Skip Tracing- Locating a Missing Person

As a private investigator your will inevitably be asked to perform a locate or people search . A failed locate will require a skip trace investigation.

What is a locate?
A simple locate is when a person is trying to find another person. Your client may be a lawyer trying to locate a witness. It could be a woman trying to locate a college room mate. A parent trying to locate an estranged adult son or daughter.

There are a few basic steps to performing a simple locate or people search.
First gather all of the information on the subject of the locate.
Full name, date of birth, social security number,previous address.
With this information you should be able to run a simple database search of credit headers and find a current address and phone number. This is true for about 90% of all simple locates.If it fails you will need to perform a skip trace.

What is a Skip Trace?
A skip trace is when you are trying to locate a person that does not want to be located. A dead beat parent, a bail jumper, a recluse. These type of people are not very interested in updating their credit header information. In fact they may be actively trying to distort their credit header information.

This investigation will require much more time and effort than a simple locate but if you prepare it can become routine and simple.
First you will need to perform a thorough database search that includes previous addresses, names of relatives and neighbors. You take that raw data and start calling. You should start with a well rehearsed pretext script when contacting former neighbors, employers and relatives.

You can also contact the post office to see if the skip has left any forwarding addresses. You should have preprinted post cards that have the text "do not forward,address correction requested". You mail these to the subject at all his previous addresses to see what the PO can provide.
You should also have one of your trap line phone numbers on the card so that if by chance the postcard gets into the hand of the skip and he calls the trap line you can locate him that way.

Many times an investigator will be working on a complicated case and in the course of that investigation several locates and skip traces become necessary. Instead of becoming distracted he will outsource that part of the investigation to another investigator that is all set up to routinely perform those services. These investigators are often called information brokers because they routinely provide this service to other investigators.

When you are just starting out as an investigator it is crucial for you to establish a good working relationship with information brokers.

Ed Opperman is President of Opperman Investigations Inc. He is an experienced skiptracer and his webiste http://www.emailrevealer.com/ offers skip tracing services as well as simple locates.