For those of you who grew up watching TV series like Magnum PI [1], what I do surely sounds familiar: I'm a private investigator (PI). But unlike the super agents created by Hollywood, I don't drive a Ferrari or crawl around in people's yards to sneak a peak in their windows. What I do is legal, but not less exciting.
I started working in this industry 13 years ago. I wanted to be a police officer, but after taking some courses, I realized that was not the right career path for me. It seemed like too dangerous a job for the amount of money you get paid and the lifestyle of police officers is very hard as well. So instead of joining the police force I found another career that is very similar, but that allows me to use my head a little bit more. While cops seem to be more about muscle, PIs seem to be more about using your brain to solve problems and that's something I enjoy.
So far I have no regrets. I love my job. You work any day, any time -- day or night. It's actually not uncommon to spend 15 to 20 hours straight on a particular case. Whenever is the best time to go out and conduct your investigation or surveillance, you've got to do it. There's no "I'm tired today" or "I'm hungry right now." It's all about seizing opportunities.
A common day for an investigator who is doing surveillance, for example, would start at 6 a.m. and go on until 8 or 9 o'clock at night. You work every day of the week and even when you might get a couple of days off, you usually have to work on weekends. You know when you are going to start your day, but you never know at what time you'll finish or where you'll end up. It depends on the person you're following. I've started, for example, before sunrise one day in Toronto and by the afternoon I've already driven to Montreal, rented a boat, gone fishing, or better yet, pretended I was fishing, while recording that person with my hidden video camera. Other times, I've ended up on a roller coaster or joining a snowboarding class.
Because of the constant challenges and last minute changes inherent to this profession, you have to be very versatile. It's essential to be physically and emotionally prepared to affront challenges and situations that come up out of the blue. You also have to be able to go anywhere at anytime without looking suspicious. Above all, you have to have common sense.
The company I work for, King-Reed & Associates Inc. [2], offers surveillance, criminal and corporate investigations, intellectual property investigations, background investigations of people (what's the person is all about, what they do for a living, their status in the community, financial situation and the like) as well as domestic surveillance. I'd say that those are the main areas of specialization in this industry.
The bread and butter of this industry is, by far, insurance fraud investigation. Usually, insurance companies hire us to go out and follow their insurance claimants just to see whether their injuries are as bad as they say they are.
Many people involved in car accidents or who have slipped and fallen say they're so injured that they can't even walk. Many times, however, I've discovered individuals who claimed they couldn't move, building a house, working out, gardening and doing anything but staying in bed. I remember a case where I was hired to follow a woman who was allegedly so badly injured in a car accident that she couldn't go to the bathroom by herself. I went out to her house one day early in the morning and I witnessed how she was able to drive her car to work, stayed there for about eight hours and then went to a gym where she actually instructed an aerobics class. I joined the class and, armed with a hidden video camera, I recorded her leading the class. I was the only guy among 20 women and maybe I wasn't the most coordinated one, but nobody suspected anything and I actually had a lot of fun. It was the first time in my life I'd taken aerobics, and I found it very challenging and enjoyable at the same time.
I've also done quite a lot of domestic surveillance or "domestic investigations." When people suspect their partners are cheating on them, we follow a person for days and record video footage to show later to the client. We never go out and confront the subject we are shadowing. Afterwards, we hand in a report along with the video to the individual who hired us.
Sometimes it gets especially difficult to tell our clients what we find out. Once, for example, I discovered that my client's wife was cheating on him with his very best friend. That's tough to communicate. In cases like that one, we try to tell the news to our clients in a way that sounds like good news. We tell them that it's good they found out now and not later; that they'll be happier with somebody else who respects them; that now they can move on with their life and don't have to worry anymore about whether or not their partners are cheating on them. No matter what we tell them, it's never easy.
Contrary to what many people think, we don't get more work from one gender or the other. We get even amounts of male and female clients, but the way they react when they hear the news is quite different. Women are very emotional about it, while guys get mostly angry - very angry. Another interesting difference is that women are right in their suspicions most of the time. When they come to us, it is basically looking for a confirmation of something they already know. They feel it somehow. Men, on the other hand, come to us driven mostly by jealousy, and about half of the time, they are wrong: nothing is really going on.
High Tech Devices
Technology has changed our methods quite a bit. In the past, it was mostly taking photographs. Now, we have moved to shooting videos and researching online. There are a lot of things we can do by taking advantage of Internet databases and other methods of online research. However, for the surveillance portion, we still need to go out there. Surveillance is not only the bread and butter of our industry, but also the most exciting part in my opinion. It's actually a great part of the job because you are assigned to watch somebody who you know very little about, and by the end of the day, you know a lot about that individual. It's amazing. There are boring parts too. For example, when you have to sit down in a car in front of the house of the people you are following and wait for them to come out. It could be hours and hours of waiting. But once they do come out, the thrill of the chase begins, and the adrenaline starts pumping.
I believe that anybody can become a good private investigator, and in the last five years, I've seen a lot more colleges and private companies offering training courses. For a long time, this industry wasn't looked upon as reputable. I'm sure that it had a lot to do with the way Hollywood portrays detectives. They show private investigators doing very sneaky things, such as crawling in people's yards, hiding in bushes, peeking through windows, not to mention jumping from a third floor without getting injured- We don't do that. Everything we do is according to the law. We can't, for example, record a conversation unless we are part of that conversation. It's not as easy as someone may think. We are professionals who want to conduct investigations properly and ethically.
Currently, our industry is male dominated. I've met excellent female investigators, but there are very few who seek this line of work. I think the reason is that the surveillance portion of this job is a very difficult one in the sense that it's physically demanding and it can be very dangerous too. Some of the people we are assigned to watch belong to gangs or live in rough neighborhoods, so for the ladies to be walking by themselves in those areas or watching an apartment door from a stairwell must be too hazardous.
The biggest challenge for PIs is to stay up to date with all the changes that go on in this industry, such as new laws, technologies and trends. It can also be very hard on families sometimes too. It's hard to make plans because of your schedule. You can't just leave a case and go home because your daughter is sick or because there are friends coming over for dinner. In my case, I'm single but engaged, and looking forward to starting my own family. Like in everything, it's all about finding a person who is understanding and respects the fact that you love your job and that it is what you want to do for the rest of your life.
The most rewarding parts of this job is knowing that you're helping people and the fact that people are usually very impressed by what you do. Everyone thinks it's a very cool job! And it sure is. My dream assignment? I'd love to be flown to a Caribbean island and shadow somebody there or work on a high-profile murder investigation. I still have time.