NYC P.I. dispenses investigative advice, information, legal marketing tips, opinions, interesting stuff... Look for the Bulletin each Monday.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Locate Email Addresses In 8 Seconds
by Lina Maini
Take my word on this. BNI is not the world's first not-for-profit private investigation company. We truly enjoy investigative work. Although several base components of a case (type, agency protocol, basic investigation outline...) are usually the same, each matter is always different. Those differences enable our curiosity to remain engaged. That said, we often receive requests for email searches. We don't take candy from babies either.
Below is a really cool tip, developed by our IT genius, Jonathan Caspian, for conducting email searches from your desktop or Blackberry that should gain you the results you need in less than 10 seconds. (Of course, if it's a real toughie, feel absolutely welcome to call our very much for-profit office.)
Tip:
In the address bar (the field at the top of your screen, identifying the curent site you are on: (e.g. https://www.google.com), input: @companyname email surname. Eaxample: (@bniinvestigations.com email maini).
Click on the pic below for an enlarged example:
Give it a shot. It may be also interesting to see where else people pop up. (This type of search can pull up social networking info. On a tangential note, was it really necessary for the print and online media to continually post the adult costumed pics of the practioner who recently met with an unfortunate and violent demise while in physical defense of his gf, Jade Vixen? Now that is truly an egregious posthumous invasion of privacy, which we understand does not legally exist... but still...)
I'm not going down that road today. Have a great upcoming work week!
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.
(Excuse the above shout out to Berlitz but we thought the 40-second clip was worth it!). Below are our real - and free - recommendations:
Free translation site: www.freetranslation.com. No downloading; no waiting. Conversely: written text only. (A premium "human translation" service is offered as well - but for a quick memo or if you're in a rush to get a handle on an uncomplicated foreign-language doc - this site is worth the fingertaps.
Free telephone, address and reverse searches: www.argali.com. You'll need to download the program but that's a good thing. It means it updates every time you sign on to it. And no complicated sign-ins or passwords... You simply d/l the program, a yellow ram (mountain goat?) icon lands on your desktop and you just click that when you are in search mode.
Free homeowners search: www.propertysharks.com These guys have a fairly extensive and updated archive. Lots of info aside from homeowner identification (date of sale, amount, pictures, land use...)
Free sound-editing: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Removes background noise from an audio recording quickly and easily - it's that simple. And it's cross-platform - Mac/Windows supported.
Free BNI tip:
Old Style: To obtain a forwarding address for a reluctant subject, simply write "Return Address Requested" on the lower left front of your envelope to the last known address for this person. The USPO will not forward your correspondence but rather return you new address information if available.
New: To determine the identity of a domain owner, go to www.WhoIs.com. Scroll down to WhoIs LookUp and enter the domain name. If it is not privately registered, the owner's name, address and ownership/availability dates will pop.
Also, you might recall from last week's Bulletin - www.scanr.com. scanr turns your camera phone into a scanner, copier or fax.
