On Q Professional Investigations

I have six kids. When my kids were little they would close their eyes or put a blanket over their head and believe that so long as their eyes were closed or that blanket was over their head, no one could see them. Some people have a similar line of thinking when it comes to receiving service of a debt collection lawsuit. They know the process server is standing outside the door. But maybe. Just maybe, if they pretend they aren’t home, this whole thing will go away and life will go on as normal.

The thing you must understand is, that just because the process server doesn’t catch you at home (or can’t get you to open the door), does not mean that they can’t serve you. And truthfully, by trying to evade service of the lawsuit you are likely doing yourself a whole lot more harm then good. Here’s why. After a process server makes a couple attempts at dropping of the lawsuit at your house, if they can’t get a hold of you they can go back to the court and ask the judge to permit them to serve you by some other method. And the thing is the other methods rarely actually give you notice of the lawsuit.

Typical alternative service methods are publication (in the smallest newspaper you have never heard of in your community), or by mail to your last known address – which never seems to be the place you actually live. The danger to you is that even though you likely will not see the notice that gets published in the newspaper or receive the complaint and summons in the mail, the court will deem that you have been appropriately served and the clock starts ticking on your requirement to file a response. And obviously, because you didn’t know about it, you don’t answer the lawsuit and a default judgment is entered against you. Once the default judgment is entered then the real fun starts and you get your paycheck garnished or your bank account emptied.

But this can be avoided. You just have to answer the door. The process server seems scary, but all they will really do is ask you who you are and drop of the papers. By accepting service you know how much time you have to file a response, who is suing you, and what their claims are. Many times in lawsuits by junk debt buyers you can win those lawsuits. But not if you don’t know about them.

Answer the door. Get the documents. Review what you have learned on this site. And if you choose, call an attorney to help you in dealing with this problem head-on.

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TV and movie portrayals of real professions tend to be less than realistic, and the job of private investigator is no exception. But just because you won’t solve every case between 9 and 10 p.m. on Tuesdays doesn’t mean that becoming a private investigator isn’t for you.

What does it take to be a successful private investigator?

“You need to be intelligent, inquisitive and methodical,” says Dr. David Woods, a professor of criminal justice at South University’s Austin campus. Woods, who holds a doctorate in criminal justice and has worked as a police officer and a private investigator, also cites having an open mind, being proficient with technology and learning about people.

A good knowledge of the law is another necessity. Private investigators are regular citizens who must follow the law, but because of their profession they are held to a higher standard of legal knowledge than the public.

Most states require P.I.s to obtain a license, but the requirements vary widely based on where you live. Depending on the jurisdiction, even those with a law enforcement or military background may have to prove they have the necessary knowledge and skills.

Fulfilling the requirements may involve education, training courses, an apprenticeship or all three. In some situations, the education and training requirements can be met with a bachelor’s degree, such as the Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice offered at several of South University’s campuses.

The work of a private investigator is not for everyone, but it can be an exciting way to earn a living for the right person. Like most careers, it has its plusses and minuses.

Working independently, as most P.I.s do, can mean a constant search for new clients. Other drawbacks include a lack of regular hours, dangerous situations and – much more often than danger – long periods of inactivity during surveillance work.

But Woods says that the fictional portrayals of private investigators are not completely untrue. The main resemblance to TV, he says, lies in the freedom and adventure of the job.

“It can take you anywhere, anytime,” he says. As for the disguises and subterfuge so often a part of TV shows, he says they may or may not be part of an investigation.

“A disguise is often part of surveillance work. But posing as someone you’re not is much rarer – maybe 10 percent of the job,” he says. “A good private investigator is never seen or heard until the investigation is complete.”

Other than the freedom it affords – which many may say is the best part – being a P.I. provides the ability to promote fairness and justice.

Because they see such a large number of cases, law enforcement agencies must limit the resources they can expend on each one. A private investigator, on the other hand, has the ability to focus his or her resources on one client at a time, which can yield better results.

“Many times, you are able to assist people who may have no other recourse available to them,” says Woods. “You can do something important and help someone out.”

