You know, I once had a neighbor friend who does P.I. work brag to me at a party about doing just this sort of thing. (the dummy MySpace account part, not the despicable tormenting of teenagers thing).  Of course at the time this individual had no clue of my background. I guess she thought she sounded pretty cool and cloak and dagger to the surrounding cluster of suburbanites. All I could think of was unnecessary blowback for my client and unpleasant legal bills for me. To each his (or her) own, I guess, but I do hope she reads PIBuzz.

-- MDT

Labels: blowback, MySpace, pretexting, undercover

Here's one from the vaults...

An interesting post that I only just ran across from former investment banker David Webb who now runs Webb-site.com, which comments on "corporate and economic governance, business, finance, investment and regulatory affairs in Hong Kong."

On his site, Webb describes at length how, back in 1999, he was able to out a Kroll investigator who, using the pretext of a Seattle-based journalist, was attempting to gather information on a Hong Kong development project.

While I am not sure that Kroll's interest in Mr. Webb's commentary ultimately reflected the "startling implications for press freedom in Hong Kong" that Webb implies, it is interesting to review how things went down. (NOTE: Email headers are not private...).

The silly thing is that Kroll used a pretext at all. You'd think that simply asking the guy might have worked better...

Anyway...not exactly a hot off the presses story, but a cautionary tale for your friendly neighborhood investigator.

-- MDT

Labels: blowback, Hong Kong, Kroll, pretexting

Is to end up in the news while gathering data...

-- MDT

Labels: blowback, Churchill Financial, interviewing