaged merchandise or misplaced product.

Are your damages higher than usual? Is there a spike when certain employees are working? Have you noticed misplaced product or damaged product in out-of-the-way places or in bags? These are red flags for employee theft.Be especially sensitive to:

Product that is sold in multiples. Employees may purposefully damage the packaging and steal a few of the items.
Packaging with minor damage. Employees may purposefully damage the packaging taking care not to damage any of the product and steal it at a later date.
Empty packaging. It may be shoplifting or it may be employee theft.

The bottom line is this: trust your employees. Believe in them. Build a positive working relationship. But, pay attention. If something doesn’t seem right, question it. Proving yourself wrong will validate your trust. Proving yourself right will protect your assets.

Excessive absences.

Excessive absences from an otherwise steady and regular employee are an indication that something is going on. If it’s not health issues, family problems, or something specific that makes sense to you, look for other warning signs of theft. Often, a tug of conscience or not wanting to be around when the theft happens can be the reason for the unexplained absences.

Suspicious cars, especially cars parked near back doors or dumpsters.

Change in employee behavior.

Pattern of friends or family showing up, or family and friends who insist they only go through employee’s checkout line.

Change in voids, over rings, cash drawer over/shorts.

Look for patterns. A pattern of small overages may mean your employee is stealing by voiding a sale after the customer pays and pocketing the sale amount but not the tax. For example, an employee may void a $6.36 sale, and steal $6 from the drawer.
A pattern of shortages, especially in dollar amounts, may mean your employee is stealing directly from the drawer.
A pattern of over rings may mean your employee is pocketing cash payments. In particular, be wary of any employee who tends to pile merchandise in front of the register while taking care of customers. The blocked register view gives an employee the opportunity to ring up less than charged or to over ring something secretively and pocket the difference.

11. An increase in damaged merchandise or misplaced product.
Are your damages higher than usual? Is there a spike when certain employees are working? Have you noticed misplaced product or damaged product in out-of-the-way places or in bags? These are red flags for employee theft.Be especially sensitive to:

Product that is sold in multiples. Employees may purposefully damage the packaging and steal a few of the items.
Packaging with minor damage. Employees may purposefully damage the packaging taking care not to damage any of the product and steal it at a later date.
Empty packaging. It may be shoplifting or it may be employee theft.

How to tell if an employee is stealing from you -- Part I

2011-12-14T09:35:00.000-08:00

This is the first in a two-part article on how to tell if an employee is stealing from you. The warning signs of possible theft or other criminal activity aren’t always easy to spot. Sometimes there’s no forewarning. But, internal theft is different. The warning signs are almost always right in front of us - if we’re paying attention.

And given that research suggests 1 in 3 employees steal if given the opportunity, employers should pay attention. Losses due to employee theft of cash and property can be staggering. Small businesses may collapse, while the profits of large businesses take a huge hit. Consider these statistics:

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that employee theft costs American employers more than $50 billion dollars each year.
In a study conducted last year by The Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, executives of 60 percent of the companies surveyed said they expected their employees to steal money or equipment.
Another study conducted by The Chubb Group in 2004 found that 39 percent of private companies had employees who stole company funds, equipment, or merchandise.

Awareness is Key

Background checks, reference checks, screening tools and other hiring instruments can help. But, even if you have strong hiring practices, closing your eyes to potential theft is a dream for would-be thieves.
The manager-employee relationship can make the warning signs of employee theft difficult to spot. Managers who work to build trust with their employees don’t allow themselves to question what may be in front of them. The relationship clouds their judgment and the resulting denial can be a powerful blinder.
That’s why awareness is critical. Regardless of the trust you have for your employees - and you should have trust - question what doesn’t seem right. Start with these 11 signs of potential employee theft:

Big-ticket purchases or significant change in employee spending habits or lifestyle.

This isn’t about the employee who buys a new car after saving for a year. It’s about the employee who buys a new luxury car even though he’s always talking about barely having enough money to pay the bills and put food on the table. It’s about the guy who buys a new big screen TV even though he counts down the hours until he receives his paycheck so he can put gas in his car. It’s the employee who books a first-class cruise vacation even though you know she’s having trouble paying her student loans.
This alone doesn’t mean your employee is stealing from you. Maybe your employee did save enough for that luxury car. Maybe the big screen TV is a gift from a wealthy uncle. And, maybe the cruise is a long-awaited graduation gift. The point is this: a significant change is a potential red flag. Use it to stop and think about what else is going on around you.

Change in work habits.

