In my 12 years of investigative experience, I often find myself kicking myself in the butt and having to go back and relearn my own rules. With all of the information available on the Internet and the overload of information in the era of the Raspberry erg..Blackberry, one can be drowned with tons of raw data to have to sift through when tasked with having to perform a background check or person locate. Admittedly, I on occasion fall prey to the wrath of technology and the virtual Mt. Everest of information readily available on everybody on this planet and forget the most important piece of information there is. I know the suspense is killing you so here it is…..the application! Almost everything that is subject to verification requires one, a job, renting a home, credit, bail bonds, joining a gym, frequent shopper card, the list is endless.

Lemme ask this, how many of us get an application then immediately jump on the Internet and run a report of some sort? How far down the app does that get you? If its any application I’ve seen all the information you need is on the first 2 lines of the application. Once we run the super duper mega locator/background report that can be up to 50+ pages long somehow the application gets stuffed back into the file folder while we pour over the report for hours with a fine tooth highlighter and pencil. Ok ok, I know that some of us call a reference or 2 mainly because our company/organization policy require it….yeah the person worked there and they were there from March 1917 to February 2010, Grrrrreat! Now back to that 50+ page report and another highlighter since you already ran the first one dry! Sound Familiar? Hey you…guy in the back row shaking his head….stop trying to look cool! I see quite a few of those dogeared reports on your desk with a crisp application somewhere at the bottom of that pile.

Now, onto my point! The application is most likely all you need to get you the information you seek. The first thing to look for? Inconsistencies and deception, most often when you find those you will find that the applicant is trying to hide something. Now it is up to you Mr. Super Sleuth to try to drill down those inconsistencies and deceptive statements. Now I really cannot give you a how to on doing this since an application can serve so many purposes and takes on many different formats, I can give you a couple of solid pieces of advice.

First, What is the applicant trying to accomplish by completing an app? Is it a job, an apartment, or trying to save that extra 5% at the megamart? depending on what the purpose of the application is you can filter down to certain crucial information that the applicant is trying to hide/deceive. Before digging into this subject deeper, I will say that most ends to an application do require some form of stability and/or credit worthiness….so start there. Then take a look at certain things that are less relevant to the purpose of the application. For example, would an apartment complex manager give a hill of beans whether or not the applicant graduated magma cum laud from Harvard? Probably not, but an HR manager may. In short, one should scrutinize what is directly relevant to the applicants intent. Once the application is scrutinized and the possible inconsistencies and deception is discovered its time to pick up that big thing with numbered buttons on your desk and make a few phone calls. Are the phone numbers correct? Are the names of contact points correct? Is there information that cannot be verified based on the information provided on the app? If anything on the app cannot be verified a little research or a follow up interview with the applicant may be in order. The bottom line is to leave no stone or in this case, word unturned on the application. Usually once all this is done a solid framework has been laid for follow ups and knowing exactly what additional information you may require from interviews, phone conversations, or that large background/locate report sitting on your desk.

At the beginning, I mentioned having to revisit my own rules from time to time. Recently this became evident when I had to evict a tenant from a rental property I hold after 7 months of consistently late and often unpaid rent. I could have avoided this pitfall by simply taking a close look at the app and not running to my computer to run a background check!

You can’t sleep at night, that person who you vowed to death do you part has become a stranger. What’s your gut telling you? Could it be infidelity or just a rough patch in your marriage? Many cannot tell the difference with any amount of certainty but the worst thing you could possibly do is mount your own “snoop mission” into your spouses activities. Doing this would most often break an already strained situation.