When The Cops Get It Wrong; Investigating Your Client's Case

The above video is somewhat tangential to this week's Bulletin topic but it does describe a trend that will certainly be used and useful in future vehicular accidents - the car black box. For our below article, however, we stick to old fashioned ground pounding to uncover the true facts of a real accident puzzler.

Generally, most private investigators enjoy and prefer to maintain, good relationships with law enforcement; especially considering that the majority of us come from an l.e. background. Regardless of current or past affiliations, however, a good investigator is a fact-finder first.

We recently ran into a quirky situation involving the police with a hit and run of a pedestrian in mid Manhattan. The actions of law enforcement from the date and time of the accident to this day are puzzling.

A male pedestrian was struck, while crossing the roadway, traveling with the light and within the crosswalk, by first a bus and then a Jeep. A large crowd gathered. The pedestrian suffered severely crushed legs - injuries consistent with being struck by two vehicles back to back. The bus took off (hence the hit and run designation) but the Jeep and its driver remained on scene - for a while. The Jeep driver was questioned by police and told to leave the scene as there was no eyewitness to the Jeep having struck the pedestrian. And no note of the plate number was made by police on the scene.

The first place to start is the precinct of jurisdiction. Pick up the Police Accident Report (the PAR). A PAR is sequentially numbered so its number should fall into place around the date of accident. The PAR should contain def. vehicle, driver and witness information. This PAR contained none of those and the matter was simply designated a "Hit and Run".

Our investigators felt there had to be more to the story than a simple leaving the scene. This is a residential area of Manhattan, with all of those people moving about their daily lives, someone had to have seen something.

We decided to make a flyer of the victim's case (the victim and attorney's permission of course). We Photoshopped the victim's photo into a flyer we distributed liberally throughout the neighborhood. Literally, within 18 hours, we had a video of the victim being struck by a bus and email giving us the Jeep's plate number. The victim's attorneys are now processing the claim with this information.

I guess it all comes down to something I have said to each BNI investigator, regardless of experience - know the rules but always trust your gut instinct. It will lead you to where you need to go. The function of a good investigator is to find the facts that will help with victim, even if the odds are stacked against recovering this information.

BNI Investigators: Street Smart: Web Savvy.

Be safe,

Lina

Is Your Client Meeting Secretly Being Taped?

Particularly disturbing to a law firm these days is the potential that client meetings, conferences... can be secretly monitored via the attorney's own cell phone. Remotely accessing the phone's "firmware" (hard drive), a would-be audio (and with smart phones, video) thief simply needs to scan for your phone's frequency signature and bounce back an electronic tracer signal. In less than a nanosecond, the attorney/client confidentiality is breached.


The tech and investigation experts in the above video show and tell you how to detect a tapped cellphone... give it a view. (And remember, your cell can be remote tapped - no need to have physical possession of the phone.)

Spoiler: the three main clues that your cellphone is tapped are:

1. It feels unusually warm.
2. The battery drains more quickly.
3. You get static feedback from speakers on other electronic equipment within range of your cell.

Be safe,

Lina

Ripped Off Online? 10 Steps That'll Get You Results

Let me preface this week's Bulletin by saying that most online businesses are honest and strive hard to provide the goods and or services that the electronic buying public requests and pays for. This self-regulation occurs for two reasons: a) most people/businesses are honest to begin with and b)word of mouth online occurs at lightning speed. Unfortunately, there is always someone out there with a scam and sooner or later, most people purchasing online will run into one of these shady businesses.

Our experience in investigating online fraud has led us to prepare the below checklist of 10 step to take if you are a victim of an online scam:


1. Gather as much information (name, address, phone numbers, domain names..) about the dishonest party as you can.

2. Put your complaint in writing. Be accurate and concise. Also, think of possible excuses the offending business may try to counter with and be prepared to argue these truth revisionisms.

3. Put the dishonest party on notice that you intend to take action against them if they do not resolve the problem fairly and to your satisfaction. It may take several rounds of talks before they come around to understanding that it might be better to simply solve the issue with you and avoid more intense scrutiny. If that fails, we go to the next very nasty steps.

4. File an online compliant with the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3): www.ic3.gov. and click on the "File a Complaint" link to fill out an online form. IC3 was formed, in partnership with the FBI, specifically to combat internet fraud.

5. File a complaint with the Internet Fraud Watch on their website www.fraud.org. The Internet Fraud Watch was created by the National Consumers League, the oldest nonprofit consumer organization in the United States.

6. File you next complaint with the Better Business Bureau OnLine website: www.bbbonline.org . BBBOnLine specifically deals with web commerce complaints. The BBB contacts the business involved in the dispute to determine if the dispute can be amicably resolved. A huge file of complaints with the BBB will cut into the business' profits.

7. Google the Attorney General's Office of the state in which the dishonest party operates. File a complaint. Criminal charges may be brought against the business if fraud is involved.

8. On the Allwhois website: www.allwhois.com and look up the dishonest party's domain name and web host. Inform the web host of your issue with the dishonest business and advise them that if they continue to provide hosting services to this party, they themselves can be named as an accomplice to criminal activity.

9. If the shady company has their own servers and do not use a web hosting service, contact the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) website: www.icann.org. ICANN is the organization that has responsibility for Internet address space allocation. Inquire as to how to remove the dishonest business from the web.

10. If the dishonest party is still operating, contact their advertisers. Advertisers are not given to spending their marketing budget to receive complaints from disgruntled, ripped-off customers. If the advertiser takes an aggressive posture against your complaint, advise them also that if they continue to do business with the scamming party, they too can be charged as accomplices in a criminal action.

(This week's sixty-second text video lists additional potentially helpful government fraud watch agencies.)

The above steps are tough measures, but they should get your internet fraud situation resolved and hopefully, it'll be a one-time occurrence.

BNI Investigators: Street smart: Web savvy.

Be safe,

Lina