You know the type. She breezes in every day at 8:27 a.m. and gathers her things on her desk at 5:25 so she can be out the door promptly at 5:30. If all of a sudden she starts coming in before 8 so she can have some quiet time before everyone else arrives, make a mental note. Unless she has had a huge change in her workload or something significant is happening at home and she doesn’t want to be there, it’s unusual and you should question it.
Likewise, if an employee, who historically grumbled whenever you asked him to put in a half-hour overtime, suddenly stays late all the time, you should wonder why.

Purposefully trying to work independently or unsupervised.

Likewise, make a mental note about an employee who always looks for ways to work alone. Volunteering to work in the back room or offering to organize out-of-the way displays may be a manager’s dream come true: initiative. Or, it may be a way for an employee to be out of sight.

Problems with payroll, travel, and expense records.

We all make mistakes. But accounting discrepancies should be tracked. Is there a question about hours worked versus hours paid? Did she lose a receipt? Did he forget to reconcile petty cash? Did she exceed the entertainment stipend with clients? Did he forget to itemize his expenses?
Give your employee the benefit of the doubt the first time. But, if it happens again, pay attention. This is where small companies which don’t have specific accounting practices or well defined policies about travel and expenses, can get in trouble. Take the time to develop a policy and pay attention.

Missing items.

You’re busy. You have a lot of balls in the air, so, once in awhile a mental error might just be forgetfulness. Maybe you didn’t have the extra printer cartridges you thought you did. But before you decide you’re headed for early stage dementia, consider that your “forgetfulness” may be something else.
If you thought you received 17 incentive gifts, you probably did. Make a mental note. If you thought you saw four cases on a pallet, you probably did. Check the paperwork and ask questions. If you have only two in the backroom inventory and yet the computer still shows three, find out what happened. Was it sold? Did someone make a computer error? Did someone move it? Did someone put it onto the floor?

Tomorrow, we will look at the next 6 signs that an employee may be stealing from you. If you think that you have a dishonest employee, contact Funderburk Investigative Services today!

Sir Ian Botham hires private detective to find dog

2011-12-13T07:50:00.000-08:00

Sir Ian Botham has hired a private detective to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of the family dog.

The 15-month-old spaniel Woody, which belongs to the cricketer's son Liam and his fiancee Emma Sayle, 33, went missing from the grounds of Botham's luxury farmhouse three weeks ago.

On Dec 11, a furious Sayle visited a police station to make a fresh complaint after a cartoon of a dog resembling Woody was posted on Twitter under the heading 'Bag It And Bin It'.

"The poster is sickening and will, hopefully, persuade police to finally take some proper action to find Woody," the Daily Express quoted her as saying.

"We have put a pet detective on the case and he is already making good progress," she said.

Sayle, a party organizer, also expressed her dissatisfaction with police action on the case.

"We have had to take the matter into our own hands because the police were not doing very much," she said.The private detective has received threats for his troubles," she added.

"To the police, Woody is just another missing dog but to me, I have lost my baby," she said.

Woody had vanished as Liam's acrimonious divorce from his ex-wife Sarah-Jayne, 37, reached its conclusion.

She was captured on CCTV at the farmhouse just minutes before Woody's disappearance. Footage from the camera showed her with it in the courtyard and minutes later she drove off.

Sarah-Jayne was arrested and bailed on suspicion of snatching Woody and was said to be devastated by the turn of events.

"I haven't taken him and I don't have a clue where he is," she said.

Whether it's a missing dog or person, Funderburk Investigative Services can help you find them today.

Feds use video surveillance to catch fraud for workers’ comp

2011-12-12T07:20:00.000-08:00

The husband and wife postal workers at a North Carolina mail-sorting plant were out of work and collecting disability benefits when they first came under surveillance.

Acting on an anonymous tip, agents with the U.S. Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General went undercover for two months. They used video cameras to document the activities of the couple, who had claimed they could not work because sitting more than 15 minutes caused pain and swelling, records show.

The agents followed the husband and wife either alone or together driving, gambling and mowing the lawn, among other activities. The couple faced criminal charges and, after a three-day trial in January, convictions for crimes involving workers’ compensation benefits.

The case wasn’t unusual. The Postal Service inspector general is one of a handful of investigative agenices whose use of video surveillance to target disability fraud was singled out in a recent congressional report. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, disclosed the surveillance practices as part of a broader review of workers’ compensation fraud controls at a half-dozen agencies across government.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has an internal affairs unit to review potential fraud and make referrals to investigators, who in turn conduct video surveillance, according to the GAO.

If you need workers investigated, contact Funderburk Investigative Services today.

Top 10 Fictional Private Detectives - Part III

2011-12-09T06:40:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like a good mystery novel, which is why we have spent the past two days looking at the top ten fictional detectives of all time. Today we will discuss the final four.