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There was the husband who knew how many stepkids he had but didn’t remember their names.

And there was the guy who swore he slept with his wife every night, but was in the dark about the oxygen tank by her bedside.

Immigration officers in New York City’s Stokes unit — who spend their days interrogating couples applying for green cards based on marriage — have heard it all.

“Life is stranger than fiction,” officer Barbara Felska told the Daily News, which got an up-close look at the unit.

GREEN CARD MARRIAGE FRAUD CAN RESULT IN DEPORTATION OR JAIL

The green-card gumshoes use old-fashioned sleuthing to ferret out marriages of convenience from cases of true love.

Spouses are interviewed separately — under oath — and the simplest questions can be sticky.

Some of Felska’s favorites:

– What restaurant do you and your husband usually order take out from, ma’am? Where do you keep the menus?
– How did you celebrate New Year’s Eve last year, sir?
– How much is your rent? Who writes the check?
– What’s the closest subway stop to your marital residence?

If the answers match, they’ll likely be approved. If they don’t, they get a chance to explain why together in a rebuttal.

GAMING THE GREEN CARD SYSTEM: ONE IMMIGRANT’S FAKE MARRIAGE TALE

“If he said the walls are white and she said the walls are green, you say, ‘Can you explain why that discrepancy exists?’” said officer Kristian Parker. If one is colorblind, they’ll need to prove it.

Some issues are easily resolved.

“We bring them together … and say, ‘Your wife told me that last New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2011, right before midnight you were at home watching the Times Square celebration,’” Felska said.

“‘However, sir, you told me that you were at a party, with your friends from college.’

“And then the wife is like, ‘Honey, you’re talking about two years ago!’”

New York couples end up in Stokes for a range of reasons.

Maybe they failed an initial interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services or there was a tip from a neighbor.

Perhaps their file is missing too many documents, or their provisional green card is up for review.

Requests for marriage-based green cards have skyrocketed. Stokes was set up in the ’70s after a judge ordered the feds to be more fair in deciding those cases.

Officials say the unit is designed to give couples the benefit of the doubt — if their first interview goes poorly, they get a second chance at Stokes.

Sometimes the most suspicious couples turn out to be real, Parker said.

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When we think about workplace safety, we usually think about dangerous factory equipment or safety goggles. Office workers might worry about the danger of chairs or asbestos. But women with violent partners face another danger: Their partners coming to their workplace and committing violence. A horrifying new study finds that 142 women were killed on the job by their husbands or boyfriends between 2003 and 2008.

Researchers found that partner violence accounted for 22% of all workplace homicides of women in that five-year period. The study was published in the journal Annals of Epidemiology by researchers from National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Injury Control Research Center at West Virginia University.

According to previous research, murder is the top cause of “injury death” for women at work, accounting for 40% of all deaths. Most of those murders take place in the course of robberies at workplaces like restaurants and convenience stories. But the new research found that the second leading type of workplace homicide against women is carried out by “personal relations,” with about 80% of them “intimate partners” — boyfriends or husbands.

What do those numbers mean? More women died on the job because of domestic violence than because of violence by clients (including prisoners and mental patients!) or disgruntled co-workers. Private workplaces including restaurants, hotels, and retail stores were among the most common locations of violence. Federal, state, and local government workplaces were significantly safer. Women who work in health care, production, and office administration were at the highest risk of partner violence.

What do we take away from all this? It’s not that most of us have to be afraid of going to work. But it’s a sad reminder that for women in violent relationships, the workplace isn’t necessarily a safe space.

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We are all going mobile. It could be a smartphone, an iPad, or some other handheld device, but we are increasingly living our always-connected lives on-the-go.

Whether we are working, checking our bank account balances, playing a few games, or just surfing the Web, we are becoming more dependent on mobile technology – and consequently more vulnerable. Because wherever our phone or tablet goes, so goes our data and online privacy.

Contacts, credit card information, e-mail – all the sensitive data that we thought was secured on our PCs at home or at work is slowly getting transferred to our mobile devices, except this time there is no security software to keep us safe.

