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22 Oct
2018

Private Investigators: Most Common Requests

by Michele Harris | with 0 Comment | in Private Investigators

Private Investigators Most Popular Information RequestsPeople often ask what the most popular requests for service or information we get are.

In the past 6 months or so, the most popular request we’ve received is for information on cell phone bills or landline bills. As we’ve covered before, phone records are only obtainable with a subpoena.

The next most popular request comes from people who want us to follow their spouse or significant other. We can do this, however, we will not give you specific details unless you retain counsel or are listed as pro se in an active court case. We can offer you non-specific information, for example, “He/she is at a chain food establishment in Berlin, NJ with a white male,” but nothing more. Read More

08 Oct
2018

Private Investigators: Education vs. Experience

by Michele Harris | with 0 Comment | in Private Investigators

Private Investigator Requirements

It seems lately there have been a lot of schools popping up claiming you can be a private investigator after 8 short weeks (or four months or whatever, the educational program lengths vary). This is misleading. In fact, while there are no educational requirements for private investigators in many states, including PA, NJ, DE, MD and WV, there are experience requirements. Specifically, you must have a minimum of 5 years’ experience as an investigator to become a licensed private investigator in these states. Relevant experience can include:

  • SIU Insurance Investigator
  • Police Officer with a local or state police department in an investigative capacity (a detective, for example)
  • With an investigative agency for a county, city, state or federal organization (including military)
  • Working 5 years full time a private investigations firm

There are NO exceptions to this requirement. Do not be misled…education alone will not get you licensed as a private investigator in the states mentioned above (the states Harris Investigations holds licenses in, as it were). In New York, it’s 3  years of experience that you’ll need.

Education for Private Investigators

Of course, we’re not discouraging relevant education prior to entering the field of private investigations. It makes sense for many individuals interested in a career as a PI to complete a degree program in criminal justice or a related field. This provides a comprehensive understanding of (and appreciation for) our justice system. A degree (or, in some cases, a certificate) could even facilitate the process of acquiring the necessary experience required for licensure. However, we want to be clear that education alone is simply not enough.

Other Requirements and Observations

There are only seven states that do not require their private investigators to have a license: Alabama, Alaska, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi and South Dakota. Some states – including California, Florida and New York – require a specific license to serve papers! Some other states require you to have an actual office location as well.

When in doubt, check the actual rules for this stuff and hire someone that operates on the right side of the law – not on the “gray” or wrong side. Make sure you choose someone who is licensed according to the laws of the state you live in.

21 Sep
2018

A (Private Investigations) Star Is Born

by Bonny Clayton | with 0 Comment | in Private Investigators
A (Private Investigations) Star Is Born

Most everyone likes a good origin story, right? So we’ve decided to share ours here on the blog.

Michele started out in investigations as an office manager for a private investigator in Montgomery County, PA. She applied for the position while attending business school and arranged to graduate two weeks early so she could assume her role at the PI agency. Starting out handling all the office work and inside investigations, she soon moved up to working out in the field. She became so competent at training, hiring and firing people as well as handling the day-to-day operations of a PI firm that the owner put a great amount of trust in her. Maybe too much trust – a couple of years into Michele’s tenure, he pretty much left her alone to run the firm.

Enter Charles Harris, who she met while she was active in investigations. They began dating and shortly thereafter, Charlie came on board to help Michele part-time. Fast forward to their honeymoon, and Michele returned to discover a lack of work at the agency, so she began working part-time for other Montgomery County investigators. After being bounced around and witnessing some questionable things occur at the agency, Michele and Charlie struck out on their own in December 2005. Thus, Harris Investigations, LLC was born!

Initially, they obtained only their PA Private Investigator licenses. At the urging of their clients, however, they went on to secure their Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland licenses. Additional office openings followed, resulting in three Pennsylvania locations – Lansdale (their headquarters), Harrisburg and Pittsburgh – as well as satellite locations in Wilmington, DE and Lawrenceville, NJ.

The firm has enjoyed a long history of recognition in the private investigations industry, which includes landing in the top 3 of Legal Intelligencer’s Best Investigative Agency category every year since 2010.