4. Lord Peter Wimsey
Lord Peter Wimsey was created by British author Dorothy L. Sayers. He’s the archetypal gentleman detective. Solving crimes is a hobby for him. In the second novel “Clouds of Witness” (1926), he has to take action because his brother is suspected of murder. He’s a round character with a past. After getting injured during World War I he was rescued by his later manservant Bunter, who also helps him with his investigations. Wimsey falls in love with Harriet Vine, and marries her. He likes to cooperate with Chief Inspector Charles Parker from Scotland Yard. These novels are still worth reading, because they are simply good literature with a broad perspective on British society in that era. Wimsey himself may be a gentleman, but he meets people from the lower classes, like the farmer in “Clouds of Witness” who suspects Wimsey of having an affair with his wife. Several actors have played Lord Peter Wimsey, including Ian Carmichael in a BBC series.

3. Jane Marple
Agatha Christie’s Miss Jane Marple appeared first in a series of short stories in a magazine, later collected as “The Thirteen Problems”. This elderly spinster with a remarkable talent for amateur sleuthing can be followed in twelve crime novels, including “The Murder at the Vicarage” (1930) and “The Body in the Library” (1943). She lives in the small village of St Mary Mead, where she finds the opportunity to study human nature. She sees analogies with people and events she knows from village life, which helps her to solve many mysteries. Intuition and psychology are quite important to her. She can annoy the police investigators, who initially see her as an old busybody, until they have to admit she was right. I have to admit I used to be prejudiced against “the old bat” myself, but after reading her stories I became gradually convinced that she belongs to The Big Three of fictional detectives. She was played in movies by Margaret Rutherford and Angela Lansbury, and on TV by Helen Hayes, Joan Hickson and Geraldine McEwan.

2. Hercule Poirot
Hercule Poirot appears for the first time in Agatha Christie’s “The Mysterious Affair at Styles”, published in 1920. He is a retired Belgian police officer who came to England during World War I as a refugee. Poirot solves mysteries with his “little grey cells”, occasionally without even leaving his room. With his strong preference for symmetry, order and method, he has something of a comic book character. Captain Arthur Hastings is his best friend, who relies too much on his intuition to solve a mystery by himself, but often helps Poirot with his observations and accidental remarks. Poirot’s secretary, Miss Lemon, is very efficient, but in contrast to Hastings she doesn’t have any imagination. Chief Inspector Japp from Scotland Yard isn’t too bright, but Poirot often sends him in the right direction. Detective writer Ariadne Oliver, who is partly based on Agatha Christie herself, believes in female intuition. Poirot is surely one of the greatest fictional detectives, because he was involved in so many unforgettable crime novels, including “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd”, “Murder on the Orient Express” and “Death on the Nile”. Poirot was brought to life in movies by actors Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov, and by David Suchet in the ITV series.

1. Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes, a creation by Arthur Conan Doyle, remains the archetypal detective who solves mysteries by logical reasoning. He appears in only four novels, of which “A Study in Scarlet” (1887) was the first, and “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (1902) the most famous. At least as important are the fifty-six short stories. Two of my personal favorites are “The Red-Headed League” and “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle”. Holmes believes in the science of deduction: the principle that any problem can be solved if the necessary information is given. He is surrounded by people who are less bright than him. Dr Watson is a good observer, and can relate the cases in detail as first person narrator, but he never comes to the correct conclusion by himself. Inspector Lestrade is the not too clever police investigator with a lot of tenacity once he’s on the right track. His archenemy Professor Moriarty only appears in two stories. As a private person Holmes is quite eccentric. He uses cocaine, and never gets romantically involved, although he does have feelings for Irene Adler from “A Scandal in Bohemia”. Of the many actors who have played Sherlock Holmes I’ll just mention Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett.

If you have a real-life mystery that needs to be solved, contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte.

Top 10 Fictional Private Detectives - Part II

2011-12-08T07:17:00.000-08:00

What is better on a rainy day than curling up with a good detective novel? Yesterday we discussed my first three picks for the top fictional detectives. Today we will look at the next three on the list. Maybe you will discover a new author from my selection.

7. Sam Spade
Private detective Sam Spade was invented by Dashiell Hammett. He only appears in one novel and three short stories, but remains important as the first example of a detective in the hard-boiled genre. Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, among others, was inspired by Sam Spade. Spade is the main character in “The Maltese Falcon” (1930). He runs a detective agency in San Francisco with his partner Miles Archer, who gets killed early in the novel. He’s not afraid of a fist fight or firearms. He appears to be cynical, but still has a sense of duty. The story also involves a typical femme fatale. He was played by several actors, of which the most famous remains Humphrey Bogart in the movie adaption of 1941.

