Do You Miss an Old Friend Or Loved One?

Have you ever fallen out of contact with someone and then when you tried to find them again there wasn't a trace of their existence? This can happen all the time, sometimes people don't want you to contact them and they cover their tracks, sometimes people go missing, sometimes events accidentally brush over the tracks of their travels leaving it impossible to find them. You know people go missing all the time so do not think it is impossible, figures show in the USA alone then the number of missing persons per year has risen from approximately 150,000 in 1980 to 900,000 by 2006. That is a possible 900,000 heartbroken families a year!
So what can you do? If it is a straight missing person case (i.e. you wake up one day and find they have gone) then go straight to the police, but if you just lost touch… well the police will not be interested. That is where the internet steps in, the internet has made the world a smaller place, you can search for names, phone numbers, wade through all manner of records kept online looking for clues. You can even search yourself if the person just vanished one day, there is only so much the police can do when they are handling so many cases, anything you can do to help will aid their efforts.
The only problem with that is that although the internet has made the world a smaller place, it made the amount of information around us positively explode! Just how do you find anything useful when there could be millions of people with that surname? You could search for things on the web from now until the day you die and still not scratch the surface – but all is not lost. As with most things then you should call in professionals, people who are trained and licensed to get you the information that you want, that's right, hire a Private Investigator.
Did you know you can give them just a social security number and get a name and address back within 24 hours? For just a few dollars more you can get multiple addresses, possible aliases and relatives for the last 10 years! You can give a previous address and name and get all that detail as well or give an unlisted phone number at get the address back, all for the cost of a meal at your favourite restaurant.
Before you hire a private investigator be sure to do your homework. Do a Google search on the private investigators name to see if they are recognized as an expert of authority in skip tracing and people search investigations. Also do a search on the web site name and company name to see if their are any Internet postings from former clients who are either satisfied or not.
Last check out the pricing and turn around times for the results. Are they competitive? Beware of companies that are too cheap and offer "instant" searches. This information will almost always be inaccurate and out dated. Be leery if you see a site offering "unlimited" searches for one low price. If it looks too good to be true it usually is.
It makes sense to me to save your time for working out what to say to them when you find them again, rather than trying to find a needle in a haystack, leave that for someone with a magnet…