How low can you go?
One of my early-career revelations about being a private investigator is that it’s not hard to excel. Why? The field is filled with slackers and idiots. Mind you, there are also a significant number of highly intelligent, hard working, dedicated professionals out there, but I’d actually say they’re probably in the minority. What am I basing this on? Well, I’ve worked with some of the best, and some of the worst. And I also teach PIs, as I’ve mentioned before. Most of the people I teach probably never do an hour of work. Heck, maybe 90 percent of them never do. Maybe more.
Part of that is because of the way Virginia’s regulations are designed. In addition to getting registered as a PI, which is fairly simple and fairly cheap, if you want to work on your own you need to have a compliance agent (another class, another test, and $100 – but you need a certain amount of experience to even get into the class), and you need a business license. The business license requires a fairly steep fee, plus insurance – totaling about $2000 in total. Most people, even if they qualify, won’t go that far. A lot of people seem to think that all they need to do is get registered, and the work will come. (And that is SO not true.) People ask me in class, what does it take to make a living as a PI? My answer: you have to work very hard at marketing yourself. Most people just can’t or won’t do it.
The other way to work as a PI in Virginia is to become an employee of either a lawyer or of someone else who has a business license. (Keep in mind, I’m simplifying here.) People who do that usually get paid squat. I know of companies that pay as little as $15 an hour (and you can probably find someone in VA who would pay you less), and that’s using your own car. These types of jobs generally don’t come with much in the way of training. So what you’ve got is a client paying $55 to $100 or more an hour (on the high end of the scale in large cities and Northern VA), and getting a poorly-trained kid doing $15 an hour work.
Let me tell you a story. I saw a post to a mailing list I’m on where a guy needed someone to do four days of surveillance on a warehouse. It was about an hour and a half away from where I live, but it was enough hours that I was willing to go that far, so I sent an e-mail saying I could do it. The guy wrote back and said he found someone to do three of the days, but needed someone for the fourth. OK, good. I got the info, and on that day I went to the location, got there early to scope it out and find a good place to watch from, and got myself settled in. I found a sweet spot: parked along a hedge in an empty parking lot diagonally across the street. I was under a tree for shade, put up sun screens in the front and back windows, and climbed into the back seat. I put a screen up on the window to the side, so I was virtually invisible to the place I was watching. I set up my camera gear and notebook, and I was all set – right on time. So far so good.
But then, twelve minutes past the start time, a minivan pulled into the lot I was in. The guy drove by me, glanced at my car, and then pulled into a parking spot directly across from the front door of the target, his car parked nose out. The guy then proceeded to sit in his front seat with a huge pair of binoculars, and stare directly at the building. I gaped at him in amazement. This kid – and he looked like he might be a college student doing a little work on the side, assuming he was clever enough to be a college student – was completely visible to me, to the people across the street, and to anyone driving down the road. I sat and watched him for a couple minutes to make sure he was staying, and put in a call to my client. I left a message explaining the situation, and sat and waited.
Fifteen minutes later, the kid still in the same highly-visible position, my cell phone vibrated. (Surveillance tip: keep your cell on vibrate – people can hear the ringer from outside the car.) We chatted, and I said he was still there, and clearly hadn’t noticed me. The client had no way of reaching the kid. So of course, I did the only thing I could do. I offered to check with him and make sure that was why he was there, and then go. But of course, I would have to charge for some of my time. I also made damn sure he was clear just what I was seeing and how obvious it was.
After I got off the phone, I pulled the screens down, climbed into the front seat, and drove over alongside the minivan. I asked if he worked for the Dumbass Investigative Agency (name changed to protect the stupid), and he stared at me with his eyes wide, and said yes. Personally, I think I’d have denied it. And maybe I should have tried to send him packing and done the work myself. But it just seemed like a good situation to get myself out of, and I was certainly glad not to be associated with that company in any way.
So, the moral of this story is…if you want a competent PI, get a referral. And get one from someone who can actually attest to the work of the individual who will be doing it.
Part of that is because of the way Virginia’s regulations are designed. In addition to getting registered as a PI, which is fairly simple and fairly cheap, if you want to work on your own you need to have a compliance agent (another class, another test, and $100 – but you need a certain amount of experience to even get into the class), and you need a business license. The business license requires a fairly steep fee, plus insurance – totaling about $2000 in total. Most people, even if they qualify, won’t go that far. A lot of people seem to think that all they need to do is get registered, and the work will come. (And that is SO not true.) People ask me in class, what does it take to make a living as a PI? My answer: you have to work very hard at marketing yourself. Most people just can’t or won’t do it.
The other way to work as a PI in Virginia is to become an employee of either a lawyer or of someone else who has a business license. (Keep in mind, I’m simplifying here.) People who do that usually get paid squat. I know of companies that pay as little as $15 an hour (and you can probably find someone in VA who would pay you less), and that’s using your own car. These types of jobs generally don’t come with much in the way of training. So what you’ve got is a client paying $55 to $100 or more an hour (on the high end of the scale in large cities and Northern VA), and getting a poorly-trained kid doing $15 an hour work.
Let me tell you a story. I saw a post to a mailing list I’m on where a guy needed someone to do four days of surveillance on a warehouse. It was about an hour and a half away from where I live, but it was enough hours that I was willing to go that far, so I sent an e-mail saying I could do it. The guy wrote back and said he found someone to do three of the days, but needed someone for the fourth. OK, good. I got the info, and on that day I went to the location, got there early to scope it out and find a good place to watch from, and got myself settled in. I found a sweet spot: parked along a hedge in an empty parking lot diagonally across the street. I was under a tree for shade, put up sun screens in the front and back windows, and climbed into the back seat. I put a screen up on the window to the side, so I was virtually invisible to the place I was watching. I set up my camera gear and notebook, and I was all set – right on time. So far so good.
But then, twelve minutes past the start time, a minivan pulled into the lot I was in. The guy drove by me, glanced at my car, and then pulled into a parking spot directly across from the front door of the target, his car parked nose out. The guy then proceeded to sit in his front seat with a huge pair of binoculars, and stare directly at the building. I gaped at him in amazement. This kid – and he looked like he might be a college student doing a little work on the side, assuming he was clever enough to be a college student – was completely visible to me, to the people across the street, and to anyone driving down the road. I sat and watched him for a couple minutes to make sure he was staying, and put in a call to my client. I left a message explaining the situation, and sat and waited.
Fifteen minutes later, the kid still in the same highly-visible position, my cell phone vibrated. (Surveillance tip: keep your cell on vibrate – people can hear the ringer from outside the car.) We chatted, and I said he was still there, and clearly hadn’t noticed me. The client had no way of reaching the kid. So of course, I did the only thing I could do. I offered to check with him and make sure that was why he was there, and then go. But of course, I would have to charge for some of my time. I also made damn sure he was clear just what I was seeing and how obvious it was.
After I got off the phone, I pulled the screens down, climbed into the front seat, and drove over alongside the minivan. I asked if he worked for the Dumbass Investigative Agency (name changed to protect the stupid), and he stared at me with his eyes wide, and said yes. Personally, I think I’d have denied it. And maybe I should have tried to send him packing and done the work myself. But it just seemed like a good situation to get myself out of, and I was certainly glad not to be associated with that company in any way.
So, the moral of this story is…if you want a competent PI, get a referral. And get one from someone who can actually attest to the work of the individual who will be doing it.
posted by Meriah Crawford at
10:59 PM
1 Comments:
Now THAT would be a great opening scene in a detective novel.
By
Patrick Shawn Bagley, at 7:36 AM
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