6. Inspector Roderick Alleyn
Detective Chief-Inspector Roderick Alleyn (pronounced “Allen”) is a British detective who appears in thirty-two novels by New Zealand writer Ngaio Marsh. It started with “A Man Lay Dead” in 1934, when a murder game ends with a real murder. Other examples are “Vintage Murder”, “Artists in Crime”, and “Overture to Death” – where the murder method is especially interesting. As the younger brother of a baronet Alleyn is another example of a gentleman detective. He works for Scotland Yard, where he eventually reaches the rank of Chief Superintendent. Society journalist Nigel Bathgate often helps him during his investigations. Initially a bachelor, Alleyn later marries painter Agatha Troy. Of the three actors who have played him in TV adaptions the best known is Patrick Malahide.

6. Jules Maigret
Commissaire Jules Maigret is the only one in this top ten whose stories were not written in English, but in French. Although his author, Georges Simenon, was Belgian, Maigret himself is French and works in Paris. He holds a quantity record by appearing in 75 novels and 29 short stories. Maigret usually smokes a pipe, drinks a lot and wears a heavy overcoat. He’s a more realistic character than most of his colleagues in the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. His method of investigation comes close to the way a real policeman would work. His successes are based on team work, routine research and tenacity, rather than individual brilliancy. Maigret has been played by several TV actors, of which Jean Gabin was the first, and Bruno Cremer the most famous.

Tomorrow we will look at the top four on my list. If you are in need of a live, breathing detective, then please contact Funderburk Investigative Services in Charlotte. Happy reading!

Top 10 Fictional Private Detectives

2011-12-07T08:27:00.000-08:00

There's nothing more satisfying than reading a good detective novel. I always try to unmask the culprit before the end. Sometimes I’m right; sometimes I’m way off. These stories are two things in one: they are puzzles – like a crossword or a sudoku – but they are also literature, with interesting characters, a certain psychological depth and a vision of society in a given time and place. Making this top ten wasn’t easy, and I don’t expect everybody to agree. There’s the dilemma between quantity and quality, and the contrast between the British mystery and American hardboiled fiction. Certain classics had to be included, but for the more recent ones it was a tougher choice. In the end I just followed my own taste. These are all detectives who gave me a lot of reading pleasure. Here are the first three.

10. Detective Inspector Thoams Linley
Inspector Linley is a British detective created by the American author Elizabeth George. He’s the eighth Earl of Asherton. He solves crimes with his Scotland Yard colleague Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers, who has a working class background. In the third Linley novel, “Well-Schooled in Murder”, Linley and Havers solve a homicide case in an elite British public school, which is remarkably well depicted for a non-British author. George always prepares her novels by studying real locations in England, which makes her stories more realistic than those of many other crime writers. Linley himself is a round character with weaknesses. His relationship with Lady Helen Clyde evolves through the novels. Linley and Havers are portrayed by Nathaniel Parker and Sharon Small in the BBC series “The Inspector Linley Mysteries”.

9. Kinsey Millhouse
Private detective Kinsey Millhone was created by American author Sue Grafton. She appears in the alphabet series: “A Is for Alibi”, “B Is for Burglar” etc. She lives in an apartment in Santa Teresa, California. This fictional town based on Santa Barbara was invented by another writer, Ross MacDonald. Kinsey is a bachelorette who runs a lot to stay in shape, and has an affair from time to time. I like these novels because they are entertaining and have a fast pace and strong plot. There’s always a certain amount of action involved too. There hasn’t been a film or TV adaption of these stories yet – maybe an idea for the future.

8. Philip Marlowe
Philip Marlowe is a private investigator created by American author Raymond Chandler. He appeared for the first time in “The Big Sleep”, in 1939. Other well-known titles are “The Lady in the Lake” and “The Long Goodbye”. Marlowe belongs to the hardboiled direction, influenced by Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade. He smokes and drinks a lot. He lives in Hollywood, Los Angeles. The stories are set in the more dangerous neighborhoods in and around this city. Violence, drugs and tough language occur frequently. Marlowe has been played by a lot of actors, including Humphrey Bogart in “The Big Sleep” and Powers Boothe in the ITV series “Philip Marlowe, Private Eye”.

Tomorrow we will look at the next three detectives on the list. If you are in need of a real-life private detective, contact Funderburk Investigative Services.

Private Investigation and the law

2011-12-06T07:57:00.000-08:00

In this fourth installment from How Stuff Works on private detectives, we will look at private investigation and the law.

Reading books and watching movies about private investigators naturally requires some suspension of disbelief. After all, many fictional detectives are impossibly heroic or improbably cool. But fictional investigators aren't just too smart, too good-looking, too lucky or too witty to be true. Much of the time, they make decisions that would land a real investigator in jail and out of a job.

