Blue Heron Investigations isn't the only private investigation agency in Minnesota. We understand that you may be interested in consulting with more than one private detective in your quest to find someone you can trust to help you. For your convenience, we have provided a checklist for you to use when comparing Minnesota private investigators. Since we've been in the private investigation industry since the late '80's, we're familiar with the issues that are likely to affect you in your search for the right investigator. Below are some of our thoughts, from our hypothetical perspective as a potential client, regarding what we'd look for in an investigator. We've done our best to remain as unbiased as possible. AGENCY SIZE If we were working as an insurance claims rep with a large insurance company, and had dozens of insurance defense cases to assign each and every month, we’d probably take a serious look at a large detective agency – one with plenty of employees. We know that even though these employees aren’t always well trained, there’re so many of them that they could handle our large volume of work. If we had a single case to assign to a detective agency, we’d prefer to deal with a smaller company where a licensed private detective (not an employee of his) would do the work. We understand that the licensed private detective, who owns a smaller company, is much likelier to give our case the attention it deserves. Regardless of our case needs, we’d never assign a case to a detective agency that would actually brag about how many cases they work each month; we can understand how that’s great for them, but not for us. ASSOCIATION MEMBERSHIPS We’d like to have a detective on our side who is committed enough to his profession that he belongs to a state or national association for investigators. This investigator is more likely to be active in the profession, informed, well networked with other talent, and concerned about the integrity of the profession. However, we know that many investigators join associations only so that they can market those memberships to the public. Therefore, and without knowing more about the investigator, we’d fail to be impressed by a list of association memberships. We’ll look at other criteria instead. AVAILABILITY Virtually any investigator is available to work 24 hours a day – that’s the nature of the business. So, we’re not going to be impressed with such claims of availability. And since we know that even investigators need to sleep sometimes, we’re going to be even less impressed with the fact that phones are answered 24 hours a day. Everybody has voice mail these days, and an answering service that takes a message at 3:00 a.m. isn’t going to help us any more than our leaving a voice mail on a detective’s phone. If we have a child that’s just run away, a “totally disabled” insurance claimant that’s reportedly in the middle of building a deck, or a “just identified” witness that needs to be located for a court hearing tomorrow – immediate availability may be a requirement of ours. Otherwise, we’d rather have a competent investigator have us wait a few days so that he could do the job properly. Immediate availability, in most cases, will not impress us. BILLING PRACTICES We’d rather just pay for the services we use – not a penny more. We know that no two cases are exactly alike, and that an investigator who provides flat rates is probably doing so based on the law of averages – and that with such practices, somebody always ends up paying for another person’s “overage.” So we might look for an agency that bills us by the hour and itemizes expenses and time on the invoice. That way, we’ll know exactly how our money was spent and that the agency isn’t offsetting losses on another case by using our retainer money. Of course, we also appreciate the simplicity and certainty of knowing exactly how much something will cost in the end. We’re like this when we ask a painter to paint our house or the neighborhood boy to mow our yard; in these cases, we don’t want to hear about hourly rates and the price of paint or gas – just how much it’s going to cost in the end. So, we might end up telling the detective agency something similar – “I don’t care how you get there; whether you charge for this or ding for that, just tell us how much this’ll cost in the end.” It’d be great if the agency acknowledges that what’s right for one isn’t necessarily right for the other. It’d be better yet if the agency gave us a choice between itemized billing and flat rates. BONDING AND INSURANCE We want to know that the detective has the proper liability insurance and bond that’s required by law. Having insurance and being bonded would be a qualifier for us, since we know the bond and insurance is ultimately for our own protection. If the detective isn’t properly bonded or insured – we’ll take our business elsewhere. BROKERS No brokers for us – period. If they (the broker) are just going to turn around and hire a detective agency here in town anyway, then we’ll save our money and hire that detective agency directly. By doing so, we’ll be assuring ourselves that …
We’ll investigate further if we see or hear any of the following:
presence here in the state of Minnesota, and is licensed by the state of Minnesota, we’ll continue to consider them – that’s only fair. CERTIFICATIONS There are only a few certifications that can be earned by private detectives that mean anything at all to us. Those few certifications are actually “earned” through hard work and rigorous testing. But we know that most certifications within the industry are given (or sold) to anyone who buys a certain book, or takes a short (usually open book) test by a privately held company. We are not going to be impressed by initials, that we don’t recognize, that follows anyone’s name. We’ll look at other credentials instead. EQUIPMENT If our case involved surveillance, and it might become necessary for the investigator to document activity inside of a building, we’d want that investigator to confirm for us that he has covert body- worn surveillance equipment. We know that a lot of investigators don’t have this equipment, and so we’ll actually ask. If the investigator thinks wrapping a jacket around a hand held camcorder constitutes covert body worn surveillance equipment, then we’ll be taking our business elsewhere. If we were to hire an investigator to take a formal statement, we’ll want to know that the investigator has the proper recording equipment. If the transcribed statement comes back with a lot of “inaudible” notations, we’ll know that he didn’t. For the most part though, the best we can do is to ask the