06 Sep
2018

Top 5 Requests Private Investigators Can’t Legally Fulfill

by Michele Harris | with 3 Comments | in Private Investigators
Top 5 Requests Private Investigators Can’t Legally Fulfill

Top 5 Requests Private Investigators Can't Legally Fulfill

We get requests from people all the time that they just don’t realize we can’t honor. Well…we can’t do them legally, anyway. And since we are a reputable private investigation firm (licensed, bonded and insured), we only perform services when we can do so legally. Potential clients see these things happening in movies and on TV and they think it’s real. So we want to set the record straight about some things Private Investigators CANNOT do for you:

Pull phone records. This request is common in divorce cases. This cannot be done without a subpoena, and a subpoena can only be obtained with the help of an attorney. However, if you’re on the same phone plan you’re perfectly within your rights to request your own records.

Provide driving records. In Pennsylvania, driving records are not available to anyone unless the driver has completed a DL-503 (Request for Driver Information) form. PennDOT will honor a subpoena as well, but that can take months to be returned. Even if you get an attorney involved (in PA), they’ll still need the signed form or a letter from the driver’s attorney granting permission to request the driver’s history. Many other states have similar rules; drivers’ histories are usually NOT available to the general public.

Put a GPS on your spouse’s/significant other’s car. You can only put a tracker on a car that you own or co-own. In other words, since we don’t own your wife’s car, we can’t legally place a GPS on it.

Run a license plate. Regardless of what state you’re in, we will only do this if you’re an attorney, insurance company representative or someone with a court order.

Find your mother (or father, sister, cousin, etc). Technically, we *can* find them. But we can’t give you their address without their express consent. In fact, unless you are an attorney or insurance company representative, the information you can be given is very limited. On the other hand, if you ARE an attorney we can find just about anyone with their basic information, often in 24 hours or less.

With all that being said, some of the things we CAN do for you include surveillance, service of process, background checks and more. Call us at (888) 484-9827 or email us today to discuss your case.

01 Aug
2018

Monthly Summer PI News 2018 – August

by Michele Harris | with 0 Comment | in Newsletter News
Monthly Summer PI News 2018 – August
harris investigations llc

AUGUST Summer News 2018

AUGUST EXPANSIONS

Each year our business has been expanding to provide the most professional services to our clients. We now offer MOBILE notary services in Pittsburgh and Lansdale, Pennsylvania, as well as Lawrenceville, New Jersey and Wilmington, Delaware. Our professionals are capable of doing all your notary needs - except vehicle title transfer work. Mobile notary service is unique and provides our client with convenience of coming to them for notary services or meeting clients in their home or office to assist our client's scheduling needs.

We not only expended our notary services across the tri-state area but we have also partnered with another surveillance team leader of whom has worked with several surveillance companies across the area that will lead our team of dedicated investigators across Southeastern Pennsylvania, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh of which are solely for surveillance cases. We also have coverage in all of New Jersey and Delaware. We have geared up and are expending additional services and areas as the needs of our clients express such. We expand as our clients need our services more extensively. Can you say that about your current vendor?

We are excited to share,  Harris Investigations, LLC came in 2nd for Investigators by the readers of the Legal Intelligencer, a/k/a ALM. Since 2006, we have been 1st, 2nd or 3rd. Can your vendor say that? Harris Investigations, LLC sure can!  We have made the list from year one. We are so proud of our staff.

15 Jul
2018

Monthly Summer PI News 2018 – July

by Michele Harris | with 0 Comment | in Newsletter News
Monthly Summer PI News 2018 – July
harris investigations llc

JULY Summer News 2018

2018 EXPANSIONS

As of July 2018, we now have office locations in five states, specifically PA, NJ, DE, MD and WV. Our Corporate office is located in southeastern PA, in Lansdale, just outside of Philadelphia. We have added additional locations in Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Meadville, PA, therefore we cover the entire state with boots on the ground. In NJ, we moved to Princeton and teamed up with a property management and repo company via PJ Vinch (formerly of Bear Swamp Recovery). In DE, we are now located in downtown Wilmington, to better assist with the registered agent services. In MD, we are still part of another agency where Michele is the license holder but we are looking for an office closer to Wilmington, DE. In WV, we are partnered with Forensic Security & Investigations, Inc., of which is run by Tom Gorgone, of whom you may recognize as our previous office lead in our Pittsburgh Office. We have geared up and are expending additional services and areas as the needs of our clients express such.

Further news, Harris Investigations, LLC came in 2nd for Investigators by the readers of the Legal Intelligencer, a/k/a ALM. Since 2006, we have been 1st, 2nd or 3rd.. can your vendor say that? Harris Investigations, LLC sure can!  We have made the list from year one. We are so proud of our staff.