These are some of the more common mobile security threats that we now face:

Malware
Infected apps are probably the number one source of malware on smartphones and tablets. This is particularly true of devices running the open Android platform. In the rush to compete with Apple’s App Store, thousands of early apps were uploaded to the Android Market with very little scrutiny. Consequently, many of them are infected with viruses or contain permissions that can open up our phones to malware and data theft.

Phishing e-mails and texts
Most smartphone e-mail and texting platforms do not have the spam filters that are now standard in PC-based programs, and the spammers and phishers have been quick to take advantage. Bogus and unsafe links often look less threatening and receive far less scrutiny when they are viewed on a smartphone screen rather than on a PC.

Spyware
GPS tracking software and other mobile surveillance programs have now reached a very high level of sophistication. The same “spyware” that allows parents to monitor their kids whereabouts, e-mails and texting habits can be used to stalk or spy on adult users. Many programs can be installed without the owner of the mobile device knowing and can run undetected indefinitely.

While there are common sense moves that we can make to protect ourselves – don’t leave an unlocked phone lying around; don’t click on suspicious links – there is also help at hand via smartphone security tools. Security software can combine anti-theft defenses with virus and spam protection to provide a much-needed level of comfort as we become more invested in the mobile world.

As well as providing real-time virus scanning and advanced firewall protection, mobile security software can block unwanted calls and texts, provide privacy features, and even disable or “clean” a phone of sensitive data if it is lost or stolen.

We’ve spent so much time and effort securing our desktops and laptops, it would be a shame to undo all that hard work by leaving our smartphones unprotected.

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How debit card consumers choose and use their personal passwords and PIN numbers may well affect their risk of being victimized by financial fraud.

It’s an appropriate topic given that June is ATM & Debit Card Safety Awareness Month, an issue your grandparents didn’t see coming 30 years ago, but some law enforcement authorities sure did.

Consumers who give debit card fraud short shrift do so at their own risk. According to Javelin Research, debit card fraud accounted for 36% of all payment card fraud in 2010, up from 27% in 2009. Debit card fraud is more vexing for consumers than credit card fraud, as debit card fraud is rarely insured, and the losses come straight out the consumer’s bank account and can’t easily be tracked.

“Debit cards aren’t monitored as thoroughly as credit cards,” says Javelin in its 2011 Identity Fraud Survey Report. “Visa and MasterCard networks have more thorough histories on individuals and can spot suspicious transactions faster. The debit card network, however, relies on the consumer’s transaction history with a specific financial institution, not the entire Visa and MasterCard system, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit consumer education organization in California.”

Javelin says the average debit card fraud amount was $2,529 in 2010.

One key contributor to debit card theft may be self-inflicted. A new study from PULSE, a Houston-based debit/ATM network, says that consumer personal identification numbers (PINs) — at least, how they’re used — may well set the stage for debit card fraud.

“It’s no secret that weak PINs such as a birthday or repeating or sequential numbers contribute to card fraud,” Eric Lillard, the director of fraud operations at PULSE, said in a statement.

Lillard points to a recent report from Cambridge University Computer Laboratory in West Cambridge, U.K., showing that one of every 11 debit cards has “easily discovered PINs.” (Post continues below.)

What’s a debit card consumer to do?

PULSE says consumers and financial institutions should discourage the use of birthdays as PINs — they’re too easy for thieves to crack. In fact, any “easily guessed pin” such as a wedding anniversary or numbers from your zip code should be dropped like a hot potato.

Here are some other tips from PULSE:

Monitor your financial account statements: Track your bank accounts online daily so that any suspicious activity is spotted quickly. Switch from postal delivery of statements to online access or ensure that mailed statements are sent to locked boxes and not left available to fraudsters.

Protect your wallet, purse and PIN: Don’t carry items with private information such as your Social Security number in your pocketbook or wallet. Also, PULSE says not to share your PIN with anyone. That means don’t write it down and don’t give it to a clerk or anyone else to enter for you.

Be extra alert at ATMs: Don’t use an ATM if it is in an unlit or hidden area. Block the keypad while entering your PIN so you can’t be observed. If an ATM looks phony or has a suspicious card reader that is loose or not part of the main body of the machine, do not use it.