When a TV private eye dons a cap with a cable company's logo, picks up a clipboard, and pretends to have questions about when a neighbor will be home, he's using a ruse to get information. This technique has become known as pretexting, and while it isn't always illegal, critics argue that it is often unethical. Others contend that the ends can justify the means -- if using a disguise and fake identification leads to an arrest, then the ruse is worth the risk.

However, in some cases, pretexting is against the law:

In most parts of the world, falsely presenting oneself as a law-enforcement official, a government employee or an attorney is illegal.
In the United States, using pretexts to gain access to a person's telephone records or to get information from a financial institution is a violation of Federal law.

Another common scenario in detective stories involves trespassing or breaking and entering. In many countries, entering private property without the permission of the owner or tenant is illegal. For this reason, private investigators typically conduct surveillance from public property to avoid legal issues. In many jurisdictions, the surveillance itself is legal, especially if the investigator has notified the police of his presence. Private phone surveillance using recording devices or wiretapping, on the other hand, is usually illegal.

Fictional investigators also sometimes apprehend, detain and interrogate criminals, which could be considered kidnapping. However, in some cases, detaining a criminal might be legal. Some states and countries allow citizens who witness a felony or identify a felon to detain that person. The exact situations in which such citizen arrest is permissible can vary in different jurisdictions.
Some critics feel that private investigators' work is an invasion of people's privacy. A number of laws and constitutional amendments protect people's privacy in many countries throughout the world. However, many of these laws regulate the steps that the government or certain businesses can take. They do not necessarily affect whether a private investigator is permitted to take surveillance photos or to use pretexts to get information that would otherwise be confidential.

Because of privacy concerns and depictions in popular culture, some people believe that private investigators are often on the wrong side of the law. Private investigators have also appeared in a negative light in some high-profile cases, such as the Hewlett-Packard corporate spying trial in 2006 and 2007. However, as more states and countries begin to regulate and license investigators, this perception may gradually begin to change.

To learn how Funderburk Investigative Services can help you, please visit our website.

Training and licensing

2011-12-05T06:23:00.000-08:00

In the third installment of this How Stuff Works article on priviate detectives, we will look at training and licensing. Many people who decide to become private investigators already have experience in a related field. They may have served in a branch of the military or worked as police officers. Others have experience in crime-scene invsetigation or surveillance. While this experience can be helpful, it doesn't entirely replace education and training.

In most cases, a person learns to be a private investigator through apprenticeship with an experienced investigator or formal instruction. Either on the job or in a classroom, the future investigator learns about:

Planning and coordinating investigations
Investigative and surveillance techniques
Laws and ethics pertaining to investigative practice
Questioning witnesses
Evidence-handling procedures

Some investigators also use DVDs and distance-learning programs to continue their educations.
In many parts of the world, education and training are only a first step -- becoming a private investigator also requires applying for and obtaining a license. But the process a person has to go through, or whether licensure even exists, varies from place to place. England and Wales, for example, have no official licensing procedure. However, the Security Industry Authority, which regulates private security in Great Britain, conducted research in 2005 and 2006 which may eventually lead to licensure for private investigators.

In the United States, each state has its own licensing requirements. Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri and South Dakota have no statewide licensing procedure. Most other states require some combination of education and training and a clean criminal record. Some states also require schools to submit their curricula and meet specific criteria for state approval. In those states, only people whose education comes from an accredited school can become a licensed investigator.

The length of study and exact steps required to obtain a license vary considerably. In California, applicants must complete specific educational courses and pass a written exam. The terminology can also differ -- in Massachusetts, private detectives hold state licenses, but private investigators do not. Some states require investigators to have liability insurance. Finally, some states allow private investigators to carry firearms. Generally, this requires the investigator to apply for and receive a weapon permit.
Having a license allows a private investigator to practice in one particular state, but the nature of investigative work can require investigators to cross state lines. Some states have reciprocity agreements with one another -- a license in one state allows a person to practice in the other as well. Investigators practicing in states without such agreements sometimes apply for licensure in nearby states as well. Others develop working relationships with investigators in other states, working as assistants, apprentices or trainees when traveling.

While licenses give people the right to present themselves as private investigators, they do not give people the right to break the law in the course of investigations. We'll look at the legal and ethical issues surrounding private investigation in the next section.

To learn about the training of our private detectives, visit the Funderburk Investigative Services website.
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Conducting investigations

2011-12-02T09:19:00.000-08:00

In this second part of the article on private detectives from How Stuff Works, we will explore how private detectives conduct investigations.

