What a busy week

As you get older you think it gets easier, I don't think so.

This is the first available time this week that I have had to update.

On reflection though, a good chunk of the week was taken out attending a conference in Brighton for the Association that I am a Governing Council Member of, The World Association of Professional Investigators - W.A.P.I. http://wapi.com/ .

All the fun of the Fair

I must admit to loving the buzz of exhibiting at a large venue, with many varied trades and being away from the every day though.

You would think being at a conference that is in a growth period during a recession, was a good thing ? The sad part was that the subject matter was credit information bought by major organisations to facilitate decisions on debt collection, counselling and credit facilities. How the few will effect the many !!

Internet Dating

The reality of hiding behind a screen

Another sad item from the week, and witness to how the world has become - Internet dating. Well it wasn't even dating. A overseas potential client came to us searching for a friend they had meet on the Internet. Corresponding for over 8 years, web cam daily. Then 3 weeks ago, after revealing the fact that they had purchased a house for them to be together and the suggestion that after 8 years they should meet. The email went dead !! Being distraught, a hastily bought ticket to fly over here was arranged, a taxi was hired to drive around the area with a picture looking for the lost friend. Many days later and thousands of pounds out of pocket, a sad flight home..... If only the potential client would have listened to our Tracing Department, with the limited information they had, we were able to prove no such person existed.

Vanity - Is it worth the risk

The right expertise for the job

An interesting subject matter we are currently working on, you could say comes under the heading - Beauty Enhancement - when is it medical, and when is it necessary for qualified doctors to carry out procedures that are currently being conducted in beauty salons, all in the name of looking better. Cant wait for the time the operations' team need a slightly older woman as a guineapig !

It never really changes

Whilst out on a totally unrelated matter with one of our Senior Investigators, that Investigator "urge" popped up, to fit in a job whilst out and about. Regardless that I wa s in tow so to speak.

You cant beat that good old fashioned leg work sometimes, so having to agree, I went along with the plan !!

Not having had much success with the initial attempt to discover information at a location, still with me in tow, the investigator decided to give it another go, this time armed with camera.

Whilst I sat in the car cringing that something would go wrong, hiding my head in the local paper, facing the reality of why I never wanted to be a field agent, the investigator returned to the car, smiles all around.

The fact that a dodgy company was trading from the address, that we were looking at for another unrelated dodgy company, once armed with camera and taking legitimate pictures of the area, whilst unhelpful the 1st time around, said occupants were most helpful !! Talk about the survival of the fittest.

And finally...

That modern age phenomena - Technology !!

This is one of those weeks when I was glad to be out of the firing line. Covert trackers to be precise. When it works, absolutely great, nothing like it, for getting a head start on a surveillance.
However, when suppliers decide mid-job to change transmission platforms, tempers become fraught, with operations spending many hours into the night to recover situations.

So, it's a Sunday, take a chill day, fresh again for the week ahead.