Protect your online shopping: Update computer anti-virus software, anti-spyware and firewalls. New attacks come frequently, and your software provider will frequently send updates to stop them. Use only secure sites and network connections when shopping online.

Protect personal information online: Limit social media access to friends only and don’t “friend” people you don’t know. Fraudsters use personal information such as birth dates, family and pet names, high schools and birth cities to “verify” your identity.

Debit card fraud is serious business, with the potential to separate you from thousands of dollars drained right out of your checking account. Don’t give bank fraud thieves a bigger edge by going lax on your debit card security.

If you do, expect to pay a stiff price.

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The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have released “From Fingerprints to DNA: Biometric Data Collection in U.S. Immigrant Communities and Beyond.” The paper outlines the current state of U.S. government collection of biometric information and the problems that could arise from these growing databases of records. It also points out how immigrant communities are immediately affected by the way this data is collected, stored and shared.

There is a growing push to link biometric collection with immigration enforcement. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) takes approximately 300,000 fingerprints per day from non-U.S. citizens crossing the border into the United States, and it collects biometrics from noncitizens applying for immigration benefits and from immigrants who have been detained. In addition, state and local law enforcement officers regularly collect fingerprints and DNA, as well as face prints and even iris scans. All of these government databases are growing and are being increasingly interconnected. For example, the Secure Communities program takes the fingerprints of people booked into local jails, matches them to prints contained in large federal immigration databases, and then uses this information to deport people.

“Some people believe biometrics and databases are the silver-bullets that will solve the immigrant enforcement dilemma. But biometrics are not infallible, and databases contain errors. These problems can result in huge negative consequences for U.S. citizens and legal immigrants mistakenly identified,” said Michele Waslin, Senior Policy Analyst at the IPC.

“Biometric data collection can lead to racial profiling and can disproportionately affect immigrants,” said EFF Staff Attorney Jennifer Lynch. “It also gives the government a new way to find and track people throughout the United States. The government needs to act now to limit unnecessary biometric collection and address the serious privacy issues regarding the amount and type of data collected, as well as what triggers that data collection, with whom the data is shared, and the security of that data.”

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How out-of-hand has the “war on terror” become? So much so that now, the Department of Homeland Security has taken to monitoring social media Web sites trolling for would-be terrorists, as if the world’s most dangerous killers were Tweeting their plans.

Only, DHS isn’t just trolling for terrorists by monitoring Twitter and Facebook. No, the department – which at least one presidential contender, Rep. Ron Paul, believes is out of control – is wasting valuable and limited assets evaluating media reports, organizations and news sites like The Drudge Report for anti-government attitudes and social unrest.

But wait, you ask. What does monitoring American-based Web sites and social media applications have to do with the war on terror? Probably nothing, but you may remember that the Department of Homeland Security was born out of legislation passed immediately after the 9/11 attacks to protect “the American people from terrorist threats.”

First Amendment, anyone?

You’re not the only one who isn’t buying the spying. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, a watchdog organization looking to protect civil liberties, privacy, the First Amendment and constitutional values in an increasingly interconnected world, has convinced a House subcommittee that the DHS activity is suspicious enough to warrant closer examination. The hearings come on the heels of the group’s acquisition of some 300 pages of DHS documents resulting from a Freedom of Information Act request which lay bare the agency’s “intelligence gathering” activities online.

“The Department of Homeland Security’s monitoring of political dissent has no legal basis and is contrary to core First Amendment principles,” says EPIC’s director, Ginger McCall, who says a government agency that monitors what ordinary Americans are saying about federal policies goes too far, and has direct implications on freedom of speech.

“The language in the documents makes it quite clear that they are looking for media reports that are critical of the agency and the U.S. government more broadly,” she said. “This is entirely outside of the bounds of the agency’s statutory duties.”

EPIC says documents it has obtained show that DHS has used contractors to monitor Twitter, Facebook, Hulu, Wikileaks, Drudge and other news sites including the Huffington Post. The documents reveal that the contractors were required to provide DHS with reaction regarding potential “threats and hazards,” as well as any media reports that reflect adversely on the U.S. Government and the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.) ability to prevent, protect and respond, to recovery efforts or activities related to any crisis or events which impact National Planning Scenarios.”