The stereotypical private investigator comes from books, TV and movies -- so does the stereotypical client. In the world of fictional investigators, clients often turn to investigators for help because the information they seek doesn't fall within police jurisdiction. They may also be afraid or unable to ask the police for help. In some portrayals, clients have already tried to work with law-enforcement agencies but aren't happy with the result. Often, fictional clients are looking for:

Lost or stolen property
Proof that a spouse or partner is unfaithful
Proof that a friend or business associate is dishonest
Missing friends or relatives
The perpetrator in an unsolved crime

Although real clients aren't the archetypal damsels in distress that appear in fiction, the types of cases that surface most often in movies and books are also common in real life. A real investigator's caseload often includes background investigations, surveillance and skip traces, or searches for missing people. Investigators may also serve legal documents, notifying people of their involvement in legal proceedings. In the United States, this is part of the due process guaranteed in the Fifth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.
Naturally, day-to-day duties vary depending on a detective's expertise. Someone who specializes in intellectual property theft will spend far more time studying patents than staking out hotels looking for errant spouses. Some cases are also more common in specific regions. For example, in New York City, some landlords hire private investigators to determine whether tenants in rent-controlled apartments are violating their lease terms. The investigators look for physical proof of violations like subletting apartments and living elsewhere or using residential units for business purposes.

Finding the perpetrator in an unsolved crime might not seem to have much in common with running a background check or finding grounds for a tenant's eviction. But they all involve the same basic task -- in order to solve any case, a private investigator has to collect and organize facts.
Gathering facts involves more than the luck and intuition that some fictional investigators seem to rely on. Successfully solving a case begins with planning and analysis. The investigator must:

Discuss the case with the client and determine whether it is legal, ethical and possible to solve.
Work out a plan and budget for gathering the necessary information.
Conduct the investigation, gathering evidence in such a way that it can be presented in court when necessary.
Analyze the evidence.
Report to the client with findings.

Like any good researcher, a private investigator uses multiple sources of information to solve a case. The source most commonly associated with private investigators is surveillance. The basic idea behind surveillance is very simple -- the investigator follows a target and documents where he goes and who he meets. Actually conducting surveillance can be far more difficult. Following people without losing them or being noticed is a difficult skill to master. While some affluent investigation agencies have sophisticated surveillance vans, many investigators simply work from their cars. The process of watching someone can also be long and tedious with no possibility for breaks.

Researchers can also interview suspects and witnesses. In general, the person being interviewed has no legal obligation to speak to the investigator. For this reason, the process often involves time devoted to building rapport and making the interviewee comfortable. In addition, some investigators use pretexts or ruses to get information from people who might otherwise be reluctant to talk to them. Using false pretenses to gain information can have legal and ethical implications.

Public records are another source of information. Many of these are records that private citizens can access on their own. However, private investigators generally know who to ask and how to access the information easily. In some cases, private investigators can access databases that search multiple record sources at once. These databases are not usually available to the general public. The records investigators often search include:

Tax records
Real estate transactions
Records of births and deaths
Court records
Voter registrations
Business licenses
Vital statistics records
DMV records

In addition to gathering information, private investigators must know how to analyze it and present it to their clients. Along with the investigative techniques that they use to gather information, this skill is part of their investigative training. We'll look at training and licensing procedures for private investigators in the next section.

To learn more about Funderburk Investigative Services, visit our website.

What does a private detective do?

2011-11-30T08:43:00.000-08:00

In this first part of an on-going series from How Stuff Works about what private detectives actually do, we will try to separate fact from modern day fiction with a brief introduction to the world of private eyes.

Thanks to books, movies and TV shows, many people have a clear mental image of the stereotypical private investigator. He works from a dimly-lit, cluttered, sometimes smoky office in a less-than-affluent part of town. There, he greets a series of walk-in clients -- often women -- who have been wronged in one way or another.

Usually, his job is either to find proof of wrongdoing or to make the situation right again. To do this, he gets useful information from witnesses and bystanders, sometimes with the help of false pretenses and fake identification. He tails witnesses, takes pictures, searches buildings and keeps an eye out for clues that others may have overlooked. Occasionally, his curiosity gets him into trouble, and he barely escapes being caught somewhere he isn't supposed to be. But eventually, he returns to his distressed client, letting her know that he's solved the case.

Lots of fictional detectives have contributed to this image, including Sherlock Holmes, Philip Marlowe and multiple film noir heroes from the 1940s and 50s. Today's pop-culture investigators, like Adrian Monk and Veronica Mars, are often a little quirkier than their older counterparts. They don't necessarily wear fedoras, work in questionable neighborhoods or even call themselves private investigators. However, they still appear as heroes who have a knack for digging up the right information at the right time.
But just how much of the P.I. lore is really true? How many of the events depicted in fiction are really possible -- or legal? In this article, we'll explore what it takes to become a private investigator and exactly what the job involves.

