criminal background check Archives - All in Investigations

Signs an Employee May Need to Find Another Place to Spend 8 Hours a Day

Signs an Employee May Need to Find Another Place to Spend 8 Hours a Day They arrive late for work They do not take pride in their appearance and show up for work looking like they just rolled out of bed They constantly complain about not having money and are always borrowing money They take too many breaks Their personal life takes precedent over coming to work They always look busy but get nothing completed They make excuses for their lack of productivity Their absenteeism becomes a pattern Their cellphone is more important than the office phone or their work Easily distracted Reasons Employers Keep Unproductive Employees Cost and time of training a replacement Possible cost of certifications and education Personal relationship Small business [...]

Do I Need to Hire a Private Investigator?

Life Happens…sometimes we oversee our path and other times we are influenced by choices made by others. When situations arise out of our control and cannot be handled from within, we reach out for help. can be that source to help with life-changing matters. 10 Reasons You May NOT Need to Hire a Private Investigator You are not Married or involved in a relationship You are not being harassed or stalked You have not engaged in a workplace relationship You do not own a cell phone, computer or drive a car You are not adopted and if you are you do not care to know your biological parents You do not have any children, or you have not put a child up for adoption You [...]

The Proof Is in The Details

A couple of years ago, one of our corporate clients contacted our office stating that his employees were stealing valuable copper scrap from their manufacturing facility and they were losing profit due to theft in the workplace. First, he had admitted that his company was guilty of improper employment background checks, specifically a criminal background search for each county of residence, but he was changing the SOP to implement authorized and updated criminal history checks. The Client brought in two VCR time lapse tapes of the suspected employees and since the video quality was poor he wanted us to video enhance it to identify the suspects. Our forensic video enhancement lab was unsuccessful since the VCR only recorded 3 frames per second and the camera [...]

Anyone Can Be Sexually Harassed, Proving It Is What Matters

Sexual Harassment Is Sometimes Hard To Prove. There are always three sides to every story. His……Hers…..and the Truth, but when Laquita came in our office and sobbingly explained that no one at her workplace believed she was being sexually harassed by a supervisor at her workplace, we did. She was very convincing. A large man, twenty years her senior and a supervisor in another department always seemed to know when she was alone and would take that opportunity to grope her. When she told him she was in a committed relationship with children, he left her alone for a while. She confided the incidents with her direct supervisor who brushed it off saying he was a very upstanding religious man with a fine family. He didn’t stay away [...]

5 Red Flags You’re A Victim Of Corporate Espionage

This article is Part 2 of a 3-part series. The purpose of the series is to familiarize the reader with the most common indicators of corporate espionage and advice on how to combat it. This advice is a compilation of our experience at while investigating these types of cases. For a description of the differences between corporate espionage, economic espionage and competitive intelligence, click here for Part I: WHAT IS CORPORATE ESPIONAGE? For this article, we are concentrating on low-tech tactics commonly used in corporate espionage. Computer hacking, surveillance equipment, and eavesdropping devices are probably found far more in economic espionage cases; but in our experience, low-tech spying is used with a high degree of success in corporate espionage. It’s cheap, hard to spot and [...]

When Creepy Stalker Notes Turn Out to be Something Else

Marti found the first anonymous note lying on top of paperwork on her desk when she came back from lunch break. It was hand printed on common lined paper that was folded in half. The printing was bold and slanted slightly to the left. To Marti, it looked like a man’s writing. The note said, “I’m watching you.” At the time, Marti dismissed it as a joke by a bored co-worker and threw it away. A few days later, Marti found the second anonymous note on her car windshield when she was leaving work for the day. This note looked just like the first one but this time it said, “Pretty in pink.” She was wearing a pink blouse that day. Marti was upset and [...]

Drown the Pool Contractor

A middle aged couple came into our office with a very peculiar request. They had contracted a pool company to install a fiberglass pool in their backyard. It had been a dream of theirs to have their kids and grandkids could come over and enjoy day long activities with them. It was in early November they had contracted to have the pool installed. They told us the contractor at that time was very nice, was very active and communicative to them. Our Client said his wife had talked to the contractor and told him of their water problems in the basement, to which he replied he could help with that, they would install the pool and have a retaining wall towards the back of it [...]

Don’t Get Scammed into Puny Background Investigations

Whew! Just do a Google search for Background Investigation and see the more than 33,400,000 results pop up! You would think that there would not be any chance of a person being hoodwinked with the number of “services” out there to reveal the con artists and scammers. But you would be wrong. Why is that? Well, it is pretty simple. There are basically two reasons for the growing likelihood of a person – of any age, gender or race – getting conned: People are optimistic and naïve. They don’t want to believe there is ever really a need for background check services, especially in a personal situation. They may understand why a business would conduct an employment background check and even a criminal background check, [...]

Investigation Teaches a Business Lesson to an Unsuspecting Teen

Parenting is a tough job, especially when you want to protect your child and she is a very headstrong teen who thinks she understands everything about the way the world works. At least that was the comment from a worried parent who called . Katy* got her first job at the local ice cream shop and she was so excited. She had visions of money and freedom and a chance to get her own car. Her mom, Sandra* was equally as happy. She felt this was a good step for her 16-year-old daughter to learn the value of working for your money and the responsibility of a job. However, shortly after she started, Sandra was getting “weird” feelings about the job. When she talked with [...]

Employment Background Checks Help Spot Fake Diplomas

In a tough job market, job searchers can become desperate and willing to do anything to get a job – including lying about their education with fake diplomas obtained from non-existent universities. To keep from getting duped and facing future consequences, employers need to conduct thorough background investigations on potential employees to detect the phonies before hiring and training them. Unfortunately, fraud is rampant in the employment market with fake degrees on the rise. Google “fake degree” and hundreds of websites offering diplomas pop up. These “diploma mills” sell job applicants high school, bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees, or professional certifications with transcripts for a flat fee. The diploma often requires little, if any, course work and awards a degree based solely on the person’s [...]