The program should also highlight “both positive and negative reports on FEMA, C.I.A., C.B.P., ICE, etc., as well as organizations outside of D.H.S.,” the documents said.

Looking over your shoulder

Now, DHS officials admit that, yes, the agency was monitoring the Web for any negative opinion of the government. But they said the operation was only undertaken as a one-and-done test, then quickly dropped, because it didn’t meet “operational requirements or privacy standards” which “expressly prohibit reporting on individuals’ First Amendment activities.”

EPIC says that, based on what it has discovered that explanation doesn’t ring true. Rather, the organization says DHS believes the monitoring program is one that should be repeated.

“They are completely out of bounds here. The idea that the government is constantly peering over your shoulder and listening to what you are saying creates a very chilling effect to legitimate dissent,” says McCall.

The public will soon know.

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As a parade of slovenly dressed 20-somethings passed through the entrance of a downtown Manhattan apartment building on a weekday afternoon, these seemingly savvy New Yorkers did not seem to notice they were the subjects of a photo shoot.

That is because this shoot was covertly orchestrated by their landlord, who had hired a private investigator to root out illegal tenants.

Masked by lunchtime crowds and afternoon rain, the private eye, Joseph Mullen, who has run a sleuthing firm for more than 40 years, parked his car in front of the building, flipped through papers showing that several residents of the seven-story building were “dead or living somewhere else,” and waited.

Shane Williams, a vice president of the firm, J.T. Mullen Inc., slouched strategically in his seat and photographed people as they entered and left. The affable pair looked like observers at an antifashion show as food deliverymen paraded through, an older portly renter stepped out to buy cheese biscuits and renters dressed in gym clothing shuffled outside to smoke.

“We don’t know half the people who live in this building,” Mr. Mullen said. He released a gravelly chuckle, rustled through papers and glanced through the tinted window. “The landlords say, ‘I got to get these illegal tenants out and make some money.’ ”

In a high-rent borough like Manhattan with plenty of rent-regulated apartments ripe for exploitation, real estate investigation has long been a big business. Private detectives say it has picked up in the past year as some New Yorkers have tried to find extra money by moving out of their apartments and subletting to other renters for more than they are paying, which is not allowed.

And, of course, there are landlords pressed for cash, trying to root out people who are using rent-controlled or rent-stabilized apartments illegally. This would allow the landlords to find new tenants and raise the rent by 20 percent or more under state housing law. During the speculation boom of the last decade, some large landlords were accused of using private investigators to harass legal tenants out of their apartments in order to raise rents to cover large mortgages and increase their profits.

Landlords who root out illegal sublets and absentee renters — a rent-regulated tenant must occupy the unit for at least 183 days a year — crow about how profitable these investigations can be.

Craig Charie, a lawyer and landlord who has hired private investigators for such cases since 1994, described a tenant at one Chelsea building who held onto her $433-a-month apartment while living primarily in New Jersey. An investigator tracked her commuting patterns, and Mr. Charie kicked her out, combined the apartment with another to make a duplex and raised the rent.

“It’s exceptionally useful,” Mr. Charie said. “We pieced together a lifestyle and recaptured the unit.”

As Mr. Mullen and Mr. Williams watched for residents and rain pattered on the car, they explained how these real estate cases, which make up a small fraction of their business, reach them. New Yorkers settle into rent-regulated apartments in their 20s. But as their incomes and families grow and they move out, they try to hold onto these apartments by renting them out to family and friends. When landlords bought buildings in recent years, often the only information they were given about their tenants was scribbled on rumpled papers and included names of residents who had not lived there in 30 years. Mr. Williams estimates that landlords do not know 20 percent of their tenants.

That is when they hire Mr. Mullen’s firm. He investigated a Baxter Street building where all of the residents had the same Social Security number. Mr. Williams chimed in about a building where the illegal tenant listed his apartment under the name O. B. Juan KNobi.

