Private investigators are pretty common and they could be anywhere. People hire PIs for a variety of reasons, it could be that they’re trying to find a lost relative, or they could have suspicions about their partner and want to find out if they’re true.
Whatever people’s reasons, hiring a private investigator is one of the easiest ways to follow people and find out the information that you’ve been after.
Although the majority of people would never think of hiring a private investigator and their presence is supposed to be undetectable, here are a few tips that will help you if you think that you might be being followed.
1. Keep an eye on cars that park outside of your home, workplace, and places that you visit regularly. PIs will often conduct physical surveillance but to avoid being detected they’ll remain inside a vehicle.
If you notice a suspicious vehicle that you think you’ve been seeing a lot then make a note of the color, make, model, and number plate so that you can find out if it is definitely the same car.
2. Sometimes private investigators like to get a little closer so that they know exactly what’s going on; when you’re in public places make a mental note of the people that you see; if you see the same person in a number of locations then they could be following you so go somewhere that you never usually would and see if they follow you.
3. Your personal computer could hold the key that will help unlock your mystery; quite often if someone has been snooping then you’ll know because they won’t use your computer in the same way that you do.
Private investigators are trained in computer forensics and can easily hack into email files as well as retrieve documents that you have previously deleted.
If your partner has hired a PI to follow you and has given them permission to snoop through your computer then you should be cautious. Check through your documents to see whether there are any old files that you are sure you’d deleted.
4. PIs will try and get close to you and are likely to pose as a client, a new friend, or anyone who would be able to gather more information on you. If you think there could be more to someone than meets the eye then there’s probably a good reason why.
5. If you think that you could be being followed on foot then a great technique that will help you identify your PI quickly is to drop a ‘note’ that you’ve written. As a private investigator is trying to find out as much information about you as they can they won’t be able to ignore the interesting piece of paper that you’ve just dropped on the floor.
6. Go to a crowded or unusual location where people would be unlikely to follow you. For example, take a random bus journey to the other side of town – someone’s unlikely to get onto the exact same bus links as you to the same location.
Remember that although it’s unlikely it’s more than possible for someone to be taking the same route as you so try the same technique a few times to different places and see whether the same person is still there.
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