investigator if he is well equipped to do the job. We know he’s unlikely to provide a list of equipment he uses. When we get the final work product back we’ll see if video tape is shaky, statements are incomplete, there’s no covert video of the subject inside important locations, night scenes are underexposed, still photographs lack necessary details, etc. and we’ll remember this the next time we look to hire an investigator. EXPERIENCE We don’t care if the detective agency has been around for 100 years if our case is going to be worked by an investigator that was hired the week prior. We don’t care if the detective we’re speaking with on the phone has been around for 50 years, if he’s not the one who’ll be personally working our case. We understand that everybody needs to learn sometime, just as we once did, but we’d prefer that new hires learn on somebody else’s case – not ours. We want the detective, not necessarily the agency, to be experienced. GUARANTEES We know enough about the profession to know that we don’t want any guarantees from an investigator. Except, perhaps, a guarantee to do his best. If the detective offered us a guarantee that would affect him financially somehow, then it’d make us wonder what he might do or say in order to keep from having to pay up. No – we’d rather the investigator be honest with us than offer us a guarantee of anything. INTEGRITY Integrity / ethics – doing what’s right when nobody is looking. This would be extremely important to us when choosing a detective agency. After all, we won’t be there when the work is conducted, are expected to make payment in advance, and are well aware that some of the best detectives also happen to be highly skilled in the art of deception. Trust in the detective agency would be an absolute must to us. Having been in the industry for quite awhile, we’ve come to recognize some of the signs that the investigator is less than honest, including:
LICENSING We’ll confirm that the detective has a current Minnesota private detective license when we call the private detective board. No license? – No work. It won’t matter to us that the detective is a licensed detective in another state if he’s not licensed here. It also won’t matter to us that the out of state agency subcontracts to licensed investigators in Minnesota. If we’re going to hire an investigator or detective agency, then that investigator or agency must be licensed here. No exceptions. LOCATION We’ll go to the local barber for a haircut, the nearest gas station when our tank is empty, and the grocery store nearest our home. But we’re not going to choose a detective agency simply because they’re close by. We want the agency most qualified to do the job, and one that meets our other criteria. If that agency happens to be on the other side of the metro area – then so be it. If we find ourselves concerned with the prospect of being billed for excessive travel time and mileage because the investigator bills “portal to portal” and itemizes instead of billing flat rates, then we might bring it up to the detective and see if something could be worked out. MARKETING PRACTICES We won’t equate glossy brochures with competence. Last time we checked, the local printer still agreed to print nearly anything for anybody – provided that he was paid for his work, of course. So, we’re not going to be impressed with glossy anything. The same holds true for slick web sites. We think Blue Heron Investigations has a nice web site, but we know that money and time will get anyone a nice web site too. Business cards would mean nothing to us – they’re printed on home computers these days. No – slick advertising won’t impress us during our search for a competent investigator. But even though we’re not impressed by slick marketing material, we might still find clues to the investigator’s professionalism and competence by looking at his material. We’re going to cast a suspect eye towards such things as business cards with crossed out information; websites that haven’t been updated for nearly 10 years; web sites with such silliness as blinking eyeballs, Pink Panther and Mission Impossible theme songs, etc.; e-mail addresses that make light of the profession (i.e. willsnoopformoney@isp.com); and advertising (especially in web sites) that would try to convey that the investigator knows and does everything. PRICE We value our money as much as the next guy, but price won’t be our sole criteria when choosing a detective agency. We’d rather pay more to get the job done right the first time around, than have to hire another detective to fix the discount guy’s mistakes. Still – we’re not going to automatically equate high rates with competence either. We know that some detectives' high rates just go to pay for their fancy offices, abstract art in the waiting room, and other such nonsense. No – if we’re going to hire a detective agency, we’re going to hire one who charges somewhere within the norm for the area. Too much and we’ll assume wasteful spending, too little and we’ll expect incompetence.
by working at something on a part-time basis. We understand how others may feel the same way. We also understand how many people need to supplement their full time jobs by working a part-time job on the side. There is nothing wrong with any of this. But if we're going to hire a detective agency, we're going to limit our search to those who engaged solely in the field of investigations – not one where investigative work is performed on the side or after hours. It's the full-time dedicated professional who is most likely to be properly equipped to do the job, most interested in furthering the profession, most likely to be well connected to other professionals, most likely to understand changing laws etc. Additionally, we don't want to have to wait until our investigator gets off work, or finishes his round of golf, to call us back. SPECIALTIES We wouldn’t hire a divorce attorney to represent us in a criminal defense matter any more than we’d visit a podiatrist for heart problems. Same thing goes for hiring a detective agency – we’ll choose one that has the experience dealing with our particular matter. We wouldn’t choose Blue Heron Investigations to conduct a polygraph examination or investigate an arson any more than we’d hire an arson investigator to conduct surveillance of a cheating spouse. We’re going to look at the detective agency’s web site and other marketing material for clues to that agency’s specialties. If the agency doesn’t even reference conducting the type of investigation we need, then we’re likely to take our business elsewhere. The same holds true for agencies that claim to do or know |