They allowed this reporter on a recent stakeout on the condition that the address not be published, because it was still under surveillance. They were hired to investigate 10 of the 25 apartments in the building; they usually earn $300 to $500 per apartment, or more if it involves extensive research. The most widely available public records may not always help. They said some tenants who lived elsewhere most of the year would vote in the city (itself a crime) to leave a paper trail or would receive their mail at their rent-controlled apartment and bribe the superintendent to forward it once a week.

This building had several advantages for the two men, including proximity to good coffeehouses, to keep them alert, and a superintendent who puts out the trash early enough to give them time to dig for Consolidated Edison or phone bills or other clues to who actually lives in an apartment. E-ZPass records and auto insurance bills are also useful. At some buildings, the superintendent can be talked into wedging a match into a locked apartment door to see how many days or weeks it takes to fall out.

When a smoker emerged from the building, they cheered; smokers linger and make it easy to photograph. Eventually, they will give all their photos to the landlord, who can show them to the superintendent to identify who is living where and whether a 25-year-old is living alone in a 95-year-old’s apartment.

If so, the eviction process can begin. It’s a messy business that has left Mr. Mullen with little envy for his clients.

“I wouldn’t want to be a landlord,” he said.

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Assembly Democrats Paul Moriarty, Herb Conaway, M.D., and Dan Benson sponsored A-1238 to combat identity theft by requiring the hard drives of all digital copy machines to be wiped clean to protect sensitive, personal information. The bill was approved 51-28 on May 31by the Assembly.

The information stored on each digital copy machine, in some cases in perpetuity, is unbeknownst to millions of consumers. In a Democratic press release the following was stated:

“Most digital copy machines use internal hard drives, which store every document that has been scanned, printed, faxed or emailed by the machines, many times numbering in the tens of thousands by the time a copier is resold or returned at the end of a lease agreement,” said Moriarty (D-Gloucester/Camden), who chairs the committee. “According to news reports, most businesses do not erase the hard drive on a copier before getting rid of it, putting the highly sensitive information of millions of consumers at serious risk of theft.”

“Besides the serious threat of identity theft, consumers are also vulnerable to repercussions posed by sensitive medical records or police documents,” said Conaway (D-Burlington) “There’s a simple way to eliminate these risks and we need to make sure it’s instituted.”

According to a 2008 survey commissioned by electronics manufacturer Sharp, 60 percent of consumers are not aware that copiers store images on a hard drive.

The bill requires that a person destroy, or arrange for the destruction of, all records stored on a digital copy machine, which is no longer to be retained by that person, by erasing or otherwise modifying those records to make the records unreadable, undecipherable or nonreconstructable through generally available means.

“It probably wouldn’t even occur to most people that documents they scan or print on a copier are stored on that machine, sometimes for the entire life-time of the machine,” said Benson (D-Mercer/Middlesex). “Given how often electronics are leased or resold these days, it’s important that measures safeguarding against identity theft are put into place.”

The bill provides that a lessor of a digital copy machine, and the lessee to whom the digital copy machine is leased, are responsible for the destruction, or arranging for the destruction, of all records stored on that machine.

Additionally, the fee a lessor may charge a lessee for the destruction, or arranging for the destruction, of the records cannot exceed one week’s value of the lease, up to $100, and may only be charged if the lessee has not destroyed, or arranged for the destruction of the records.

A person that willfully or knowingly violates the provisions of the bill is liable to a penalty of up to $2,500 for the first offense and up to $5,000 for the second and each subsequent offense.

The provisions of this bill shall be enforced by the Attorney General.

A person damaged in business or property as a result of a violation of this bill may sue the actor in the Superior Court and may recover compensatory and punitive damages and the cost of the suit including a reasonable attorney’s fee, costs of investigation and litigation.

The bill requires manufacturers of digital copy machines to include instructions with each copier explaining how to destroy or arrange for the destruction of the records stored on that machine.

The measure shall take effect on the 60th day following enactment, and applies to lease agreements of digital copy machines which are in effect or entered into on or after the effective date, and sales which are concluded on or after the effective date.

The bill will now be referred to the Senate for consideration.

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