Who uses Private Investigators?

Out of the businesses I currently own and the previous businesses I have owned, my Private Investigations business has been the most unique from a marketing stand point. Why? Because most people go their whole lives without ever using a PI and do not really having an understanding of why they would need one or what we could do to help (thank you holly wood)! To demonstrate my point I will now take a quick detour;
Every once in a while I like to turn on the corniest PI movie I can find to see what ridiculous expectations the entertainment industry is equipping the general public with. The last movie was called "so undercover" and it started out with a female PI scaling a roof to catch a political figure having an affair. She lands in the room, blows her cover and proceeds to get chased around by the cheater with a golf club before taking the golf club from him and beating him with it to get away (enter face palm emoji). While my team will certainly  NOT be scaling roofs, there is a glimmer of truth here which brings me to my first point:
Private Individuals:
Private. Investigators serve private individual clients for a number of reasons with the most common being adultery and child custody matters. In some states, such as SC, adultery is taken very seriously by the courts and if proven by a PI, the cheating spouse is considered "at fault"" and the other spouse has more negotiating power.
My firm also specializes in hidden assets and messy financial investigations to make sure that the negotiations are from a place of truthfulness in regards to the marital estate.  One of the best cases I worked on was a spouse who was hiding an entire condo in another state from his wife. We knew that he was cheating but he never brought his mistress to the condo so our boots on the ground tactics did not pick it up. We were however able to find it by looking at the finances that were produced in the discovery process. We noticed transferrs going to a bank account that our client had no knowledge of. Once the attorney was able to get those statements from the bank, we were able to see payments to a general contractor. The client confirmed that she was not getting work done on her house so we called the contractor and got receipts. The receipts had an address and the address was to a condo which we then pulled the deed on. The deed showed that the condo was purchased within the previous few months and was bought by  an LLC owned by Mr. Cheater and Mrs. Mistress. Follow the money honey!!
Another reason why a private individual may hire a PI outside of family court matters is general litigation support (think suing your contractor for breach of contract). 
Finally, we also (although much rarer) get retained to locate missing loved ones or to conduct counter surveillance measures such as in anti stalking and harassment cases. 

Corporations/Businesses
The next category of entities that typically retain PI's (and my personal favorite type of client) are businesses and corporations. We conduct due diligence on employees, partners, investors, and contractors to limit the risk of bad actors committing fraud.  We also conduct fraud investigations in the case of activities such as embezzlement and misappropriation of assets. Perhaps my favorite service we provide though is in the realm of business intelligence, which is a fancy way for saying we conduct an analysis  to help our clients gain a competitive edge in marketing and overall profitability. We also help our clients with litigation support and reputation protection.

Attorney Clients 
Last but certainly not  least are our attorney clients. We help attorneys gather information to support their cases in the realm of criminal defense, and civil litigation. Some common services we provide are in depth background investigations and locating and interviewing witnesses. 

To conclude;
Although some people go their whole lives without ever hiring a PI, chances are at one point or another you could have actually benefitted from one! Next time you find yourself with a court date, a spouse who has suddenly changed their routine, or wondering about the truthfulness of your candidate's resume, feel free to reach out and let us provide you with the clarity you need to make prudent decisions and obtain leverage in your court case.

Amanda Appi CFE, PI, CEO
Immaculate Investigations LLC