The first step to separating fact from fiction is to define precisely what a private investigator is. Essentially, private investigators are people who are paid to gather facts. Unlike police detectives or crime-scene investigators. they usually work for private citizens or businesses rather than for the government. Although they sometimes help solve crimes, they are not law-enforcement officials. Their job is to collect information, not to arrest or prosecute criminals.

Private investigators have existed for more than 150 years. The first known private detective agency opened in France in 1833. In 1850, Allan Pinkerton formed Pinkerton National Detective Agency, which grew into one of the most famous detective agencies in the United States. The Pinkerton Agency became notorious for breaking strikes, but it also made several contributions to the fields of law enforcement and investigation. The agency takes credit for the concept of the mug shot, and the term "private eye" came from the original Pinkerton logo.

Today, about a quarter of the private investigators in the United States are self-employed. Of those who are not, about a quarter work for detective agencies and security services [source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics]. The rest work for financial institutions, credit collection services and other businesses. Many investigators choose to focus on a specific field of investigation based on their background and training. For example, someone with a degree in business might become a corporate investigator. An investigator with a background in patents and trademarks might focus on intellectual property theft. A certified public accountant (CPA) might specialize in financial investigation.

But regardless of specialization, a P.I.'s job is to conduct thorough investigations. We'll look at the investigative process in tomorrow's section. To learn more about how Funderburk Investigative Services can help you, please visit our website.

One Man's Trash ...

2011-11-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

We all know the old saying, "One man’s trash is another man’s treasure." This is particularly true in the world of private investigation. In most places, trash pickup is one day a week, providing the perfect opportunity for the private detective to gather valuable information. In many states, private investigators will covertly pull a subject’s trash and/or recycling from their cans.

The recovered trash may yield a lot of valuable items, including:

Bills and payment stubs
Credit card receipts
Personal notes
Pertinent mail

While digging through the trash may not be how you'd like to spend an afternoon, it is definitely a vital tool in the course of an investigation. Luckily, Funderburk Investigative Services will take care of the dirty work for you!

Gathering evidence effectively means using any methods necessary as long as they are legal and ethical. Several court rulings have set a precedent that once trash is set out, it is no longer private property and may be salvaged by anyone. Police officers also use trash pulls as part of their investigations, often to gather enough evidence to be able to get a search warrant for the inside of the premises.

So you should know that if you hire us, we may use a trash pull if your case calls for it. Of course we’ll always discuss our entire strategy with you in full before beginning any investigation.

And a word to the wise … if you think someone may want to gather evidence about you, be careful what you put in your trash can!

To learn more about Funderburk Investigative Services and our methods, visit our website.

How to tell if your spouse is cheating

2011-11-18T11:09:00.000-08:00

It's many married people's worst nightmare -- your spouse cheating on you. Maybe there have been tell-tale signs or maybe it's just your intuition, but to be sure, it's best to turn to a professionnal private detective like Funderburk Investigative Services.

If you suspect that your spouse is seeing someone else, the following guide will help you determine whether or not you need to consult a private investigator.

At the beginning of an affair the cheating mate may suddenly be more attentive to his spouse out of guilt.
After the affair has been going on for a while, the person cheater may begin to find fault with the person he or she is married to. This is an effort to justify the affair in their mind.
Cheating spouses often stop paying attention to the activities in the home. They may stop paying attention to their spouse and even their children. Husbands start neglecting their duties, such as home repairs.
Always trust your gut feeling. Intuition that something is amiss usually is a sign you may have a cheating problem .
Cheaters may have a sudden change in their libido (a stronger or weaker sex drive) as well as unusual sexual requests.
The cheater has a definite change in attitude towards everyone in the home, especially the spouse.
Financial indiscretions. The cheater may start spending more money than usual without explanation.
A change in grooming habits. Cheaters will become more attentive to their appearance (i.e. their clothes, frequent bathing, physical fitness, new cologne, etc.).
Physical signs that are often a giveaway to whether or not someone is having an affair is lipstick on the collar, odors of cologne/perfume on a shirt/blouse, checking underwear for secretion stains. You can also check their wallets and/or the glove compartments of their car to see if they left receipts, pieces of paper with phone numbers, addresses, condoms, etc.
You may want to monitor your spouse for two weeks. Keep track of the mileage on their car. Monitor the time they leave for work and when they come home. If your mate claims to be working late, check paycheck stubs to verify.
Pay attention to telephone calls. Your spouse may whisper to the other person or gives a quick answer and immediately hang up. You may start receiving hang-up calls when you answer the phone.
Many cheaters use throwaway cell phones. If your mate has a regular cell phone, get a detailed billing of the calls made from the phone to see if a certain number has been repeatedly called.