01 Jul
2018

Private Process Servers and YOU!

by Michele Harris | with 0 Comment | in Process Servers

Private Process Servers and YOU!

Statistics from ServeNow.com

  • In a nationwide survey of Process Servers vs. Sheriff, the statistics are:
    • Preferred provider—78% use process servers
    • Speed of Service—90% chose process servers
    • Customer Satisfaction—4.28/5 for process servers vs. 2.55/5 for Sheriff’s Department
    • Knowledge of Laws—58% vs. 13%
    • Success Rate—92% vs. 74%
    • Average costs--$75 vs. $85
THE CLEAR CHOICE of the legal profession is the professional process server!!

Sheriff’s Responsibilities

  • Not in order of importance, the Sheriff has many other priorities and responsibilities such as:
    • Operating the county jail
    • Transporting prisoners to and from court appearances
    • Protecting our county judges
    • Guarding the county courthouse
    • Serving arrest warrants as directed by the court
    • In most counties, the Sheriff is the Chief Law Enforcement Officer and his deputies patrol the unincorporated areas of the county, enforcing laws, responding to accidents and medical emergencies, responding to crimes and investigating them.
  • Sheriff’s Duties:
    • Serving and enforcing Protection From Abuse orders
    • Serving other court orders on witnesses and defendants
    • Then, if time permits, they will attempt to serve your original complaints.
    • Should they fail on the first attempt, typically they will return the complaints to the Court with a Return of No Service. They simply don’t have the time or resources to make repeated efforts to get your civil papers served on the subject(s)

By Statute:

  • Once your civil documents have been issued by the Court, you have 30 days to get them served if service is within the Commonwealth
  • What happens if the Sheriff is so busy with his law enforcement responsibilities that he can’t get to the civil papers within that time frame?
    • You have to start all over again!!
    • OR you can turn to the professional process server to get the job done on time!

When You Can Use a Process Server

  • Failure of the Sheriff to serve your papers is another and here is why.
    • The Sheriff typically will make one attempt to serve your papers before returning them as non-served. Now it’s up to you to get those papers in the hands of the “defendant”.
    • Most of the time sheriff's attempts are weekdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
    • The process server typically makes up to three (3) attempts before suggesting further actions of the law office and can usually help in executing those actions!
  • When you have to have things done quickly or have a service deadline
  • When everything else you have tried has failed
  • Difficult serves and subject are easier to serve when you send a plain clothes person, not a sheriff or constable
  • At Harris Investigations we try to obtain a signed trip sheet or affidavit by the person accepting service, thus they can’t say they were never served.

Enter the Private Process Server

  • A Private Process Server will get your documents served much more quickly and efficiently.
    • Private process servers work days, nights and weekends to get the job done.
    • We do the legwork that is needed to locate people who’ve moved or are avoiding being served.

What we do at Harris Investigations, LLC:

  • Once it is determined that a subject is avoiding service or has moved, the professional process server will:
    • Under color of law, contact the US Postal Service to determine if the subject has left a change of address order with them
    • Will conduct a due diligence search for the subject in order to locate them
    • Arrange for service of process if the subject has moved out of the local area

Process Servers are NOT all the Same:

  • There are just process servers and there are private investigators that do service of process
  • Private investigators that are process servers have a better network to locate and serve hard to serve subjects
  • Private investigators will be more willing to stake out to get that hard to serve person served
  • Private Investigators are licensed, bonded and insured

Nationwide Service:

  • Professional process servers are typically members of one of several national associations that allow us to serve your papers anywhere in the country through our affiliations with these associations
  • We take the legwork out of the equation for you so you can concentrate on “billable hours” and make your attorney a happy camper

Additional Services:

  • In addition to professional process services, most companies offer professional private investigative services to their clientele. These services also help make the successful service.
  • These services include:
    • Civil Investigations
    • Scene and Vehicle Photographs
    • Skip tracing
    • Court filings and Court research
    • Asset searches
    • And much more…

Questions? If you have questions about our services? Put Harris Investigations to work for you TODAY! Work will be delegated to the best possible professional based on location and assignment type. Call our office and speak with Michele. CALL NOW: (888) 484-9827  EMAIL: harrisinvestigationsllc@yahoo.com

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Private Process Servers and YOU!

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