If you suspsect your spouse is cheating on you, contact Funderburk Investigative Services.

Process of Service explained

2011-11-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

Some of the most common questions we receive at Funderburk Investigative Services have to do with process of service. We have answered the questions we are most frequently asked below.

What is Service of Process?
Service of Process, also known as Process Service, is when a legal document, such as a summons, complaint, subpoena, writ or other court document, is delivered to the individual to whom the legal document is directed. Service of Process must be served by an individual who is not a party to the case.

Who delivers a Service of Process?
A legal process server, usually a private investigator, is the person who delivers (or serves) legal documents to a defendant or an individual involved in a court case. The process server must serve the documents in accordance with the legislation in the area of service. This may mean handing the documents to the defendant personally or performing substituted service to someone in the same household or business. Once the documents are delivered, the process serving agent must provide proof that the papers were served. This is done through a document call an Affidavit of Service, or a Proof of Service, which must be notarized and given to the party who requested service.

What else do process servers do?
Process servers will also file your papers with the courts, can do document retrieval and may offer various types of private investigations: skip trace, people locates, surveillance, etc.

Why do we have process servers?
Service of due process is a privilege set forth by the Constitution. This means that all citizens of the United States hold the right to be informed of being summoned, these legal guidelines are specified in the fifth and sixth amendments of the Constitution.
Originally, legal papers were typically served to individuals by their local county sheriff. As cities expanded in the United States it became a challenging endeavor for local sheriffs to disperse court papers while attending to legal situations in their jurisdiction. There was a desire for an individual to deliver these papers legally and in a timely manner; for that reason, process servers came into existence.

To learn more about Funderburk Investigative Services, please visit our website.

Your guide to hiring a private detective

2011-11-16T13:32:00.000-08:00

One of the most important decisions you may make in your life could be to hire a private investigator. What a private detective may uncover can be life-changing, whether it's a cheating spouse or dishonest employee. That's why Funderburk Investigative Services has compiled this guide to hiring a private investigator.

Tips for Hiring a Private Detective

Check out the private detective’s website. Look to see if it is a high-quality site with solid information. In fact, it is a good idea to review the website before making the first phone call.
Only hire a licensed private investigator. Most states require a private detective to be fully licensed, but don’t take his or her word for it. Check with the state licensing agency to verify his or her license. Then ask to see a physical hard copy of the license and double-check the expiration date. Also be sure to check with local private investigation associations to verify membership and get feedback on the private detective.
Always ask the private detective or private investigation agency for references. Then call the references to obtain information on the detective’s performance, ethics, ease of doing business and, most importantly, results.
Ask the private detective or private investigation service to provide samples of their work, such as reports, newspaper articles, case studies, white papers, etc.
Make sure that you agree upon a price upfront before you hire the private detective. Discuss requirements for a retainer, hourly fees, expense reimbursement, etc.
Ask the private detective for his or her résumé or personal dossier.
Discuss and agree upon the services that you wish the private eye to provide, as well as the results you expect. Make sure that both parties have a clear understanding of the expectations. In addition, it is always a good idea to have a signed contract.
Before you hire a private detective, meet him or her in person, preferably at his or her place of business. Many private investigators don’t have an office. If he or she does have an office, visiting it may help you be reassured of his or her legitimacy and the quality of the operation.
In case the detective should be injured or damage someone’s property during the investigation, find out whether or not the private investigator is properly insured (i.e., limited liability).

To learn more about Funderburk Investigative Services and how we can help you, please visit our website.

Welcome to the Funderburk PI blog

2011-11-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

Welcome to our new blog! Let us tell you a little about ourselves. Funderburk Investigation Services is a full-service detective agency serving Charlotte, NC, and the surrounding area. Our private investigation firm was founded by George Funderburk, a graduate of Montreat College who served 30 years with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department before retiring.

As a private investigator, George has worked tirelessly to build a stellar reputation among attorneys, businesses and the general public. You can trust us to handle your most private and confidential matters. We use the latest, high-tech equipment, and all of our investigators remain up to date on the latest rules and laws.

Our success as personal investigators is due to the fact we only accept assignments which we believe we can complete to your satisfaction, otherwise we will refer you to another private investigation agency that more closely matches your needs. If we do take your investigation, we guarantee you the upmost in professional, responsible, friendly and understanding service.

Our most important objective as private detectives is always to protect the confidentiality of all our clients while maintaining the safety and welfare of the public at large. We promise to obtain all the information and evidence that can be found in your investigation.

To learn more about our services, please visit our website.